Two safety officers went to the hospital Sunday with gunshot wounds after one accidentally fired a gun at the other at an event at the shooting range on Ferry Brook Road, Keene police said.
Officers responded to the range, run by the Cheshire County Shooting Sports Education Foundation, at about 11:40 a.m., according to Keene police Sgt. Collin L. Zamore.
One safety officer apparently attempted to give a demonstration using a dummy weapon, Zamore said, but grabbed a real firearm by mistake. The man fired the gun while his hand was in front of it, according to Zamore, and the bullet traveled through his hand and into the abdomen of a second safety officer.
Police: Two men injured in shooting accident at Keene range
I wanted to say there is no reason that, with the well established protocols we have for training, stuff like this should happen. The I am reminded that not everybody who has tagged himself as instructor actually understands that safety is first and unless you are actually shooting, there should be no ammunition in the immediate area (I am all for a 20 yard radius buffer and more). If you need to show firearms manipulation, use a frigging Blue Gun or any inert firearm replica in the available colors.
No excuse can be accepted.
Hat Tip Christopher J.
“NO loaded guns in the classroom” Rule number 1 at my school. Simple as that.
There are certainly explanations for what happened.
As for excuses … No.
I do want to point out that we don’t know if there were two idiots or only one in that classroom. I’m hoping that the one shot in the abdomen was trying to stop the first idiot.
Having said that, I couldn’t teach a safety course to more than few people at a time. The local range does lots of training. They are in a locked classroom with glass wall’s/doors so you can see what is happening in the classroom at all time.
There comes this point where the instructor is letting the students touch real firearms for the first time. And it scares the s*** out of me each time it happens. Those students are trying to be careful, but where can you point the firearm or manipulate it where you don’t muzzle somebody in the classroom
And of course they are invited to dry fire the guns.
I know that the reason that they are in that locked room is that the instructor (and range) does not allow ammo into that room. BUT all it takes is one idiot. Or one situation where a firearm wasn’t cleared….
I am unhappy to report that I had my first “oh, that had a round in it, I didn’t expect that” moment a couple of weeks ago. I was bringing a pistol out of the safe to clean it. No mag and I KNOW it is unloaded. But all firearms are always loaded. Get situated and clear the firearm before anything else. Out pops a round.
My bad, but no bad. It was ALWAYS treated as load.
The idiot at question in this article didn’t. Doesn’t matter if it was blue gun, red gun, bb-gun or the real thing, treat it as if it is loaded.