I learned that from the one and only time I ever used (and held) a firearm. That was at Boy Scout summer camp. The supervisor running the camp’s firing range (skeet shooting; 22 cal. rifles) drilled gun safety into us; he spent a lot of time on that… and still, idiots can reveal themselves. After loading the very first round into his rifle, one scout turned himself (and his rifle) around, supposedly to ask a question. Supervisor: “STOP!” He grabbed the weapon from the kid and ordered him to leave the range… no ifs, ands, or buts. I think the lesson got through to the rest of us; no more mistakes.
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When I was a kid (maybe 11?) and hanging in the woods around a fire with the usual group of kids; another kid threw some bullets on the fire.
That kid was more responsible than adults with armor piercing rounds.
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What!? I can’t think of a hobby I do that couldn’t kill someone. Hilariously, since one of those hobbies is unicycling, but I could definitely hurt or kill someone if I were too careless while on my unicycle. You should see the metal D4 I use for RPG games- it’s sharp enough to cut.
Maybe you’re just not doing your hobbies aggressively enough.
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THIS. Nothing says ‘brown pants’ moment when you are moving a target at the 50 yard mark during a cease-fire period and you hear the PA suddenly come alive with the range master shouting ‘PUT THE RIFLE DOWN NOW!!!’ over it. (because some idiot decided that the cease-fire was the perfect time to uncase their rifle and put it on the bench.)
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Or lax enough. I could certainly kill some one with sausage making if I truly didn’t give a shit or never bothered too look anything up.
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I know guns, big and small, thank you very much.
It’s been a while, but our training was quite thorough. And because our Master Sergeant/platoon leader wanted to impress the new battery commander he marched us to the shooting range until everybody had qualified for that marksman-thingy. Which, not gonna lie, looked kinda cool on parade.
What I still remember from this after all those years is
1. Firearms are not toys and you do not fuck around with them.
2. You don’t want idiots to get even near them.
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Am I the only person wondering about the legality of shooting at a fire hydrant?
You must be new. There are many knowledgeable gun owners here.
Our judgment is with the idiot who made a number of risky decisions and then claimed ‘not my fault’.
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Nope. It’s been my big question all along. Well, that and why was he shooting a fire hydrant in the first place?
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I presume it was a scrap hydrant. They can get ruined by rust over years of sitting around. I recall seeing a website where used hydrants were sold to dog owners.
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Please tell me shooting Tannerite stopped being a thing…
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Oh, was it a gender-reveal hydrant?
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YES!
(former Type 03 FFL (Curios and Relics) holder and someone who does their research on things(GASP!) when banging out replies here.)
I know that .50BMG is a big caliber, and the rifle is equally chunky, but no ransom rest or string around the trigger to fire it when using ammunition of questionable lineage and/or origin? something like this was inevitable. At least the dude survived, and is (hopefully) wiser for it.
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sounds like the muzzle brake starts collecting residue from the round until you get excessive back pressure that deforms the barrel. he goes onto say that water droplets at the inlet of the barrel can be enough to cause pressure spikes. like, holy shit.
the pressures inside a 50cal barrel right after firing are absolute batshit insanely high on these rounds.
TL;DR: so, yeah, 100% operator error.
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Rubbish. A lot of people here are very knowledgeable about numerous aspects of firearms (physics, design, history, accuracy, stopping power, actions, etc.) and don’t consider them evil in and of themselves. What they don’t do is use their knowledge to bury the discussion in technical gunwankery and try and distract from the real issue at hand in these stories: reckless owners and operators who treat these weapons as toys and collectibles and masculinity totems rather than as serious and potentially dangerous tools that are purpose-designed first and foremost to kill and wound small and large mammals.
There were several precautions that this ammosexual clown should have taken given the near-prototype novelty/political-statement nature of this Sebru rifle (I kid you not: “the first time a production firearm has ever been inspired by social media. Designed in conjunction with YouTube celebrity Royal Nonesuch.”) and the power of the ammo (.50 BMG, for which the vast majority of applications are military – this was also sabot, which adds more complications).
He didn’t take the precautions someone serious would, nearly killed himself, and is now whinging that it’s not his fault and that it was a “freak accident” and that the ammo he chose might have been tampered with. BS, as my veteran friends would put it if they were feeling particularly generous.
Not to mention that Sergeant Macho was wearing only a t-shirt and cap (he gets a cookie for the safety goggles that saved his eyes, but no flak jacket or neck guard or helmet), had the weapon set up on a flimsy folding card table, was using an old fire hydrant as his target (rusty metal fragments from every hit), was using a muzzle brake with sabot, and kept re-loading and firing the rifle without stopping to check things out even after he noticed that the .50 SLAP rounds were “acting a little funny”.
But ok, “responsible gun owner”… he’s now selling t-shirts with a picture of a thumb, in reference to the one belonging to his dad that plugged the gaping wound and saved him. He’s learned nothing from this.
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You can just go to junkyards and find fire hydrants. This one was sitting on a dirt berm on private property miles from the nearest plumbing, so I think it’s probably legal.
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Technically, ALL firearms fit the description of “pipe bomb with a muzzle”. It is also worth noting that the screw-cap on a pipe bomb does it’s job quite well!
It’s actually a very solid design, the guy was just abusing the fuck out of it. The drawback to the design isn’t weakness, it’s that it is a pain to reload.
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Among my hobbies, I count cooking and creating / repairing electronic devices that use mains voltage. I’ve also done automobile restoration. Some people enjoy driving cars… I think most people here have hobbies that can indeed kill. Yes, firearms specifically have killing as one of their intentional purposes, but sport shooting doesn’t warrant more attitude aimed at it than competitive driving / sailing / biking / etc… types of sports.
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Killing people from your poisoned or tainted sausages is certainly pretty bad.
I can see killing people FOR sausage making if I ever went cannibal. But I don’t like people enough to ever do that.
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Something, something, “guns don’t hurt people…”
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