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  • I was very skeptical about this story playing out as told. When looking for a more complete article, this exact story is published from 2019 from multiple sources.

    While I don't think it is a requirement all guns sold in the US need to pass the SAAMI Drop Test, I can't imagine anything being sold that wouldn't pass it, especially a revolver where the design likely hasn't changed in 100 years. The drop test covers drops at various angles from 4 feet high, higher than a person sitting and taking off a shoe. Revolvers also need to have the hammer pulled back before firing or have extremely long and heavy trigger pulls.

    I'm calling both fake news and if this story did happen, I can't see it being anything but a negligent discharge from someone assuming it wasn't loaded or just being a fool putting a finger where it didn't belong.

    • https://www.sportsmansguide.com/customerservice/productsafetyrecalls

      two handguns on that list in the past two years, one in 2023 which can discharge if dropped. the other if decocked. the world is full of poorly designed machines.

      • The Ruger was a bit of a surprise. The Taurus was not. They have a pretty bad history for this. Both are striker fired semi autos, which are more mechanically complex than a revolver. The only revolver recall I saw this millennium was for a Rossi, which is also owned by Taurus. If there wasn't a plant in Georgia, I'd think they'd have been banned from import by now from the massive PT series recall.

        Also "article of clothing" isn't the best holster option, and likely increases the odds of injuring one's self much more than even the worst pistol to make it out the factory door.

        I could be wrong of course, but if I had to put money on either him shooting himself and making a corny excuse vs even the cheapest gun on the market going off from a 2 foot fall, I'd feel very confident putting my money on his index finger. The gun in a shoe and then forgetting about the gun in the shoe don't paint this guy as the safest character.

    • Preamble: My parents divorced when I was young, my dad died a few years later, and I never really got to know him. Plus I have childhood trauma and ADHD, so I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. My parents weren’t great people, and life was pretty rough and tumble growing up.

      When I was in my early teens, I found a newspaper clipping from before I was born in some scrapbook or memory box. It was a short little crime blotter story that indicated my dad had accidentally shot himself in the face, because he had mistaken a snub-nose pistol for a lighter while drunk.
      I do remember that he had a big scar on his face, but I sort of assumed it was because he liked to get in fistfights for fun.

      My mom, a serial liar, confirmed the story, and it’s what I and another one of my sisters have believed for decades.

      I mentioned the event in passing to my oldest sister a few months ago and she balked, and immediately began laughing. After she composed herself, she explained that she was home when it happened. The real story is that my dad had ripped someone off in a drug deal, and they did a poor job of trying to kill him. The whole drunk/lighter thing was to avoid additional questions by the police.

      So, you know. Gun in a thrown shoe. Sure.

      • I love these tyoes of family secrets! 😂

        Probably not too many ways to create a narrative where you look intelligent for getting shot randomly.

    • I took a concealed carry course ages ago, and it helped to instill a healthy level of paranoia about unintentional discharge.

      My takeaways were:

      • fuck semi-auto pistols. Many working parts means many points of failure; carrying with a round in the chamber is dangerous as fuck, especially combined with a hair trigger; even if you don't think there's one in the chamber, there's no good way to verify visually without opening the chamber, and even then people tend to give themselves a false negative and carry hot thinking they're carrying safely; if you don't carry hot, you have an extra step to perform under panic-levels of anxiety, aka you fumble with a gun-shaped brick for a couple seconds while your assistant proceeds to murder you; and blocky shape = blocky imprint = you've made yourself a target before a potential altercation even begins.

       

      • Revolvers are the way cuz that. And the imprint is more varied, making it conform better to your pudge and not stand out through your clothing. But even among revolvers, fuck any that have an external hammer, which can get snagged on clothing or something, pulled back partially, released, and strike a round causing it to fire without even touching the trigger.

       

      • Internal hammer, double-action-only is the way, cuz that.

       

      • Load one round fewer than the cylinder's capacity, then close the cylinder with the empty chamber on top / in line with the barrel. Your gun is now only physically capable of firing by fully engaging the trigger. You can drop that fucker out of an airplane, and when it hits the ground it goes thud, not bang. Also, since the back of the casing seats further back than the back of the cylinder, there's a gap that you can look into to visually assess whether or not there are any rounds loaded; and where or not the individual chamber in line with the barrel is loaded (hot).

       

      Absolute safest way to carry. Only downside is you only have 4 shots to work with, but if you need more than that, you're probably dead anyway.

      • Aren't most revolvers six-chambered, not five?

      • Take a look at double action semiautos like the Ruger LCP. I think it's the best of both worlds.

      • I largely agree, but less so with the empty chamber/hammerless points. Anything modern is going to have a transfer bar blocking the firing pin from reaching the primer without a full trigger depress. For the hammerless, I don't know if you could drop that thing in any way from any height where the internal hammer would get enough inertia to overpower that trigger spring. Anything to do that would advance it to the next chamber anyway and come back on a loaded one.

        Even so, having people be extra cautious is better the extra careless. You should always do not just what is safe, but also whatever you are comfortable doing after understanding your own personality.

    • But does the drop test take into account an external hammer when thrown at high velocity in a shoe?

      If so, they really swung for the edge cases on that one. Their manager would have been upset they wasted productive hours on that until this happened.

      • Lol they got to leave some wildcards out there to fill out the surprising news section.

61 comments