This is why I don't think "The Shooting Wire" is as worthwhile as it use to be!

Odds and Ends | Shooting Wire:

First, the "internet controversy" du jour: A lot of internet traffic was generated over a snippet of video that apparently depicted an unintended discharge of a firearm, the subject being a nationally known instructor. Immediately the internet peanut gallery began throwing stones. Admittedly, some of the critics have some background – but many have no apparent background. That the object of the exercise had some people making excuses didn't help. Adults in the room – Dave Spaulding and Pat Rogers – noted that people using machines have accidents and that doesn't make them "bad." Attacking people with keyboard vitriol is counterproductive and silly.

You people, those of you who consider yourself to be the intelligentsia of the Firearms Community, make the rest of us look bad.

Really bad.

WTF is this, where you're making excuses for a "professional" who can't keep his booger-hook off the bang-switch?

RICH GRASSI ... In case you were not aware, there are NO excuses for pumping a round down-range without a target.  Holy Christmas, how can you be so forgiving of a major safety fuckup?

You seem to be mildly disappointed, in a very forgiving and gentile manner, that some under-trained and over-reactive bloggers criticize this "ND" incident.

Well, we are are not as cosmopolitan as you are.  To you, it's a 'glitch'.

For some of us .. the experienced and highly trained Range Officers?\
It's a "HOLY FUCKING CHRIST! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO?  GET THE F**K OUT OF MY RANGE" moment.

Okay, I may have overstated it, but for me?  I think that anyone who did what this guy did (Can I say "Negligent Discharge" without seeming to be over-reacting?) should be really uncomfortable with his "oopsy", and his friends should NOT be excusing that action which is the WORST THING YOU CAN DO in a competitive environment.

So, there are people who screw up, and they are disqualified from further competition during that match.

On the other hand, there are people who screw up, and they are on the 'buddy list" (not related to a competitive environment), and their friends are all too ready to forgive them.

"Hey, it would have been worse .. the gun might not have been pointed downrange!"

Hey, Asshole .. there could have been someone downrange taping targets.

ANYONE who excuses unsafe gun-handling practices because "nothing bad happened", is not only teaching new shooters the priority of Gun Handling Rules, but is in fact supporting people who fuck up .. when they deserve to be held up as a good example of bad safety practices.

And BTW .. attacking people with a keyboard may seem "SILLY" to you, but some of us do that only because we weren't at the range when this "professional" fucked up, and we couldn't bitch-slap him at the time.

Which he very much deserved.


Oh, and Mister Apologist?

You deserve a Bitch Slap of your own,