Now THERE’s something you don’t hear every day! 
The change from AD to ND among the popular shooting community came with a sense of self-righteous indignation from those who never had an AD (or pretended they never did) toward anyone who ever made a mistake.
Yes… very good observation Todd.
I know a dude like this...:rolleyes:
Mace
On the rest of Todd’s post…
this is why there are four rules. You have to violate at least two to have a problem.
All guns are always loaded
Never point a gun at something you’re not willing to destroy
Keep your finger off your trigger until your sights are on the target
Always be sure of your target (and what’s beyond)
The mere fact that a gun goes off without specific intention isn’t enough to judge the severity of the mistake. An AD on the range that lands in the backstop and didn’t come close to crossing the path of anyone nearby is a learning point, not a capital crime. In fact, I know some instructors who would say it isn’t even an AD under those circumstances.
Think about it this way. Who would you be more likely to avoid on the range: the guy who AD’d into the dirt 25’ down range once, or the guy who constantly points his gun at people with his finger on the trigger but hasn’t had a public AD (yet)?
There’s a huge difference between parallel parking too far from the curb and smashing your car into someone else’s fender at 25mph.
Todd, as always, you make good points…someone might mistake you for a pistol-instructor: 
The initial post on this thread was somewhat misleading. Although, the subsequent information regarding AD’s and ND’s has been informative.
*Sights were aligned
*Safety was intentionally disengaged
*Target was acquired
*Trigger was intentionally pulled
…afterward, the instructors gave me some good natured rubbing…
Mace
Mace – Just trying to lock down what happened in your specific instance.
If you intended to make the gun go bang because you didn’t realize it was a dry fire drill, that is not an AD. Not sure how anyone could call it such. It is failure to follow directions, though, and was hopefully a good lesson for both you and the instructor to make sure everyone is clear when moving from dry to live and back.
If you intended to make the hammer drop but didn’t think the gun was loaded, that is definitely an AD (and very much like the story I related a few posts back). That’s 100% on you.
One of the first pistol classes I ever taught was with Rich Verdi for members of Beretta-L (in the Dark Ages before online forums). Before lunch on the first day I told everyone to empty their pistols. One student, who’d never been to a class before, walked up to the berm, drew his gun, and fired every round in the magazine until the gun locked back. Initially I was going to break his neck for being so stupid, but then it became clear I was the stupid one for assuming everyone knew “empty your gun” meant to clear it without loud noises. Much teasing ensued on both sides.
Indeed.
Frankly, I think people get all worked up on the terminology of this topic for no good reason.
The reality is this: Crap sometimes happens. I know a sheriff’s deputy who was working a plainclothes drug detail when their subject busted out of the house they were watching and started to make a break for it. So much for waiting for the rest of the team…
The other deputy he was working with tackles the guy and it turns into a hands on fight…one that the other deputy is losing. The second deputy was wearing a fleece pullover with a drawstring on it. As he tried to reholster his weapon, the drawstring got stuck in the trigger guard of his Glock, and BOOM.
Not his fault, in my opinion…it was just Murphy’s law. I almost had a Murphy moment at the November 2007 Low Light class when the lanyard on one of my lights worked its way into my holster. As I went to reholster my M&P I felt that something wasn’t right and slowly backed the weapon out. The ball on my lanyard had a hole in it and it was caught on the trigger. Had I pushed the weapon home I would have had an AD.
I learned my lesson and now my gear placement on my “war belt” is different so that at full extension no lanyards can get into the holster.
I know a bona-fide HSLD type who related that he experienced an AD when he was trying out the push/pull technique with one of those tiny Surefires. He was on the range pointed in a safe direction and just trying to get the feel for the technique when he got the rear of the light against the trigger and he ended up launching a round when he didn’t really want to. Again, Murphy’s law. That’s why we layer safety procedures.
I’ve experienced the joy and wonder of a highly tuned racegun crapping the bed and going full auto on me. I meant to fire the first and second shots and then all of a sudden the thing took on a life of its own. Not my gun, not my fault.
Somebody who is doing their part in the trigger finger and muzzle discipline area can still get a loud noise because of equipment issues and/or failures. It’s also true that some weapons are more prone to having those equipment issues than others. If your pistol has a 5.5 pound trigger and no manual safety you have a much narrower room for error than somebody who is packing a weapon with two manual safeties that must be disengaged before it will go boom. The measure of whether or not a shot was negligent, in my mind, is whether or not they were doing something stupid to cause the whole thing.
Recently on TOS someone posted a thread about their neighbor who was going to “clean” his Glock. The guy put the muzzle of the weapon against his knee and pulled the trigger…with predictably bloody and painful results. That was stupid.
Somebody trying to reholster under stress in the dark who ends up with the thumbsnap on their deparmentally mandated plainclothes holster getting in the trigger guard of their Glock doesn’t qualify for the dum-dum award in my book.
My 2 cents.
If you intended to make the gun go bang because you didn’t realize it was a dry fire drill, that is not an AD. Not sure how anyone could call it such. It is failure to follow directions, though, and was hopefully a good lesson for both you and the instructor to make sure everyone is clear when moving from dry to live and back.
You nailed it!
Mace
Agreed completely. But it’s one good example of why a hammer-fired or manual safety equipped pistol has certain advantages over one without.
Now that is funny.
OR the less time you spend with a loaded gun… most guys that are gonna have NDs are gonna be less experienced guys in that awkward phase between “dont know anything” and “starting to get something.” Muscle memory starts to take over, which puts the brain on the backburner- thats when you’re gonna have an ND.
If you can get through that, you probably won’t have one for a while- but you’re right about odds- the longer you spend shooting the start slowly creeping back up, just out of the law of inevitability.
I’m a pretty forgiving guy… I’m not inclined to think a guy is a total moron just for having a bullet hit the burm that he hadn’t intended to- shit happens, so long as the weapon isn’t pointed at anyone or anything that shouldnt have a hole through it, there’s no danger. So why freak out?
is still a traffic accident and not a “traffic negligent” last I knew
i think most agencies are calling them “crashes” now, instead of accidents- because no “accident” couldn’t have been prevented.
…and that is correct. I don’t mind the term ND, when appropriate, but I think it’s silly when I see someone get indignant about the terms.
For me the differentation between negligence and accident is due to organizational constraints. If somebody has an “ND” they are done, maybe just for the day, maybe for the entire course, depending on circumstance and adherance to safety layering. If however, something goes wrong that is not due to the shooter being lazy, apathetic, and/or stupid it can be classed as “accidental”, thus saving us from paperwork, lost training, and other hassles.
If you are not institutionally tied to the terms I see no reason to cling to them. A decent instructor should be able to determine if the shooter is a danger or not and take appropriate action as he sees fit depending on circumstance and severity.
And of course I agree with Todd- there are a lot of unsafe people out there that haven’t had an ND/AD. Yet.
Absolutely.
The folks I worry about most are the ones who insist stridently that their pet blaster is perfectly fine and only a drooling moron could ever have an accident with it. “If it wasn’t safe it wouldn’t be carried by so many cops!!” “It’s perfectly safe and nothing you say can convince me otherwise!” The response puzzles me because I carry the very same weapons daily and I know they are safe…but I also know that there are certain drawbacks to a weapon with a ~ 5 pound trigger and no manual safety.
They haven’t quite figured out that weapons are TOOLS and that one should always examine their TOOLS in a rational and dispassionate manner to maximize their benefits and minimize their drawbacks.
I honestly figure everyone that shoots much has had or will have an AD/ND.
One of those “There are two kinds of shooters: those that have had a gun go BANG unexpectedly, and those that will.”
Not good, but following the 4 rules will greatly reduce the chances of it happening as well as seeing to it that the only real harm done when it does is embarrassment and dirty drawers.
What do you consider it when one is working on learning to take up trigger slack during recoil of a handgun and takes up just a tad too much slack?
Round went over the quarry wall, I’m sure, but there was nothing beyond but open farmland.
Greg
I’d consider it a really bad press out if you’re pointing the gun up at that high an angle. 
But no, that isn’t an AD in my mind. It’s an almost unavoidable occurrence if you’re pushing yourself to do perfect press outs.
Uh…, I meant the incredibly short back stop that was barely above the bottom of the target.
It isn’t one of those 100 foot deep quarries; the flat part where we used to shoot was maybe 7 or 8 feet below ground level but it was better than nothing and free so long as the sheriff didn’t catch you there. :eek:
The old Ithaca Model 10 Deerslayer shotgun was an accidental discharge waiting to happen.
Years ago the Ithaca Gun Company designed a shotgun that you could fire as soon as you seated a shotgun shell into the chamber. What happened was you would fire the first round and then hold the trigger down. As you pumped the shotgun’s action the next few shells would get into the chamber and go off as soon as you seated it. If you had a 4 shot capacity, the shotgun would let you shoot off all 4 shells with one pull of the trigger. The idea was to allow the shooter to do fast fire.
Trouble is that sometimes the mechanism involved in allowing the fast fire of the shotgun would lock down on its own. So that meant that as soon as some shooters rammed home the slide, the shotgun would automatically go boom. Not a good thing to have happen. This feature, it was rumored, was the reason the Ithaca shotgun got disqualified for use as a military shotgun. They had a couple of accidental discharges during test runs on the ranges.
My 2 cents’ worth:
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Accidental Discharge: occurs when the firearm is discharged due to mechanical failure or other causes outside of the shooters action (ie: cook offs, hang fires, drop or trigger safety failures, decocker failure, etc.).
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Negligent Discharge: occurs when the firearm is inadvertently discharged due to the actions of a human being (ie: hand slipped while trying to lower the hammer, the trigger was pulled due to startle or parallel reflex, carrying a loaded gun in the pocket with the trigger exposed, etc.).
FWIW, I have personally experienced both ADs (mechanical malfunction) and NDs (mental malfunction). YMMV.
John Holschen from InSights Training told us he once had an entire class of military personnel do that with M16s.