This news item from Queensland is puzzling. It states:

A Queensland police officer is being treated in hospital after a service pistol accidentally discharged into his face. The 41-year-old senior constable from Metro North was at the gun safe at Albany Creek police station in Brisbane’s north when the pistol discharged, causing shrapnel wounds to his face, police said in a statement.

What puzzles me is how the service pistol “accidentally discharged“. The official media release is very sparse.  It says only, like the news report that quoted it, that an officer was injured by “shrapnel” after his firearm discharged.

For anyone who knows anything about firearms, of just about mechanics, for that matter, it’s a given that guns don’t “just go off”.  They require a specific and deliberate series of actions before firing.

Even if you’re using a Glock.

See this article if you don’t get my humor.

How most shooters refer to incidents like this is negligent discharge, not accidental.  Guns go off unexpectedly when someone doesn’t pay attention to what they’re doing while handling a firearm.  That’s it.

Sorry if you’re offended by that statement.  Ask anyone who’s ever had a “negligent discharge” , and if they are being honest with both you and themselves, they will tell you one thing:

“I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing when I pulled the trigger unintentionally.”

Glock,negligent discharge,accidentally discharged