Another Barney Fife moment out on the target range. An important cautionary tale for everyone. (Yes, there but for the grace of Heaven go we all!)
Fortunately in this incarnation Barney Fife is alive and well, but must limp for a while.
Old proverb: Man with one gun know EXACTLY how to fire his weapon, man with two guns not quite sure……
I like this guy. He did everything well and conducted himself calmly and honorably.
We have discussed this before:
Weapons are not toys, not for relaxation or sport or entertainment, but tools to be treated with utmost respect and caution which have but one purpose: to harm some critter- with four or two legs- before they harm you.
As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus famously said: Let’s be careful out there!
Red Flag warning! Blue Bloods Gun Safety Amateur Hour!
David Codrea highlights an incident on the set of Tom Selleck’s television show “Blue Bloods” wherein Mr Selleck chastises a bit player for “waving a real gun around with his finger on the trigger”.
Unfortunately, I cannot join the huzzah chorus in this instance.
Aside from the well established notion it is bad juju to publicly humiliate “the little people” the larger point should not be ignored as well: if you have joined a ship of fools about to wreck in the shoals it may make you feeeeel better to yell at the cabin boy but it sure will not keep the ship from capsizing!
As one message board commentator observed– it was the worst kind of Hollywood celebrity prima donna temper tantrum–all sound and fury with no productive outcome.
Yes, hardly a poster boy for on-screen displays of gun safety, hero Selleck has pretty big feet of clay. At the end of the day he is just one more Hollyweird drama queen who does not know squat about which he rants.
Exhibit A:
(Magnum PI –finger on the trigger TWICE in EVERY opening credit!)Finger on the trigger when he slaps in the magazine! Good thing the slide was not locked back!
Exhibit B:
(So Tom, is your finger on the trigger because your front sight is on the target?)
If the situation on his show has gotten to the point an extra in costume is “waving a gun around” many, many highly paid staffers failed in their appointed duties before the extra even auditioned for the role.
While Mr. Selleck was correct to react with alacrity, his fury more properly is, and ought to be, directed toward both the prop master and producer of his show.
The victim says:
“What the hell was that?!?” she said. It took me a half a second to realize that my gun had just gone off…on my hip…in its holster.
My wife and I had just finished breakfast at our favorite café and got into the car.
Me being the passenger, I rotated my torso to the left to fasten my seatbelt like I always do. When I straightened again, my Glock 19 discharged, blowing a 9mm hole through my pants, underwear, the leather seat and bottom of the car’s door frame.
The bullet nicked my hip, but the wound is nothing a bandage couldn’t cover
While this kind of project is cute and technologically possible such frippery always leaves me with a queasy stomach.
The replica pistol cigarette lighters from yesteryear encouraged people to point weapons at each other randomly and without purpose and now this guy seeks to train people to routinely put a pistol to their temple and pull the trigger.
Great muscle memory exercise!
I have said it before CLICK LINK and I will repeat it here:
AND Point it toward a safe backdrop or berm or equivalent. AND just be careful and treat a pistol with the respect all weapons require.
This story just cries out for more details. Electrical tape? Around the slide?? This kind of stuff gives negligent discharges a bad name.
Tantalizing Excerpt:
Man shoots self in leg with found gun.
Journal Gazette
A Fort Wayne man was taken to a hospital in serious condition late Thursday after he accidentally shot himself in the leg with a gun he said he found in his front yard, a report said.
