This will stir it up - Aren't all AD's REALLY ND'S?

[Buckeye 50]

I was discussing guns with a friend and said after more and more training, I am suspecting that all Accidental Discharges are really negligent, unless the gun TRULY malfunctions.

Thoughts?

Pat

[sqlbullet]

It is really rare, in my mind, to have an actual AD.  In almost every case I have read about, in the end the USER did something they should not have done.

About the only one I can think of that I might be convinced is an AD is a shirt tail getting caught on a glock trigger during a one hand re-holster.  Concealed carry often dictates you shirt be untucked.  So, it depends on if you consider a one-handed re-holster a valid practice.  I personally don't for CCW...But for a under cover police officer it may be required in some tactical circumstances.  But that is an "edge" case.

[my_old_glock]

I was discussing guns with a friend and said after more and more training, I am suspecting that all Accidental Discharges are really negligent, unless the gun TRULY malfunctions.

Thoughts?

Pat

I Agree.




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[GunBugBit]

Agreed, true ADs are very rare.

[Centimeter]

100% truth. There's no such thing as an accident with modern firearms. Negligence is the only reason someone would be holding a firearm that discharges at an unintended point in time. A normal pistol, in regular working condition, typically requires the trigger to be physically manipulated in order for the gun to fire. If the trigger isn't touched, the gun should be just fine and will never go off unless you intend for it to do so. Even if a shirt tail or the lip of a flimsy holster gets caught in the trigger guard or whatever else happens that causes that firearm to discharge it is still, in my opinion, negligence. You, as the sole operator of that weapon, and consequently the sole person responsible for its safe handling, should have holstered your weapon in a safer manner (or whatever else it was that caused the discharge). Every act should be conscious and safely executed with purpose and forethought. At no point should you have allowed that shirt tail into your trigger guard because that would have been negligent of you, especially if you purposefully wore that shirt to conceal your holster; at no point should you have bought an inferior holster as that would have been negligent of you; at no point should you have attempted to holster your weapon sight-unseen; that, to me, is negligent. You should make it a conscious and concerted effort to slowly, carefully, purposefully, re-holster, or otherwise return to a safe state, your weapon after using it ("Holster reluctantly" as it were). You have all the time in the world to re-holster it at that point so why not take it and exercise a bit of caution in doing so?

Aside from a catastrophic failure of your weapon (parts breakage, etc.) that results in the weapon being rendered unsafe and capable being fired with no outside intervention, or cooking a round off in the chamber of a very hot weapon (is this ammunition failure, or negligence?) there should never be a point when that gun goes off without someone consciously, purposefully, pulling that trigger and making it go off. It just shouldn't happen. Safety is no accident.

[wifecallsmegrumpy]

So there are no Car accidents, just negligent driving ?  I think you guys are debating the definition of the word accident. 

[sqlbullet]

Not really.  All negligence is accidental, but not all accidents are negligent.

The question here is given that negligence is a subset of accident across all avenues of life, are the to sets different in firearms.  In other words, when dealing with guns are all accidents negligent. While you might find some very specific edge cases, I am gonna go with yes. 

[Centimeter]

So there are no Car accidents, just negligent driving ?  I think you guys are debating the definition of the word accident. 

Well if you get right down to it (according to dictionary.com) the definition of neglect, the root word of negligence:

verb (used with object)
1.
to pay no attention or too little attention to; disregard or slight:
The public neglected his genius for many years.
2.
to be remiss in the care or treatment of:
to neglect one's family; to neglect one's appearance.
3.
to omit, through indifference or carelessness:
to neglect to reply to an invitation.
4.
to fail to carry out or perform (orders, duties, etc.):
to neglect the household chores.
5.
to fail to take or use:
to neglect no precaution.

sqlbullet, I think you're absolutely right. All of these can easily explain any "accident" as simply being negligent (careless/not careful). This is as true of firearms as it is of car "accidents" if we're talking about something that should be within your care and control at all times (in this case your firearm or your vehicle). If you were doing everything you were supposed to there wouldn't be any accidents. Follow all the road rules, posted speed limits, allow enough following distance, etc. there should never be any accident you're at fault for. Same goes for firearm safety. Again, this precludes outside intervention (things completely outside your control) which are impossible to control but occur through no fault of your own (this is also what we use as the legal definition of "accident"). And, truth be told, if those other drivers (firearm users) were being more cognizant of their actions (read: not being negligent) they wouldn't have caused the "accident" involving you in the first place.

[redbaron007]

Accident can be through negligence or not. An Accident, in of itself, is not negligence. I can loose control of my car, slide off into the ditch, do no damage to the car or other property and be negligent in my driving; but not have an accident.....although there is an incident.

Most car accidents usually involve some negligence on the drivers part. The question is how much is society wanting to place on the driver. When I speak of society, I'm referring to the judicial system.

Although, some accidents are from mechanical failure beyond the driver's knowledge. Those may still have some negligence assigned to the manufacturer/repairer etc...but not necessarily.

I'm of the opinion there are few ADs....most likely they are NDs. To label one, I will have to defer to each one's circumstances of the incident before passing judgement.

[my_old_glock]

So there are no Car accidents, just negligent driving ?  I think you guys are debating the definition of the word accident. 

Define a case were a gun accidentally goes off?

House is on fire, and gun discharges bullet? It is the owners fault for leaving a cartridge in the chamber: Negligence.

Guy is drunk, pulls out his gun and puts a hole in the wall? He shouldn't handle a gun while drunk: Negligence.


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[my_old_glock]

Accident can be through negligence or not. An Accident, in of itself, is not negligence. I can loose control of my car, slide off into the ditch, do no damage to the car or other property and be negligent in my driving; but not have an accident.....although there is an incident.

Most car accidents usually involve some negligence on the drivers part. The question is how much is society wanting to place on the driver. When I speak of society, I'm referring to the judicial system.

A true story here in California

Two teenage boys (15 and 16) steal a motorcycle, get chased by the police, drive on the wrong side of the street, and hit a oncoming car driven by an old man. Guess who is cited and has to pay the damages?

So what laws were broken by the teenagers (or at least one of them)?

1) steal a motorcycle
2) drive without a permit or license
3) speeding
4) not pulling over for the police
5) driving the wrong way down a public street
6) colliding with a another vehicle.

The old man was cited for the "accident" and his insurance had to pay for all medical bills for both teens, plus the insurance gave both teens $100,000 in monetary compensation. 

I know this is true, because I know one of the teenagers.




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[sqlbullet]

So....what law(s) was the old man cited for violating?

[redbaron007]

So there are no Car accidents, just negligent driving ?  I think you guys are debating the definition of the word accident. 

Define a case were a gun accidentally goes off?

House is on fire, and gun discharges bullet? It is the owners fault for leaving a cartridge in the chamber: Negligence.

Guy is drunk, pulls out his gun and puts a hole in the wall? He shouldn't handle a gun while drunk: Negligence.


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[Bold] -> I would struggle with this being negligent. Under this scenario, any ammo in the house would be negligent if it went off during a fire....being in a firearm makes no difference. Unless the pretense is all ammo and firearms are to be located in a fireproof structure. I don't think it has reached that level...yet.

[redbaron007]

Accident can be through negligence or not. An Accident, in of itself, is not negligence. I can loose control of my car, slide off into the ditch, do no damage to the car or other property and be negligent in my driving; but not have an accident.....although there is an incident.

Most car accidents usually involve some negligence on the drivers part. The question is how much is society wanting to place on the driver. When I speak of society, I'm referring to the judicial system.

A true story here in California

Two teenage boys (15 and 16) steal a motorcycle, get chased by the police, drive on the wrong side of the street, and hit a oncoming car driven by an old man. Guess who is cited and has to pay the damages?

So what laws were broken by the teenagers (or at least one of them)?

1) steal a motorcycle
2) drive without a permit or license
3) speeding
4) not pulling over for the police
5) driving the wrong way down a public street
6) colliding with a another vehicle.

The old man was cited for the "accident" and his insurance had to pay for all medical bills for both teens, plus the insurance gave both teens $100,000 in monetary compensation. 

I know this is true, because I know one of the teenagers.




.

Without having all the details, this would be considered the anomaly more than the rule.

However, many auto policies have a provision for med pay that contributes to all med bills, even for the kids. The driver may have been cited for a violation; the question is, how much of the cite played into negligence. Was it even related to the accident.

Did this go to a trial or settled out of court? The are several variables to consider. If settled out of court, it could have been one of those business decisions...it will cost less to pay now than potentially later..or they don't want to set precedent for future cases. It could be the older man was partially intoxicated that possibly interfered with their driving.

I'm not challenging what you said, but I will bet there is more to this case than what we know or will know, unless it went to trial.

[my_old_glock]

Accident can be through negligence or not. An Accident, in of itself, is not negligence. I can loose control of my car, slide off into the ditch, do no damage to the car or other property and be negligent in my driving; but not have an accident.....although there is an incident.

Most car accidents usually involve some negligence on the drivers part. The question is how much is society wanting to place on the driver. When I speak of society, I'm referring to the judicial system.

A true story here in California

Two teenage boys (15 and 16) steal a motorcycle, get chased by the police, drive on the wrong side of the street, and hit a oncoming car driven by an old man. Guess who is cited and has to pay the damages?

So what laws were broken by the teenagers (or at least one of them)?

1) steal a motorcycle
2) drive without a permit or license
3) speeding
4) not pulling over for the police
5) driving the wrong way down a public street
6) colliding with a another vehicle.

The old man was cited for the "accident" and his insurance had to pay for all medical bills for both teens, plus the insurance gave both teens $100,000 in monetary compensation. 

I know this is true, because I know one of the teenagers.




.

Without having all the details, this would be considered the anomaly more than the rule.

However, many auto policies have a provision for med pay that contributes to all med bills, even for the kids. The driver may have been cited for a violation; the question is, how much of the cite played into negligence. Was it even related to the accident.

Did this go to a trial or settled out of court? The are several variables to consider. If settled out of court, it could have been one of those business decisions...it will cost less to pay now than potentially later..or they don't want to set precedent for future cases. It could be the older man was partially intoxicated that possibly interfered with their driving.

I'm not challenging what you said, but I will bet there is more to this case than what we know or will know, unless it went to trial.

The event happened in the late 1980's

They did settle out of court because the insurance claimed it cost less to pay than to fight.

I do not know what the old guy was cited for, or if he lost in court. I only know the police wrote him a ticket/citation for something to do with the accident. The citation/ticket wasn't for a broken taillight or for no registration.

I think his citation was for speeding, but I am not sure. They may have measured the skid marks (no real ABS in late 80's).


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