When A Gun Discharges, There Is Nothing Accidental About It

13-Year-Old Dies After Accidental Shooting
Investigators Believe Shooting Was Accidental

This headline on news4jax.com could not be more misleading.

Read carefully:

WHEN A FIREARM DISCHARGES, IT IS NEVER AN ACCIDENT.

It is not an accident when a two year old boy in Birmingham, AL, crawls into his father's pick-up truck, finds a loaded Glock 9mm tucked between the seats, points it at his face and pulls the trigger.

It is not an accident when a 45 year old man in Juno, Alaska dies from a bullet passing into his thigh, through his groin, and out his back when his five-cylinder revolver falls to the floor causing the gun to drop fire.

It is not an accident when an 18 year old boy in Philadelphia, PA, kills his sister after pulling the trigger on a semiautomatic gun (another Glock) after removing the magazine, but without popping the bullet out of the chamber.

Here's the thing about guns like Glocks: It is impossible for them to fire without the trigger being pulled. Glocks, while void of a manual safety, have three passive safeties to prevent inadvertent discharges, one of them being a trigger safety. Meaning a finger has to be on the trigger for it to go off. So if the finger is on the trigger, THEN ITS DISCHARGE CANNOT BE AN ACCIDENT.

Revolvers and other semi-automatics also cannot go off "accidentally," assuming even common sense precaution is taken. When these guns go off, either, again, the finger was on the trigger, there was a bullet improperly sitting in a cylinder in front of the hammer just waiting for a slap, snap or drop fire to occur, or the gun's safety was not engaged.

Now I know this may sound like I'm writing for an NRA handbook, and that I'm singing the "guns don't kill people" song, but the fact of the matter is, I'm about as anti-gun as anyone can be. However, I've represented dozens of gun manufacturers and distributors in my not-so-glorious legal past and I got to learn a thing or two about firearms. Namely, in almost every single case I defended, the gun functioned EXACTLY as it was intended to and the primary liability fell on the person in or near possession of the gun when it went off.

Yes, guns suck.

I wish the Second Amendment had never been written into the Bill of Rights, at least not the way it was. Guns should mostly be banned. But they're not and never will be. They will always be as ubiquitous as a bible at a Klan rally. However, no gun death or injury should ever be labeled an "accident." They're either a result of an intentional act or one's stupidity and ignorance. And don't even get me started on the irresponsible parents who leave firearms in places where children have access to them.

The media, and indeed the police, must make this clear to the public instead of poo-pooing these tragedies by mislabeling them as being accidents, which implies that they were unavoidable.