A Gleason man is recovering from a gunshot wound.
The shooting happened just after 2:30 a.m. Saturday at the residence of a 52-year-old man, who was able to call 9-1-1 and report he had been shot. The man told deputies he threw a bag containing a loaded pistol on the bedroom floor, and when it hit the ground, the .38 caliber Derringer discharged and shot him in the leg.
The man is hospitalized at Aspirus Wausau Hospital. The man’s name and present condition have not been released. No criminal charges will be filed.
This is one of those rare dropped-gun discharges. The gun-rights folks keep telling us how nearly-impossible they are, yet we keep seeing them in the news.
Ah yes, a crappy derringer totally disproves what people say about larger, better built guns that have systems built in to prevent this.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why are you making an issue of this? The only context I've ever seen gun people talk about guns being unlikely to fire when dropped is when they're telling each other not to try to catch a dropped gun because you're more likely to set it off by snagging the trigger when you try to catch it than you are to have it go off when it lands.
Because it's a part of Mikeb's theology that anyone who drops a gun must be disarmed for life. Facts about such things only confuse him.
DeleteI know that's one of his demands, but I don't get why the likelihood of the gun going off is such an issue. Control of the gun has been lost regardless. It seems like arguing over the efficacy of airbags in a discussion of whether to revoke drivers' licenses if a driver is involved in a collision.
DeleteThe only thing I can think of is that he thinks we'd agree with him if we thought dropping a gun was more likely to cause it to go off, but that would just be him playing mind reader and assigning the wrong motive to our opposition to his proposal.
It must have been before you were coming around here, Simon. Greg, and others, frequently insisted that guns do not discharge when dropped. When challenged on that bizarre and extreme position, they back pedaled a bit to say "modern guns" don't discharge. When confronted still with story after story in the news, the back pedaled again to "most modern guns" don't.
DeleteThat's why it's a big deal, because the guys on your side are so overly defensive of their adored fetish items that they take stupid positions in defense of them.
Mikeb, why must you lie? My consistent position has been that modern designs without mechanical defect do not go off when merely dropped. Now strange things do happen, but the fact remains. As always, you take rare and poorly described incidents and attempt to generalize them to all cases.
DeleteApparently my browser or the blog's comment submission software glitched and ate my comment from yesterday, so I'll retype the gist of it:
DeleteI've seen plenty of discussions on here about whether or not a dropped gun is likely to go off. You keep implying that it is likely and that Greg and others are lying when they talk about modern guns, but the fact remains that most modern guns have passive internal safeties that are intended to prevent their firing when they are dropped. True, some of these cheap derringers and some older guns still in circulation may not have these systems built in, but it is completely accurate to note that most guns are built to not go off when dropped.
This seems like a gotcha game you're playing here--make a vague claim about guns going off when dropped, get a vague answer that guns have safeties built in to prevent this, meaning they now do because of this being a problem in the past. Then, attack because you can accuse the other side of lying because they didn't go into all of the specific exceptions to the rule and then attack them for changing their position when they try to clarify everything to your satisfaction.
When I've looked in on discussions here for the past few years I've always seen the others noting that some guns will go off when dropped but that the majority have been built to avoid this, so it seems that you're arguing against an ancient straw man based on non-exhaustive comments they made some time many years back. Now that they've clarified their position for years, why not move on?
Actually, in this discussion I didn't call anyone a liar, but Greg did. I'm not playing gotcha here, I'm just pouring on the evidence that quite often guns discharge when they're dropped. You guys don't like that.
DeleteI am moving on. I'm moving on with example after example of bumbling lawful gun owners, you know, the ones that you guys claim are so rare that we don't even need to worry about them.
I am moving on. I'm moving on with example after example of bumbling lawful gun owners . . .
DeleteBy all means please do continue with your little trickle of anecdotes about gun owners who are utterly unlike those of us who do not shoot various innocent people and body parts unintentionally. Please do continue to demonstrate how weak your hand is.
We have two problems--1: your definition of guns going off when dropped "Often" is off. 2: your insistence on pushing this idea that guns often go off when dropped is counterproductive to an actual gun safety issue--if someone tries to catch a dropped gun they're more likely to set it off than if it hit the ground on its own--we get a lot more stories about people catching dropped guns and having ND's. The more likely people think a gun is to go off if dropped, the more likely they'll try to catch it.
DeleteInstead, it's better to acknowledge that most modern guns will not fire when dropped, encourage people away from cheap models that will, and remind people with revolvers with firing pins on the hammer that they need to be especially careful and might do well to keep the chamber under the hammer empty in case of a drop or fall, etc.
As for the other issues, we don't claim they're so rare that we don't need to worry about them. We claim that education has reduced accidents to the lowest level in a very long time and that we should continue using this method. We argue for similar education based attempts to stop the accidents caused by carelessness/thoughtlessness.
There's a difference between saying, "This is a small enough number we don't need a massive legislative restructuring to fix the problem--let's try this other method." and saying, "There are few of these people. Problem non-existent."
"Please do continue to demonstrate how weak your hand is."
DeleteIf "my hand" was as weak as all that, why would you spend so much time and effort to refute what I say?
If "my hand" was as weak as all that, why would you spend so much time and effort to refute what I say?
DeleteA guy needs hobbies. Laughing at your Baghdad Bobesque "We'll disarm half of you" is an amusing diversion.
Lawful Wisconsin Gun Owner Unintentionally Shoots Himself - No Charges
ReplyDeleteWith what "crime" would you have him charged?
Why you silly serf, He should be charged with owning a gun of course!
DeleteOf course! Silly me.
DeleteNo, the charge should be about criminal negligence or firing a gun in a residential zone, or failure to properly secure one's firearm or any number of things along those lines.
DeleteNo, the charge should be about criminal negligence or firing a gun in a residential zone, or failure to properly secure one's firearm or any number of things along those lines . . .
DeleteOr being icky.