Mas Ayoob has an ND during a training class

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MTT TL

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Clear Rule 1 Violation.

This is the reason I always check guns handed to me by someone else, even in a gun shop or gun show, even if had a chamber block in it.
 
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Sharkbite

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Clear Rule 1 Violation.

This is the reason I always check guns handed to me by someone else, even in a gun shop or gun show, even if had a chamber block in it.
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He DID check it... he explains it as a “look but dont see” event.
 
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briandg

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“the look that doesn’t see.”
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that says everything. A hunter uses camouflage so that he can be seen and still not be noticed. a nickle plated casing against a stainless piece of equipment is a camouflaged. At this time, I am willing to say that I'll never use nickle brass if I get a stainless revolver. It's just not sensible, is it?

People talk about being on high alert at all times as something that isn't possible. If one of the greatest ever managed to screw up like that, I think that it proves that. A sideways look down the cylinder and then a glance at the cylinder face, neither time did he actually see the unbelievably obvious presence of the base.

With loaded ammo you don't have to eject and Dropping ammo out of a revolver isn't a guaranteed thing, just a little gunk can trap one there. Something like that happened in massad's story, I can't even imagine how often it happens and it isn't reported in national news.
 
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HiBC

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I'm not making excuses for Mr Ayoob or anyone else.The way I read the article,neither is he.
Explaining it is different than excusing it.
Mr Ayoob DID say complacency (HIS) was a factor. He also mentioned one nickel plated round in an otherwise empty stainless cylinder,and looking without seeing.
Always clearing any weapon you handle is correct practice.Its possible to go through the motions of clearing a weapon and even chamber a round.
I don't see this as an opportunity to discredit Massad Ayoob. Like all of us who are mortal human beings,he made a mistake.
I noted the title of his article was "layers of safety"
We use those redundancies because we are fallible.
Despite the chain of screw ups (which are not OK) Mr Ayoob WAS practicing "Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.".
So there is a hole in the ceiling,everybody got a wake up call,and no one got hurt.
One way of looking at this is to be critical of Mr Ayoob,followed by "I'm better than that.I am infallible"

Another wayis to be humble enough to accept "If it can happen to Massad..."

"Treat all guns as if they are loaded" . OK. Do you ever dry fire ? In the basement? Do you pull the trigger on a loaded gun in your basement? No? Then how can you dry fire without breaking rule one? OK. Finger in the trigger guard,too. And you don't really want to destroy your basement wall.So much for the sanctimonious BS.

What we do is dry fire in such a manner that if everything went wrong and the gun fired,no one would get hurt.Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and know where your bullet will stop. Layers.
 
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TunnelRat

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Sometimes experience builds complacency. I've seen it, and been the victim of it myself (though I am under no delusion that I am as experienced as Ayoob).

This is also a reason to do both a visual and tactile check of a firearm.
 
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briandg

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Once a long time ago, I was walking along a hiking trail with my wife. I was watching the woods, there was dense brush off to the right. about fifty-80 feet into the brush, I saw a black spot that wasn't quite right, it was shiny. I stopped, why was a shiny black thing buried in the middle of the brush out there?

Well, heck, it was a deer's nose. He was sitting in deep camouflage, and without spotting that nose I'd have gone right past. Once i knew that it was there, i wondered how I had missed it in the first place.
 
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amd6547

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Sounds like a lot of fail, all the way around.
I find the “nickel case in a stainless revolver” excuse ludicrous. When I unload a revolver, I know how many cases I expect in my palm. If I expect five, and only see four, I’m for dang sure finding out why.
By the way...right now, my HD GP100 3” is next to me, loaded with (six) Winchester Silvertip 357’s...Yup, stainless gun, silver cases, even silver bullets. I can easily see the case rims with the cylinder closed.
When I was young and stupid, I had a completely negligent discharge. I’ve never assumed a chamber was unloaded since. Even if I have personally cleared a pistol, if I set it down to leave the room for a moment, when I come back, I check it again. A firearm is assumed to be loaded virtually every time I handle it. Period.
 
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TunnelRat

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When I unload a revolver, I know how many cases I expect in my palm.
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Did the shooter dump the cases into her hand or the floor though? Ayoob borrowed the revolver from a student.
 
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Cirdan

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This is why I do a safety check even in a gun store. I figure the guy behind the counter does it 100X a day, and might get complacent.

Not that there is ANY reason for a gun in a store to be loaded.
 
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JohnKSa

Administrator
This is also a reason to do both a visual and tactile check of a firearm.
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I've had people get irate with me for suggesting that it's important to actually do both. Their perspective would probably change if they've ever been present for an event like the one described in the article.
 
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Bartholomew Roberts

Moderator
I think Mas made a good point that because we correctly emphasize checking the chamber as part of safe gun handling, many of us that handle guns a lot have trained our brains through experience to expect to see an empty chamber - and occasionally our brains will tell us what we expect to see instead of what is actually there.

Ironically, it seems the more thorough you are and the more you handle firearms, the more you are likely to be a victim of this kind of failure.

Like JohnKSa and TunnelRat, I like to incorporate a visual and tactile check in order to engage my brain a little more and get a second input. It has saved me at least a couple of times when what the eyes reported and what the fingers reported didn’t match up.

And the story is also an important example of how important a safe backstop is even when you aren’t expecting a bang.
 
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DPI7800

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Comes to show there really are three types of gun owners, ones that have had an unintentional discharge, ones that are going to have an unitentional discharge and ones that lie about it (this includes wether they already have or simply lie to them selves that it won’t happen to them).

Important thing to remember is if you are doing everything else correctly there will be no personal injury or loss of life and little to no property damage.

I know you guys are going to jump all over me for this one but that’s fine have fun.

My concern is where the muzzle was pointed, up is not the preferred position, especially when doing “dry fire” demonstrations, what goes up must come down.
 
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TailGator

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MA did the honorable thing in talking about this and using it as a teaching tool. I agree with the idea of both tactile and visual checks, and practice them myself, but even more important is thinking about what you are seeing and touching. We can't just go through the motions. That is what Mr. Ayoob means when he refers to looking without seeing. It is a great danger to all of us, and this is a good - and thankfully casualty-free - reminder.
 
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TunnelRat

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It's very easy to go through the motions without them meaning anything. The fact that multiple people supposedly checked the pistol emphasizes this. Once someone tells you that the handgun is clear you are expecting to see a clear handgun. It's important to perform your own thorough evaluation because even professionals make mistakes. It's not disrespectful, it's being responsible.

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Sharkbite

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Rule 1 says treat all guns as though they are loaded.
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Come on.....

As a professional weapons and tactics instructor for the past 25years, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to teach with a strict adherence to this rule.

In this example, Mas is explaining proper trigger control EXACTLY as i have thousands of times.

Clear the gun, point it skywards so the students can SEE what you are doing and go thru a trigger press. Its a standard,accepted practice. I have used students guns countless times EXACTLY as Mas did. There was NOTHING unusual or wrong with the teaching technique.

That so many people checked the gun and nobody caught that single round is disturbing. Maybe a re-examining of the taught loading and unloading procedures is in order.
 
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SIGSHR

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I have had shells stick in revolvers, my procedure is the barrel is pointing straight up when I push on the ejector rod, I dump the shells in my hand and I still look. A single action revolver, I check each chamber TWICE. I visually inspect the chambers of semiautos.
 
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1-DAB

New member
Up is not a safe direction.

from his own words: "the least unsafe direction"

that's still unsafe.

fail.
 
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