This news item relates how a man shot himself in the leg while bowling.
How in the world is that even possible?
According to what I read in the article, eyewitnesses report that the man was swinging a bowling ball past his thigh when the shot rang out. Looks to me as if he was carrying a small revolver in his pocket, one with an exposed hammer. When the ball came by on the backswing, it must have hit the hammer in such a way to drive the firing pin into the primer.
There are revolver designs that feature shrouded hammers, which just means that the frame is extended a little bit to keep the hammer out of sight and unexposed.
As you can see, this design is intended to be carried in odd places, such as a pocket. All the edges are smoothed, to keep from snagging on clothing when being drawn. The design also lends itself to avoiding idiotic discharges like the one being discussed.
Although I cannot say for sure, it would appear that the wounded bowler was also carrying his handgun without a holster. This might seem a strange statement, as it seems obvious that a gun in the pocket would necessarily be sans holster.
There are, however, such things as pocket holsters.
(Picture source.)
Note how the gunleather covers the trigger and hammer. The odds of a negligent discharge is reduced, while the finish and mechanical parts of the firearm are protected.
Why does it look like the two holsters pictured immediately above have a shark fin shape directly below the grip? Is that so the owner can brag about how cool he is?
Actually, those are there so the holster itself can be hooked on the edge of the pocket during the draw. This allows the holster to be left behind, so only the gun comes out in the open air during an emergency.
Like I said before, I am not certain that the hapless bowler was carrying his gun without a holster. That just seems incredible to me, that someone would actually do something like that! Firearms are extremely expensive precision instruments. The gun in that man’s pocket could very probably cost as much as a washer/dryer set.
So he is okay with the idea that a device with a price tag in the hundreds of dollars would just knock around in his pocket, banging against door frames and being constantly worn by scraping against the fabric with every step? Besides the obvious safety benefits, holsters also protect your investment. I don’t know why this wasn’t painfully obvious at the start.
Well, I suppose it is painfully obvious by now. Particularly the pain part.
No amount of good engineering can surmount the stupidity of idiots. We engineers have a saying, “Every time you make your design fool-proof, they invent a better fool.”
(Also: “You can’t make your design fool-proof because fools are so ingenious.”)
Even with an exposed hammer, if the gun has a transfer bar safety bashing on the hammer won’t fire the gun.
That is another reason why I can’t figure this one out. Unless he had his hand in his pocket, on the gun, and the trigger pulled to the rear, the gun should have never gone off.
Maybe he had a gun that wasn’t in good mechanical condition.
He may have had one of those NAA mini revolvers.
Those things don’t have trigger guards. If the gun got cocked somehow the ball could have bumped the trigger and set it off, especially if the gun wasn’t in a holster.
If it was a mini and the hammer was resting on a loaded chamber, a good whack could have done the trick.
The NAA mini has notches on the cylinder for the hammer to rest between the loaded chambers; I’m old school and would not feel comfy unless the hammer on mine was resting on an empty chamber.
We are just speculating; I wish reporters would push for more details on these incidents, such as the type of firearm, make, model, caliber, whether a holster was used, etc. More info might help others learn what NOT to do.
I loved the movie serials. In the late ’40s-early ’50s, what I recall is the men carried revolvers in their hip pockets, women in their purses, and at the least provocation hauled them out and blasted away with no or little effect–until a bad guy shot the gasoline drum the good guy was hiding behind, and it exploded.