Welcome to the latest edition of the summary of mishaps. For this one you need your earplugs (body armor is optional). Gene, Cue up the theme song from "last train from gun hill," please. We're moseying back to the not-o.k. corral.

a. Scene one, a Marine Corps rifle range, during a session of the small-arms marksmanship instructor course. according to the report, a corporal had been "expending ammunition at a very high rate, causing the round to cook off" while he was pointing the weapon's muzzle at his right foot. The corporal had been holding his m-4 in what the report described as "the controlled carry." Well, if that's "controlled," I’d hate to see "uncontrolled." For the record, the term means pointed at the ground at a recommended angle of about 30 degrees away from anything you
don't want to put a 5.56-millimeter hole in. The corporal spent 6 days in a hospital, another 10 days SIQ, and a month on light duty.

My dad, a former Marine, taught my brother and me to shoot when we were very young. His lessons about muzzle awareness were, shall I say, memorable. I think I still have the vestiges of a knot on the side of my head.

b. Scene two stars an E-7 equipment operator who was in his bedroom an hour and a half before midnight, performing that classic pre-sleep activity of cleaning a handgun. He had reached what the mishap report called the "function check," which involved loading the magazine and pulling the slide. The chief apparently didn't know these two actions put a round in the chamber. He pulled the trigger with the pistol pointed at his right palm. Kerblammo! It functioned, all right. One bullet through his hand, through a picture frame and into a wall. I’m not sure if the satisfaction of knowing that his pistol worked lessened the pain and embarrassment as he made his way to the nearest emergency room.

c. Scene three involves an off-duty e-3 who was also trying to clean his pistol, at a time when no one would expect an iota of clear-thinking, namely 0417. He shot himself in the foot. "Service member was not aware of proper procedures with regards to proper unloading of his pistol prior to conducting cleaning of weapon," the report woodenly and wordily said. It recommended that he read the pistol's operating manual. There's a novel thought. He had plenty of time during his 13 days away from work and his two and a half months of limpdu. And you know what? Even if you don't know how to unload a pistol before you clean it, you still don't have to point it at your foot.

d. And our final scene of this episode stars an E-6 engineman who went for a walk one morning (this would turn out to be the high point of the day), then returned home and decided to clean his .45-cal. pistol. "He removed the condition 1 gun from the gun vault biometric safe that was next to his bed," the report explained. He disengaged (but didn't remove) the magazine, pulled back the slide to clear the weapon, then locked it and verified that a round wasn't in the chamber. He released the slide, the report continued, and "verified that the round-chambered indicator on top of the slide did not indicate a round chambered."

Bear with me, we're almost to the "kerblammo!" part. He moved the slide back three-quarters of the way so he could put the slide release lever in the vertical position. Then he moved the slide forward to remove it from the frame of the handgun. And then, regardless of the earlier and seemingly convincing verifications that a round wasn't in the chamber, he shot himself in the left hand. The bullet ended up in his night stand. His roommate took him to an emergency room, where he got 30 stitches, painkillers and antibiotics. "Biometric safe," "round-chambered indicator"--sounds high-tech, doesn't it? But it is the same old, low-tech, didn't-know-it-was-loaded mishap. 

Military needs to educate their members on the proper way to use a HAND gun.

Safety brief: don't commit suicide, don't drink and drive, and don't commit suicide. Lmao. Makes the military look bad. And they still reiterate don't commit suicide lol