Dropped Guns

[BarryinIN]

What kind of idiot would drop a gun?

It happens. I've seen it in matches, and in training classes. It's by no means a regular thing, but it does happen. And it doesn't necessarily happen when one might think.

People tend to look at firearms training and the "action shooting" games and think they are dangerous with all that drawing and running with guns. But of the drops I've seen, most have happened when the shooter had finished shooting and was clearing the gun or holstering.

This follows my other observations in that people are careful when doing something dynamic, but then start to relax when it's over but before the guns are completely put away.

When it does happen, it really bothers me. It stays on my mind for a long time. How can someone be so inept as to drop their gun?

Well, just because we think it's unlikely to happen to us, that doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for what to do if it should happen.

In some classes, they give some good advice up front- If you drop your gun, or lose control of it:

LET IT FALL!

It's great advice. The natural reaction is to grab for it. If you do drop a gun and grab for it, I can almost guarantee you will get a finger on the trigger.

I started helping with the new shooter safety briefings at one of the IDPA clubs I shoot, and I demonstrate this with a plastic AirSoft gun. I toss it spinning in front of me, clap my hands around it as one would when grasping for it, and I will get a finger on the trigger every time. I do sort of stretch my finger to do it sometimes, but my finger falls close enough naturally to be scary enough.

Let it fall.

I know, some say a dropped gun can "go off" but I don't think it's nearly as likely as some think. When CA mandated drop tests, one of the semi-custom 1911 makers (Ed Brown or Les Baer I think) got curious and chambered a primed case in a 1911 and dropped it muzzle up onto a hard surface from increasingly greater heights until it fired. I think he got his first "pop" at something like 12 feet, and that was inconsistent. So unless you are standing on top of basketball goals when you shoot, I think you are more likely to fire the gun trying to catch it.

Still it has long bugged me to think anyone can drop a gun.

I am bringing this up now because the IN State IDPA match was today, and something happened that I wanted to mention.

IDPA is the game I shoot most, and it is one of the safest gun sports around. They do have a rule that bothers me, though. Per the rule book, if you drop a loaded gun, it's an automatic DQ (disqualification). But if you drop an unloaded gun, it's handled at the discretion of the Match Director or Safety Officer (basically put, IDPA calls their Range Officers "Safety Officers", or SOs).

I don't like this rule.

On the inside front cover, and inside back cover, of the IDPA rule book, are the Four Rules of Gun Safety. The first one is "All Guns Are Always Loaded". It's the first and last thing you see in the book. Then inside the book they treat guns differently depending whether they are loaded or not. It's contradicting, and a generally bad idea in my opinion.

This summer at a match, I was standing next to a shooter when he dropped his gun. It was right at 100 degrees, a long day, and everyone was tired. He was reholstering after shooting a stage, and just flat missed his holster and let go of the gun. And it clattered onto the ground.

I'm an SO, but don't do it much because my back won't let me spend the day running alongside people chasing them through every stage. I was standing to the shooter's left rear because I was keeping score. The acting SO was fairly new, so he turned to me for advice. I said I'd call it a DQ. It was pretty clearly an act of carelessness. He didn't (nobody wants to DQ anyone), and I've used it as an example since then as to why I don't like the rule.

Again- Why am I bringing this up now?

Because I dropped my gun today.

In the state championship match.

Me, the guy who has griped about this for years, has complained about the rule book all summer since the above incident, and recently started assisting in giving the safety briefings so I could bring up things like this... dropped my gun today.

It happened during a stage where we ended up standing in a doorway. I finished, and the SO directed me to unload and show clear. I pulled the slide back as I leaned slightly away from the SO to allow him a clear look at the chamber, and dropped the gun. My left elbow had hit the door frame as I snapped the slide back, and I reflexively tightened my grip on the slide...and basically pulled the gun out of my right hand. It spun up and out of my hand into the rocks in front of us.

I did one thing right, which was to immediately bring my hands up into an "I give up" position to keep them clear of the gun on it's way down. Yeah, goodie for me.

I was not DQ'd.

If I wrote the rule book, I would have been.

I still want it re-written.

I saw the Match Director about ten minutes later, and told him what happened. He said it was good for me it wasn't loaded, and I told him why I thought things shouldn't be that way, and why. I think he saw my point. He is also the State Coordinator, so maybe he can bend the appropriate ears higher up.

Perhaps I can turn something good out of my squirming weasel gun dropper-ness.

[Pablo]

How much damage to the gun?

[BarryinIN]

None that I can see. I don't know how. This range surface is big nasty rocks.

Of course it was a custom HiPower that I dropped. I wasn't able to look at it for a while since there is no gun handling outside the designated Safe Areas or until told to Make Ready. I didn't even know if it still had a front sight until I pulled it out to load at the next stage. I just gave it a good look a while ago.

[Pablo]

Well - one thing we know - with humans, mistakes happen. They just don't happen to one group or another, they happen to everyone.

If no one was hurt, you learned something and the gun was not damaged, then I say carry on.

I must admit I have cold nightmares about dropping a M1911 on cured concrete.

[Shannow]

I agree that any rule book should have every gun considered loaded.

Obviously after a clear, there has to be some leniency with muzzle control.

My claim to fame was one of our founding members fooling around with a lever .22, and looking down the barrel...As range officer, I tore him a new one, and had a couple of members berate me because he was "experienced" and new it was unloaded having just completed the train of fire.

I stood fast, as muzzle was pointed in wrong direction, crossed the paths of other shooters, and hadn't been cleared (twice is the rules of our body).

Very next round, I was using the club Lithgow single shot, where the bolt has to be cocked after the round chambered.

First sighter, I was probably agitated/fingers slippery or what not, but the cocking piece slipped, and fire the round about 15-20 feet down range, in front of me.

Range officer disqualified me that round, then turned to the group with "That's what he was talking about !!!"

It improved range discipline greatly for a fair few years.

[BarryinIN]

Thanks guys, for not beating me up over this. I'm not sure I would have been so understanding to be perfectly honest about it, since dropping a gun is one of those things I've had a hard time understanding how one could allow to happen. It's only happened once when I was acting Safety Officer and it was very clearly out of negligence (he was going prone and practically tossed his pistol on the carpet in front of him on his way down) so it was an easy but unfortunate call.

Still, it's just not something I expect to have a large tolerance for in any situation. Leaning a gun against a tree for a rest while out in the woods, then the gun sliding and falling- maybe- but letting a handgun fall from your hand has been hard to even imagine.

I'm still beating myself up over it. I spent the rest of the match confessing my sin to those I knew there. Some would shrug and ask if I'd prefer to have been DQ'd. If I thought it would get the rule book changed, yes I would.

I am going to work on that.