SEALS training, I am disappoint.

[Hyena Dandy]

http://news.yahoo.com/police-navy-se...022731883.html

I... Words...

They're not adequate for this.

Like, I want to use words to describe this, but...

It seems a Navy SEAL shot himself in the head by mistake...

[Greenday]

Not sure what's really to debate about this one, but it's definitely sad.

I don't own any guns (yet), but I do know that when you are done with a gun, you make sure it's unloaded so this kind of thing can't happen. I also know you shouldn't point a gun at something you don't intend to shoot so pointing a gun at your own head if you don't want to kill yourself is generally a bad idea.

[Hyena Dandy]

I dunno, I kinda had to put it here because I figured gun safety was a bit of a tough subject for CS.

[Greenday]

I dunno, I kinda had to put it here because I figured gun safety was a bit of a tough subject for CS.

Yea, I can understand that.

Kinda comes down to "Don't be stupid". This guy failed that test.

[SkullKing]

It is amazing what some guys will do to impress a woman.

[Gravekeeper]

Gun control is a tough subject. Gun safety I think we can all agreed. This appears to be tragically lacking the "safety" part. Reminds me of that infamous DEA agent.

[lordlundar]

And Darwin Awards just flashed in my mind when I read the article...

I'm sorry, but while it may be tragic now, down the road I can see people laughing their head off at this level of stupidity.

Again.

And no, that's not the only one. Surprisingly frequent this incident is.

[Shangri-laschild]

Gun safety rules as I was taught by a police firearms instructor:
1. Treat every gun as if it is loaded
2. Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot
3. Finger off the trigger until you are planning on shooting
4. Be aware of what is around and being what you are shooting.

Given who I learned them from and the standarness that I've seen of those rules....lets see....that would be 3/4 rules broken or 4/4 depending on how you look at it. It's bad enough to accidentally shoot something replaceable (breaking 2/4) but this is definitely sad, especially so given he had no excuse not to know better. Hell, my friend has practiced the whole old west gun twirling thing and he only does it when he has checked the gun imminently before hand and if I'm there he always has me verify. Yes, he would know if the gun is loaded himself, especially given he's the instructor that I was talking about. It makes you put extra thought into it though which, given what a gun is, is not a bad thing.

[HYHYBT]

No amount of training will stop someone determined enough to act foolish.

[Boozy]

Most people are pretty good with gun safety, because even if they own a gun, they don't handle it 24-7. They get it out of the safe, go to the range, shoot for a bit, pack it up and go home.

I would imagine that its possible for people who are holding and shooting guns all day long as part of their job get a little more careless. It's difficult to maintain the appropriate levels of dread when something becomes so commonplace in your life.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Gun safety rules as I was taught by a police firearms instructor:
1. Treat every gun as if it is loaded
2. Don't point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot
3. Finger off the trigger until you are planning on shooting
4. Be aware of what is around and being what you are shooting.

Those were the rules I was taught as well. Most of the accidental gun fatalities are a result of a failure to follow one or more of these rules.

To them I'd also add...

5. Perform regular and thorough maintenance on your firearms. A well maintained firearm is less likely to malfunction. Example of this failure can be found here

6. When you are not using the firearm make sure that it is unloaded, secured and properly child-proofed. We see far too many cased of where a child kills themselves or a playmate when they manage to get a hold of a firearm.

#5 and #6 help to further eliminate the number of accidental deaths.

[Mytical]

That he was a Navy Seal training had nothing to do with it. Stupid comes in all walks of life. Is it tragic? Yes. Was it avoidable? Yes. Does that stop some people from acting like fools? No.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

That he was a Navy Seal training had nothing to do with it. Stupid comes in all walks of life. Is it tragic? Yes. Was it avoidable? Yes. Does that stop some people from acting like fools? No.

I would have to agree. I have seen the video where a police officer shoots himself in the leg showing off his gun to a classroom filled with children, I've seen instructors getting stupid and hurting themselves or others...

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

Only natural selection can. Uncle Chuck got him good.

[Nyoibo]

Some of it's complacency, familiarity breeds contempt and all that, that's what I put the cop shooting himself down to.

[crazylegs]

That he was a Navy Seal training had nothing to do with it. Stupid comes in all walks of life. Is it tragic? Yes. Was it avoidable? Yes. Does that stop some people from acting like fools? No.

Actually it does - he would have had it drummed into him from day one of his military career the four previous rules discussed, with the additional 'incentive' of avoiding a court martial that a negligent discharge attracts.

If it was some Joe then I wouldn't have been so suprised.

I can only assume that a significant amount of alcohol was present that led to this colossal error of judgement.