Gun safety teacher shot in accident

Syracuse Post-Standard ^ | July 10, 2003 | Pedro Ramirez III and John O'Brien

[Centurion2000]

Gary Kassel, 56, of Syracuse, was unloading the .40-caliber Glock and didn't realize there was still a round in the chamber when he pointed the gun at the cement floor and pulled the trigger "to render the gun safe," deputies said. A bullet ricocheted off the floor and struck Sacco.

Other than the fact that it ricocheted and hit the instructor, the guy really didn't do anything WRONG per se.

Now, were I an instructor, I'd make sure that I had a barrel full of sand for students to point their weapons into as they unload them (like you see outside EVERY marine armory)

[George Smiley]

Cominolli, who designed and patented a manual safety device that can be added to Glocks.

According to one of the range tests I've taken:

Main Entry: ¹safe·ty
Pronunciation: 'sAf-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural safeties
Etymology: Middle English saufte, from Middle French sauveté, from Old French,
from sauve, feminine of sauf safe
Date: 14th century
1 : A mechanical device which can fail.

[glock rocks]

"hmmm... must have some major gun legislation coming up."

translation: the AWB sunset is provoking lots of gun stories lately... and no matter how minor, portrayal of the evils of guns will increase.

fwiw, I carry a SIG because of the decocker.

[NJ Freeper]

Can someone tell me if the slide on a Glock stays open after the last shot like on a 1911?

I've fired a Glock before but I forget.

It's usually a good indicator if there's a bullet in the chamber if the slide's open and you can see in it.

[jdogbearhunter]

Yes.

[TexasRepublic]

The only "safety" is that gray matter between your ears.

[Euro-American Scum]

Perfectly safe as long as you always make sure the chamber is empty.

Amen! Amen! And Amen! (Can you say Hallelujah!)

Glocks are certainly exceptionally safe when used within the parameters of their design, but they are by nature not terribly "idiot friendly".

You would think that the concept of "finger off the trigger" would be a no-brainer for ever the most dense idiots, regardless of the weapon in use. Guess not.

[cinFLA]

Um, I must have have been daydreaming during that part of my firearm safety course. I sure don't remember being taught that!

Once coming back from hunting, I almost pulled the trigger of my '06 to 'render it safe'. Had the finger on the trigger but thought better. Opened the bolt to find a cartridge! A little thought saved the car and my sanity.

[William Tell]

Shooter 2.5 said: 'That's one of the reasons I don't believe in pulling the trigger as the last "test" whether it loaded or not.'

Right.... If you have to pull the trigger to be sure, then you are not sure.

I seem to recall that disassembling many semi-automatic rifles, such as the M1A, require that the hammer be cocked and the safety set in a particular way ( can't remember whether "on" or "off").

The instructions with the Glock call for pulling the trigger, with the pistol pointing in a safe direction, as part of the disassembly procedure, immediately after checking to ensure that there is no round in the chamber. It may be that the striker mechanism must be de-cocked for proper disassembly and assembly.

My Kimber Ultra-Carry specifies that the trigger be pulled, to drop the hammer on an empty chamber, after checking to see that the chamber is empty. There is no warning to point it in a safe direction, though we all know to do that. Disassembly calls for racking the slide, which will re-cock the hammer.

The general rule seems to be that there is no "general rule" and that the user must know the particulars of the firearm they are handling.

[LTCJ]

"If you're doing a malfunction drill or teaching someone how to load and unload, with a student you don't use live ammo," Cominolli said. "You don't even do that with cops."

All the cops I know would put up quite a fight if you tried to load them into a pistol.

[RetiredNavy]

I've never seen a glock clip, lots of glock magazines but never a clip. Is that a special order modification?

[Richard Kimball]

I was under the impression that the terms "clip" and "magazine" were interchangeable, as per the Merriam-Webster dictionary,

2 : a device to hold cartridges for charging the magazines of some rifles; also : a magazine from which ammunition is fed into the chamber of a firearm

I've been wrong before, though.

[OKUKNOWITALL]

Just looking at this old article about Pat Sacco, the instructor who got shot by a student last year. You wrote "Guns dont wound idiot instructors, idiot instructors wound idiot instructors"...just to let you know that Mr. Sacco was not teaching the class at the time of the shooting. The class was being taught by SCOTT WEIS, an inexperienced instructor who was FIRED from Mr. Sacco's company for not running a safe class (among other things) and the student who shot Mr. Sacco was not certified by Mr. Sacco's company. Oddly enough, after SCOTT WEIS was fired from his position, he opened his own company where he did train the "dumbass student" and SCOTT WEIS did issue a NYS ARMED GUARD CERTIFICATION to said "dumbass student" I know Mr. Sacco personally and I am VERY familiar with the facts of this incident. It's nice to pass judgement when you have ALL OF THE FACTS.......Mr, Sacco has always run a safe and professional training facility and he adheres to the strictest safety principles. Unless you know the man or have attended his classes, you really are out of line. Just my 2 cents.