When it's your time, it's your time...
 

When you gotta go, you just gotta go...

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Cue up the anti-gun nuts to parade this incident around to portray all gun owners as irresponsible nutcases likely to get innocent bystanders killed:

In 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2. . .

wtf are you doing cleaning a loaded gun!! are'nt you supposed to check it before cleaning?? I like guns, but man, I wouldn't dream of trying to clean it unless the mags out and the chambers empty

Another example of why you "always treat any firearm as if it is loaded", and by the way ...telling the cops you were cleaning it and it went off? Well Einstein, you just reported your stupidity to the entire world.

An example of "You can NEVER be too careful with guns". My friend (gun owner, hunter, cautious man) is called to a neighbors house to inspect a pistol the woman inherited. It is a .380 Auto (I forget the mfg.) magazine fed. She has purchased a box of .380 ammo and wants my friend to show her how the gun works. He picks up the auto. from the table, removes the clip (empty), racks the slide, nothing extracts. So, he ASSUMES... "clear". Lets the slide go home. Proceeds to see if it is double action or not... cocks hammer manually, points out window of kitchen, pulls trigger, 'click'. Pulls trigger (with hammer down, nothing) Explains to her how hammer must be manually cocked, by thumb or racking the slide. Shows her the thumb safety, etc.

They go outside, (rural home) he loads magazine, inserts, racks the slide, jamb! Removes magazine, for the first time he LOOKS IN THE CHAMBER! Gasp! It seems someone had tried to load a .32 Auto. at some point! It jammed in the chamber with (luckily) just enough head space to prevent the firing pin from contacting the primer and also not allowing it to extract.

Two problems my friend missed; the gun could have also had the correct .380
round and just had a broken extractor. And of course NO gun is clear till you actually LOOK into the chamber!

I cannot express to you how embarrassed my friend was to tell me that story. But we have to pass those incidents on to others to show that even experienced individuals get careless.

A gun is never clear until you have checked and double-checked it!

I know next to nothing about guns, but hell, even I know you don't clean a loaded gun, and you never assume a gun isn't loaded until you check! So now because someone's an idiot, an innocent person lost their life. What a moron.

Definitely negligence no matter how you slice it, and to me it is not that far-fetched that the bullet hit someone who was driving (or walking) down the street.

While a tragedy, this stuff is not very common. When it happens, it gets a lot of media. But a lot more kids drown in their parents' swimming pools and even more people are struck by lightning than kill themselves or others by mishandling a gun. The vast majority of gun deaths are 100% intentional and no law will ever stop that.