HCSO: Employee cleaning gun accidentally shoots, kills man at gun range

[texasaggie2005]

I used to frequent this range quite often. A damn shame, as this didn't have to happen at all.


HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -- A gun range employee cleaning a weapon accidentally shot and killed a man in Cypress, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

The shooting call was placed shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Hot Wells Shooting Range on Highway 290 near Barker Cypress.

According to the sheriff's office, the employee was cleaning a gun when it went off. The bullet went through a wall and then a window, striking a man in another part of the range.

The victim was rushed to the hospital but was later pronounced dead. (http://www.khou.com/news/local/accidental-shooting-reported-at-cypress-gun-range/498841189)

[Peally]

Reason #46429672 to avoid public ranges...

[STI]

Another "gun went off" piece, as they have minds of their own and decide when to shoot all by themselves...

[Corey]

I have never understood how one goes about cleaning a loaded gun.

[Default.mp3]

Ah, Hot Wells. The place that diagnosed my AR's failure to lock back on empty as being "too much lube", and that 1 shot per second was too fast and constituted rapid fire. I avoided that place as much as possible; I'd drive up to Conroe to Shooter's Station to zero after finding out they had a 100 yard range, despite living 5 minutes away from Hot Wells.

[Shotgun]

I have never understood how one goes about cleaning a loaded gun.

First, one looks down the barrel to see if it is dirty.....

[LSP552]

Reason #46429672 to avoid public ranges...

Only bad thing about retirement was giving up my keys to this:

http://jestc.org

Spending all of my time now on public ranges. That’s likely the most dangerous thing I’ve done in years.....

[mtnbkr]

I have never understood how one goes about cleaning a loaded gun.

I've understood the claim to be an insurance ploy against cop suicides. Per what I read many years ago, when a police officer was said to have accidentally killed himself while "cleaning his gun", it was an outright suicide, but that cause of death was stated in order to ensure insurance payout or something. To be honest, that seems more plausible to me than being dumb enough to clean a loaded weapon.

Chris

[olstyn]

I have never understood how one goes about cleaning a loaded gun.

I've cleaned loaded guns plenty of times. Step 1: unload the gun. :P

[Kyle Reese]

4 rules........ 4 simple rules.......

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[JodyH]

and that 1 shot per second was too fast and constituted rapid fire.
Because safety is their number one concern and rapid fire might get someone hurt...

[texasaggie2005]

Ah, Hot Wells. The place that diagnosed my AR's failure to lock back on empty as being "too much lube", and that 1 shot per second was too fast and constituted rapid fire. I avoided that place as much as possible; I'd drive up to Conroe to Shooter's Station to zero after finding out they had a 100 yard range, despite living 5 minutes away from Hot Wells.

Yeah, I thought Hot Wells was bad, til I tried Bailey's House of Guns on the other side of Houston. They won't let you shoot an AR from the bench with the magazine inserted, you have to single load.

[Dagga Boy]

I deep secret of law enforcement cleaning areas across the country is that if you improperly clear and unload some pistols and then pull the trigger to disassemble them.....then they go off. It's simple, we quit treating the basic safety rules as a liability statement and make it a way of life and treated as seriously as a lethal force decision, because that is what they are.

[OlongJohnson]

Hot Wells actually has a "two second rule," if I remember correctly. It's very common at a lot of ranges around the country.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I can understand the proscriptions against rapid fire. I took my daughter and son-in-law to a local indoor range that was fairly new. The range officer took us to the bay. I had chosen to wear for some reason, a GSSF Safety officer hat I had from working a match. So she trusted me a bit. In the bay, my kid pointed straight up and there was a series of hole just above the bay. The range person sighed and said they were in there a month after they opened. Seeing some idiot spraying a Tec-9 ish gun rapidly at a target 3 yards away and hosing it from bottom to top of the B-27 - OY!

Now some of our local ranges will allow draw and double taps but they will observe you first.

[Peally]

It's a rule because your average range user is two steps away from psychotic. Unfortunately people that can actually shoot faster than one shot every 2 seconds without being dangerous are more of a rarity.

[ReverendMeat]

I have never understood how one goes about cleaning a loaded gun.

Step 1: retract slide to expel any chambered round
Step 2: remove magazine
Step 3: pull trigger to remove slide

There may be a screwup in there somewhere but whatever, I've been shootin fer years!

[olstyn]

Step 1: retract slide to expel any chambered round
Step 2: remove magazine
Step 3: pull trigger to remove slide

There may be a screwup in there somewhere but whatever, I've been shootin fer years!

I swear somebody told a story on here a while back about a Colonel or other similarly high-ranking officer and a clearing barrel that went something along those lines and ended with the officer's aide claiming that the officer's sidearm had "malfunctioned." :rolleyes:

[Corey]

I've understood the claim to be an insurance ploy against cop suicides. Per what I read many years ago, when a police officer was said to have accidentally killed himself while "cleaning his gun", it was an outright suicide, but that cause of death was stated in order to ensure insurance payout or something. To be honest, that seems more plausible to me than being dumb enough to clean a loaded weapon.

Chris

This seems plausible, but generally life insurance will pay on a suicide as long as a specified amount of time (6 months or 1 year are common) has passed since the policy was purchased.

Prior to guns that required pulling the trigger to disassemble I generally thought the old "it went off while I was cleaning it" is a euphemism for "I was playing with my gun when I shouldn't have been." Now that there are commonly used guns that do require a trigger pull to disassemble, Dagga boy has summed it up nicely.

[Default.mp3]

I can understand the proscriptions against rapid fire. I took my daughter and son-in-law to a local indoor range that was fairly new. The range officer took us to the bay. I had chosen to wear for some reason, a GSSF Safety officer hat I had from working a match. So she trusted me a bit. In the bay, my kid pointed straight up and there was a series of hole just above the bay. The range person sighed and said they were in there a month after they opened. Seeing some idiot spraying a Tec-9 ish gun rapidly at a target 3 yards away and hosing it from bottom to top of the B-27 - OY!

Now some of our local ranges will allow draw and double taps but they will observe you first.Sure, I used to hang out at my local indoor range all the time and see all types of stupid shit on the range, which Gadfly can attest to, but I felt that 1 round per second, with a benched rifle, with a can and scope, resting on bags, wasn't going to be an issue. Guess I was wrong.

[Kyle Reese]

I went to a Fuddy range in Virginia where they didn't permit suppressors, but shooting sans eye pro on the indoor range was just fine and dandy with the RO staff.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[olstyn]

I went to a Fuddy range in Virginia where they didn't permit suppressors, but shooting sans eye pro on the indoor range was just fine and dandy with the RO staff.

If they're against hearing protection, why would they be for eye protection? :)