This range security video, from LiveLeak, originated from the central Israel city of Ramla. But it might as well have been from any shooting range here in the US of A.
It looks like some kind of basic training or qualifying course was being held here. Note the range safety officer or instructor walking behind the shooters on the firing line. The shooter to keep your eye on is the second man, the one wearing the teal shirt in the upper right corner of the frame on the firing line.
You can plainly see him unholster his handgun, insert a magazine, then rack the slide making it ready. That’s when he made the mistake.
Watch the video a couple of times. Once his handgun is loaded and hot, he appears to then reach back with both hands and try to hike up his sagging pants.
The shooter had been carrying his handgun in a holster on his hip. It happens to all of us…the combination of gravity and the weight of the handgun in its rig inevitably causes your jeans to droop. Who hasn’t had occasion to pull them up periodically through the day while packing?
The problem is the shooter here tried to pull up his pants while holding his loaded handgun with his finger on the trigger. The action of grasping his britches using a hand in which he was also holding a loaded pistol resulted in a squeeze of the trigger, sending a round into his calf.
If his pants were a real problem, he could have holstered the gun, pulled them up, then taken the gun out again. But he didn’t.
This man’s misfortune is an object lesson in the hazards of complacency while handling a firearm. It’s all too easy to lose focus and violate one or more basic safety rules.
You have to break at least two of the four rules of firearm safety for something bad to happen. Mr. Tealshirt violated numbers two and three. Not only did he muzzle his own leg, he did it with his finger on the trigger.
Let’s be careful out there.
h/t Christophe C.
This post was originally published in 2019.