We had a negligent discharge at my house Thursday evening. First off, everyone is okay. Now on to the incident:

I live with two members of my extended family, "C" and "B." Both are in their mid-20s, own guns, and have been shooting for a good part of their lives. However, neither has had any formal training. I recently sold C a P2000SK, and he has been putting in a lot of dry fire practice. When I got home from work I heard him clicking away in his room (the first bedroom). I knocked on the door and we talked for a minute, then I went out to the kitchen to start cooking dinner. As I was cooking, B came home with a girl he just started seeing, and went back to his room (the second bedroom).

A few minutes later I heard a BANG! from one of the bedrooms. My first thought was that C had had an ND while dry firing. As I came to C's door, I heard C say "What the fuck was that?!?" so I knew it wasn't him. We then moved to B's bedroom. I stopped short of the door (old training habit), and made the conscious decision to knock and ask if it was clear to come in--I didn't want to burst through the door and startle him in an already stressful situation. He called out that it was okay.

When I entered the room was full of smoke, and he was holding the rifle at a shallow low ready angle. The girl was sitting on the bed, and must have taken the brunt of the overpressure because she was only slightly behind the muzzle. I immediately stepped off line from the rifle as I moved into the room, and B said, in somewhat of a daze, "I guess the safety was only half on." He started rotating the rifle and moving like he was going to manipulate it, so I stepped forward and separated him from the weapon, attempted to clear it (the bolt was locked back), and then leaned it safely against the wall so I could check on B and the girl. They were a little shaken, but fine (the girl actually handled the entire thing very well considering how recently they had met.)

The round had struck the floor at somewhere around a 45 degree angle, and fragmented. A good-sized piece of what I assume was jacket fragment destroyed a TV that was sitting on a bookshelf about 3 feet forward of the bullet strike. The screen had additional peppering from fragments/debris, and there were some scrapes in the drywall on the wall in front of the strike and one or two on the ceiling. No projectiles or debris exited the room.

In talking to B, I haven't exactly been able to figure out what happened, but I'm pretty sure he just grabbed a gun and expected an empty chamber. He doesn't remember, but it doesn't sound like he made any effort to check the weapon. He had previously taken it out shooting, and I'm assuming that it wasn't cleared after, and he grabbed it expecting to be in its usual condition.

C was very shaken up, having been only one room over. Fortunately, the trajectory was 90 degrees away from C's room, although it was pointed pretty much directly at my room. Whether by happy accident or some residual instinct of safe gun handling, the gun was pointed in a safe direction at the floor. In what I recognize is probably an illogical reaction, I was/am neither angry nor shaken up by the incident, nor do I remember feeling fear at the time--I had a very calm, almost outsider-like quality to my response. Which I suppose is a good thing, but was definitely odd. I certainly understand the magnitude, but for me the emotion was never really a part of it.

This is the second negligent discharge I have been present for. The first one was a police officer who was trying to replicate trigger reset with his duty P229 and pulled trigger while controlling the hammer, then instead of retracting the slide, he thumbed the hammer back, expecting that the hammer would catch in single action mode. He came within an inch or two of losing a toe on that one. In both cases I separated the shooter from the weapon and cleared it myself. I think this the preferable practice, as both shooters were very shaky and in a kind of trance-like state of shock. It's actually a lesson I picked up after I had a screwup in my first real pistol class--Jeff Gonzales was in front of the line demonstrating a drill, and I was far enough down the line that he was beyond my peripheral vision. I had been mentally rehearsing my motions for the next drill, and missed that this was a demo, so when he called out the commands, I heard his shot, I took my shot...then I didn't hear anyone else shooting. I looked down the line to see I was the only jackass with a gun out. I think Jeff handled it perfectly by very calmly instructing me clear and holster my weapon, step off line, and stand at the back of the range. At the next stopping point he came over to me and told me that I had made a mistake, and that he wanted to give me a few minutes to calm myself down so that I didn't make a bigger mistake, and then allowed me to return to the line. This incident made a very strong impression on me, and immediately came to mind in the immediate aftermath of both ND I have been present for.

I've had several talks with B afterwards, and he understands the seriousness of the situation and that this is something that simply cannot happen. I had a sitdown with both B and C and talked about the 4 rules of gun safety, and procedures for clearing weapons that need to be followed.

To me, this is a good reminder to always follow your safety rules and weapon handling clearing procedures, and to never take shortcuts or get complacent when handling firearms. We were very lucky, and hopefully this AAR offers some value to the rest of you. As always, stay safe.