Is There Such a Thing as A.D.?

[Ubaldo99]

Its been said many times that there are only two kinds of shooters: Those that have had an "Accidental Discharge" (A.D.)... and those that will have an A.D. So far (knock on wood) I have not yet had one. But it got me thinking: Most of the A.D.'s that I have heard about or read about, however innocent, seem to involve some element of carlessness or inattention. That would seem to place those incidents in the category of "Negligent Discharge" (N.D.). I know it seems like I am splitting hairs... and I probably am... but its got me wondering: Is there such a thing as A.D.? Or is everything N.D.? :)

[O'Dell]

I agree - they are all ND's. I haven't had one it well over forty years of shooting, but my son did....... in my house. BTW, he was a police chief of a Georgia town at the time and was responsible for the training of new officers.

[robdnor]

the way I see it.. they are all negligent discharges... well unless you have a cheapo or old or faulty gun that goes off when hit/dropped etc. ... while it is negligent to allow this to happen to your gun, certain circumstances may cause it.. such as a fall or other event..
pretty much if the user is not holding or messing with the gun, if it goes off theres the accident, if it is in one's hands and it goes off, id guess 99 out of 100 times is would be ND
just my take on it

[muggsy]

I has a Model 12 Winchester. If you held the trigger back and pumped a fresh round into the chamber the gun would fire when the bolt returned to full battery. I found that out the hard way. My only AD in more than 50 years of shooting.

[AJBert]

According to the military, there is no such thing as an AD, only ND. I kind of agree with that.

Thankfully, I've had neither but my brother in the 40 years has had two "AD's". The last was a horse. Good thing it went through the front seat, back seat and into the tail gate but did not exit out the tail gate of his Bronco II.

[CJB]

I tend to disagree. MOST unintended discharges are negligence.

But.... some unintended discharges are accidental. How so? In the case of malfunctioning and/or broken firearms. Such was the case with Browning High Power's in the 1980's, whereupon, you could carry cocked and locked, push the safety from safe to fire, and the pistol would fire on its own. Something not fit right, and if things got jostled, you had a true AD. The DISCHARGE was accidental. The "after the fact" circumstances could have been (or not been) negligent. What I mean there - was the gun pointed in a safe direction. There have been a few others like that, in the case of slam fires, fire on bolt being rotated home, bad safeties, bad metal, etc. Those are the only true accidents (if you want to call the manufacturer out of the negligence loop), since the shooter could do everything correctly, and still be subject to a firearm that discharged unintentionally - though no fault of their own.

[Thunder71]

I tend to not get worked up over it, call it what you want, the events leading up to it tell the story.

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[Barth]

I recently had an unintentional second shot light out of my G27 due to
a new Ghost Rocket connector that virtually eliminated trigger reset.
A single shot basically turned into a double tap.
I still hit the target with the second shot.

Twenty years ago I had a 1911 race gun fire as I placed my finger on the trigger.
But before I actually squeezed.
Again, the bullet hit the target I was aiming at.
But I was surprised by the shot.

Fortunately, by adhering to basic gun safety,
these incidents had no consequences.

[OldLincoln]

Sure there are AD's. I had a Ithica shotgun many years ago that would sometimes discharge without a trigger reset. If I missed a bird and pumped it real fast it may discharge with the trigger still held down from the first one. I figured out that I was using my free hand to pull the stock into my shoulder and that's when it mostly happened.

Also saw videos of pistols discharging with a firm mag reload, no finger inside the guard. No matter how hard you seat the mag it shouldn't do that.

Also, Just my opinion, but I consider the guy who's Glock fired inside a worn out holster an AD. It may have been preventable with proper maintenance of the holster (replacement in this case) but it happens.

To me an ND is doing stuff like forgetting to clear the chamber and pulling the trigger. Mainly dumb mental errors.

[ripley16]

Is There Such a Thing as A.D.?

Yes, there is... or at least was. I used to have them all the time when I was a teenager. Couldn't help it. Sorry.