BEACHWOOD – One person suffered a gunshot wound after an accidental discharge of a weapon at Freedom Firearms Unlimited on Double Trouble Road in the borough on Saturday, Oct. 25, according to police.
“The victim was found to have an arm injury and was listed in stable condition,” police said in an Oct. 25 statement.
Police responded to the business at 11:11 a.m. and said that a “preliminary investigation indicates that a negligent discharge occurred,” the statement said.
The condition of the victim as of Monday was not immediately available.
Firearm rule #1 is to always treat every gun as if it is loaded. This fundamental rule ensures that even if a gun is unloaded, it is handled with the same caution, preventing accidental discharge and injury. Another way to state this rule is to always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, ensuring the muzzle never points at anything you are not willing to destroy.
Treat every firearm as if it’s loaded: This applies whether you think the gun is empty or not, and especially when handling a firearm that isn’t yours.
Always point the gun in a safe direction: This is the primary rule of gun safety, emphasizing that the muzzle should always be directed away from anything you don’t intend to shoot.
Do not rely on safeties: While many firearms have safeties, these are mechanical devices that can fail. Therefore, you should not solely rely on a safety to prevent a discharge.
Be mindful of your finger: A related rule is to keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
Generally, the rules work in concert so breaking one is not catastrophic and allow for a mistake to be made with no serious harm being done because the other two save you.
For those of us that carry, keeping the finger off the trigger is more vital than the safe direction rule.
Treating the gun as if it is loaded is moot - it is your carry gun. It had better be loaded!
Imagine being out in public and someone starts shooting. You are in close range of the shooter but not currently the target. You draw your gun to be more ready to shoot if you need to. People are running in all directions. If it is a multistorey building there may or may not be people running on the floor above you or below you. Maybe you’re in a mall made of concrete. The floor and ceiling are not going to absorb an errant round - it will ricochet somewhere. There is no safe direction to point your muzzle that might become unsafe just because someone moved. All you have are less unsafe directions.
Keeping your finger off the trigger is the one rule that is preventing you from inadvertently hurting someone - even if you are bumped or given a fright that triggers a startle response.
Along those lines, my son is currently in training at the police academy, and one of the other trainees just couldn’t grasp the directive to keep his finger off the trigger when he drew or handled his weapon. After multiple reminders and instruction, he still couldn’t remember where to keep his finger.
The instructors finally had enough, and removed that guy from the program.