Myself, my wife, and a couple of somewhat new shooter friends were up at Roush Lake yesterday and my new shooter friends got a good (bad) first hand lesson in why the rules are what they are.
We were down around stalls 28/30 and while my wife was shooting I looked over and saw a guy with his gun sideways on one of the picnic tables and gave him a good "Sir, could you point that down range please" and as I do I see the guy in 25 holding his arm. I asked him if he's alright, and he tells me he thinks he just got shot. Took a quick look and went into the booth to notify Dale (the RSO) and the shot fellow came in right after me.
After it was looked into a bit, the guy who had his gun sideways had just had a jam, and instead of laying it on the shooting bench pointed down range to try to clear it, he brought it back to the picnic table and pointed it sideways. Apparently just before I had asked him to turn it, it had done this:
From there we're not sure of the exact path, but they think it either bounced off of the ceiling or part of the metal post bracket and a fragment (it was from a .38) caught the guy in 25's arm, who thankfully just had a small cut as a result. This may be where it hit the ceiling:
Dale went out and secured everything and took them all into the booth for the incident report and later on one of the Sheriff's arrived to take a report, not really sure where it's going from there but the guy who got shot was pretty understandably upset by the whole thing.
I know it's probably preaching to the choir folks, but please remember, always keep your weapons pointed in a safe direction....ESPECIALLY if they've just malfunctioned! That could have easily been fatal yesterday..and I'm pretty grateful it wasn't anyone in my party as it easily could have been.
We were down around stalls 28/30 and while my wife was shooting I looked over and saw a guy with his gun sideways on one of the picnic tables and gave him a good "Sir, could you point that down range please" and as I do I see the guy in 25 holding his arm. I asked him if he's alright, and he tells me he thinks he just got shot. Took a quick look and went into the booth to notify Dale (the RSO) and the shot fellow came in right after me.
After it was looked into a bit, the guy who had his gun sideways had just had a jam, and instead of laying it on the shooting bench pointed down range to try to clear it, he brought it back to the picnic table and pointed it sideways. Apparently just before I had asked him to turn it, it had done this:
From there we're not sure of the exact path, but they think it either bounced off of the ceiling or part of the metal post bracket and a fragment (it was from a .38) caught the guy in 25's arm, who thankfully just had a small cut as a result. This may be where it hit the ceiling:
Dale went out and secured everything and took them all into the booth for the incident report and later on one of the Sheriff's arrived to take a report, not really sure where it's going from there but the guy who got shot was pretty understandably upset by the whole thing.
I know it's probably preaching to the choir folks, but please remember, always keep your weapons pointed in a safe direction....ESPECIALLY if they've just malfunctioned! That could have easily been fatal yesterday..and I'm pretty grateful it wasn't anyone in my party as it easily could have been.
