The Damn Thing Just Went Off! (Pocket Pool? Darwinian Solution?)

Imagine the scenarios: the teacher in a class and the gun in his pocket "just goes off" and IT shoots him in the foot.  Here are a few "lame" (pardon the snarkiness) explanations.

"I was just ... I don't know, writing something on the board and the damn thing just went off! Maybe the chalk squeaked, and it was a sympathetic detonation?"

Or,

"There I was, sitting behind my desk grading papers while the class was working on a pop quiz, and the damn thing just went off!"

Or,

"Gee, I don't know.  I think one of my students may have smuggled a cell phone into my class.  He was probably texting someone, and it accessed the chip in my Smart Gun and the damn thing just went off!"

Or,

"Okay, I had the gun in my pocket and I was scratching my balls ...."
(which sounds a bit less unlikely).

It could have been worse: he might have using the "Mexican Carry" ... where the gun is in his waistband, pointed toward the itchy parts instead of toward his foot.  * [see below the fold]

BUT .. you know he had his hand in his pocket, and the pistol was NOT in a holster, and he had his finger on the trigger, and the gun was in Condition 1.   If it was single action, he had to take the safety off; if it was DAO, he had to pull HARD on the trigger!

Damn Fool!  Some people just shouldn't be messing with guns.
What are the odds that this is the first time he ever actually fired the gun?

There's a lesson to be learned from this; but I can think of at least one University professor who won't be carrying again ... ever.   This is not "Macho", this is just "Stupid".

Incidents where a someone shot a gun without pulling the trigger?  Few, but legitimate:

(1)  Legitimate: Oregon sheriff's deputy riding in a car with a rain coat on.  The drawstring of his raincoat drops into the trigger-guard of his Glock, and when he gets out the car it fires the gun.
  Day of the Evil Drawstring: Part I    Part II   Part III


(2) Not Legitimate:  hanging your gun on the coathook in a public bathroom stall.

Actually, has happened multiple times.  And yes "The damn thing just went off!" 2012


I'm sure there are more, but not a lot more. Certainly no when the pistol is in a holster which covers the trigger .... which is why that is a primary equipment requirement for IPSC competition.

Original Article:

The Concealed Carry on Campus Movement Shoots Itself in the Foot - The Daily Beast:
(September 03, 2014)

Just into the second week of fall classes, a Idaho State University professor has literally shot himself in the foot and provided one answer to the question of “What could go wrong?” on the growing number of college campuses that allow the concealed carry of firearms.
 The unnamed professor was teaching a class of roughly 20 students at the Physical Science building yesterday when his handgun—pocketed, but not holstered—accidentally discharged, Lieutenant Paul Manning of the Pocatello Police Department told The Daily Beast.

(H/T: The War On Guns)


* Note that the article doesn't specify his injury.  One assumes it hit him in the foot, as the original article's illustration suggests; or in the leg, as was the case with Plaxico Burres.)