SEALS training, I am disappoint.

[Tanasi]

I'm a professional firearms instructor and I can tell you from experience the scariest people I'm around that handle firearms are Law Enforcement. Military isn't real bad as they've had it drummed into their heads for years on end, most LEOs don't have that as most fire their firearms twice a year if that often.
That being even highly experienced firearms instructors (me included) have done something stupid or will do something stupid with a firearm. I took an AR-15 from my ready safe to clean before using it the next day. I like to drop the hammer before opening it. Turned off the safety, pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. BANG!!! What I had forgot and didn't notice there was a loaded shorty magazine in it. The mag was just about flush with the mag well. I had forgot I had one and in the rifle non-the-less. My mistake was not first clearing the rifle before pulling the trigger. The aftermath was luckly no one was hurt, my ears rang for a while, there was a hole in my ceiling, in the floor above, the ceiling above that. The bullet lodged in a 2x6 rafter.
I didn't have a an accidental discharge I had a negligent discharge. I knew better and didn't follow the rules or common sense. I relearned a very valuable lesson that day.

[Mytical]

Sorry Crazylegs I disagree completely. All the training in the world matters zero when the person involved gets stupid. As mentioned there have been police officers that have shot themselves, and they also have training..so the fact that somebody has military training, seal or not, does not fix stupid. When you take risks, it doesn't matter what training you have, it is the person's..not the trainings fault.

Does it mean that he shouldn't have been crazy enough? Absolutely. Is it that the training is not good enough, or that the training failed? Absolutely not. In my mind, if it could have been that the training failed..ok sure then the training needs to be better. This was not a failure of training, it was the fact that he failed to USE that training.

[Skunkle]

There's stupidity and there's carelessness, the latter can happen to anyone. This is indeed sad.

Tagged along when a friend (same guy I'm asking about in the traffic cameras thread - who is extremely gun-safe) went to visit some guy he'd met. The guy was showing off a handgun, and was waving it around with his finger on the trigger. Friend was horrified. Was handed the gun, and immediately put on the safety, pulled the clip, checked the chamber, etc. - to both our amazement, it had indeed had the safety off, and been loaded with a bullet in the chamber!! The guy goes, "That's not how a man handles a gun!," grabs it back, undoes all of that - to the point of chambering a round - and, finger on the trigger, waves it, points it at his own head, and generally acts like the world's biggest dumbass. From his words, he makes it clear that the reason he likes to handle it like this is because he thinks the 'safe way' is for pussies and wusses - real macho men know how to handle even the most dangerous item with perfect safety and, further, doing it while the item is at its most dangerous proves this by example.

We both RAN for the car, yelled that we were not coming back, and floored it.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

he makes it clear that the reason he likes to handle it like this is because he thinks the 'safe way' is for pussies and wusses - real macho men know how to handle even the most dangerous item with perfect safety and, further, doing it while the item is at its most dangerous proves this by example.

I suspect I'll be reading about him on Darwinawards.com at some point in the future.

[Mytical]

For me, in this case, they are one in the same. When you handle something dangerous in a unsafe manner, you are not the brightest person in the world in my book. I mean..if you are a zookeeper, do you go up and slap a grizzly? or even approach them in an unsafe manner? Only if you had a bowl of idiot O's that day.

[Beckpatton]

a report that a man had been playing with a gun

and there you go.. Guns are not toys.

[crazylegs]

Is it that the training is not good enough, or that the training failed? Absolutely not.

If you're trained in something, and you then do the opposite then yes the training has completely failed. Weapon safety should be automatic and complete - if it's not then it's not done right.

[HYHYBT]

If you're trained in something, and you then do the opposite then yes the training has completely failed. Weapon safety should be automatic and complete - if it's not then it's not done right.

Perhaps a better way to put that would be to say that someone's choosing to disregard what they've learned in training is not the fault of the training itself?

[wolfie]

You can train them, you can educate them, but no matter what you do you can not fix stupid.

Depends on how you see "fix". If taken in the context of "I got my dog fixed" (i.e. rendered unable to reproduce), the classic "guy sticks a gun down the front of his pants, and it goes off" is fixing stupid.

[Boozy]

If you're trained in something, and you then do the opposite then yes the training has completely failed.

That doesn't make sense. Training has failed when the trainee doesn't know how to do something properly.

I don't think we can blame a training program for cases where someone knows better and does the wrong thing anyway. People are people, and that's always going to happen no matter how perfect a training system is in place.

[lordlundar]

How does that saying go? "An idiot proof system just hasn't met a strong enough idiot yet?"