Today I had my first AD wih a firearm...and I'm very upset
Janq said:
...Otherwise I'm uber careful when handling firearms as I still haven't lost my fear (respect) for what they can do if mishandled.
Preface: This is a long old school Janq post.
So be forewarned and there will be no CN but there are lessons.
I went to the range today my first chance to get away from the house, family and life in general in four weeks. I'd actually had to bag out of a family relative of Mrs. Janq's, that I like, who was out this way all the way from NYC. I'd already planned since Tuesday to go shooting this weekend but that got bumped from Saturday to Sunday as due to Mrs. Janq asking me to move three rooms and reconfigure two of those to support television due to friends of hers & BabyJanq's coming to visit. I spent damn ner 18 hrs. workig on that yesterday including multiple trips to the hardware store and I was up to 3AM this morning running coax to make everything work.
So this morning I slept in to 1PM and woke up tired to BabyJanq being sick and tossing her cookies, the dog acting up because he's entering the teenage days, Mrs. Janq crrying because BabyJanq is sick and didn't sleep much last night so therefor neither did she and her uncle will be here in an hour can I go feed, water & walk the dog. Oh, and can you bring in the table from the carriage house it's too heavy and I cdon't know where the handcart (it's in the attic entryway...where it and the ladder always is).
So anyway I'm tired, mentally drained from work (regular work that is), badly in need of an escape, and all I want to do is to focus on a front sight for an hour and hear nothing but my own thoughts and a loud, POP.
I walk into the range where I'm a member and right off the two regular employees recognize me right off the bat. They both recall I haven't been there in a month and even remember that the day I was there it was stupid busy with non member rentals and that I voluntarily stopped my session short to allow others time to shoot/train. Wow, I'd forgotten as much is what I thought to myself.
So I take my favorite lane far right against the wall and far away from everyone else. I nod and say "hello" to the rangemaster of the day and because I'm a formal guy I ask him if he minds that I take the far right lane even as it's my norm, and I know he recognizes me and knows as much, and he says okay even though he's got all lanes open and is spread a tad thin working alone. I take the lane, unpack my kit, and today am traning with just the SA Commander and the Colt 'Defender' (Officer) both of which I walked in with on my person CCW'ing. Why? For no other reason that I could by my rights in MA I'm allowed to do so. I'd actually planned to wear my Blade-Tech OWB custom rig for my GSR too in honor of the 'how many guns can you carry' thread but thought against it in fear of having to run a gauntlet of goodbye hugs from the uncle, Mrs. Janq and BabyJanq too none of which like guns at all and to date don't know or never know (Mrs. Janq) if I might be carrying. More on that in another thread. So I had a great hour to myself hitting right at point of aim even out to 50' with the SA and teraing large singular ragged holes with the Colt even as conventional wisdom and internet fact is that it's damn near impossible to be accurate with a lightweight .45 as the recoil is punishing [lweak forearm having pussies!] and/or that less than 4" 1911's don't function reliably [bullshit]. So yeah okay, I had to move places twice because of issues with the range equipment but i walked out feeling good. I packed up my kit like normal, locked the ILS on the Defender and packed it away in my kit box (a normal everyday tool box), locked it to be doubly MA legal and common sensical, placed the SA in my Beltser and bounced out the door upon a brief convo wishing the rangemaster and counter guys a good week.
Afterward I call home to see how things are going, I've only been gone an hour 20 minutes and I'm 20 minutes away. The response is BabyJanq barfed, twice, the dog is acting crazy and her uncle left 15 minutes ago...can I go to the store to goe forzen lasagna (veggie only), apple sauce (no sugar added), and saltine crackers as well as somethign for me to eat as mrs. Janq doesn't feel up to making diner.
45 minutes later after standing in a stupid long line manned by Shamique Holdsclaw's slow motion moving daughter I get home to chaos. The dog is in his pen but the pen is in the area of the main entrance a good 30' away from where it normally is. BabyJanq has barfed again into what she calls her "throw up bucket" (a tupperware bowl), and Mrs. Janq looks like shit although I'd never tellher as much because well, why? So I unload the groceries, remove my locked toolbox from the truck storage area, and I head down to the basement to unload my kit.
Now to be specific in my basement there is this little room built above ground that was during the turn of the century a toilet closet for the servants to use near what was then the servants kitchen. All the equipment and such has been long ago removed by previous owners but the wet room remains. I've been using it as of late to stors my firearms, ammo, magazines and related kid unsafe stuff because it has a hasp on the door allowing me to lock it all up and be withing the letter of MA law. I used to use a closet a floor above right off the dining room but stopped doing so as I kept being walked in on by BabyJanq wanting to play or asking what I'm doing.
This is where the oddest shit happened.
I unpack my toolbox removing the ILS locked Defender and placing it back into it's case, also locked because I prefer to err on the side of caution. Then this is where things get surreal...
I recall lifting my shirt to remove the secondary magazine I always carry when CCW. It was a full load.seven rounds in a factory Colt magazine. I then remove the SA. I hear crying upstairs and the damn dog is moving the pen around because I can hear it moving around on the floor above. I look down at the SA and notice that it has no magazine loaded (?)! My first concious hought is OMG! I dropped a mag at the Super Stop & Shop!1! Then I think to myself no thats not possible it defies logic toward how the SA itself and the mage release works. I then begin in my mind tracing backward my steps through the grocery store, the car, the range and POP!
My ears are ringing and I smell gun powder and the room where I'm standing is slightly cloudy. I hear a high pitched ringing that on it's own is dimming albeit slowly. I look down at my hands and note the SA has a stove piped round in the chamber and my finger is on the trigger. Thats when I notice the hole in the floor of the closet which iotherwise is a field of painted grey wood. The hole is at an agle and is roughly the 5/8" of an inch wide a perfect circle in shape. It doesn't look newly formed though. My concious brain begins to theorize that that hole was always there even as I have no recall of it and know that I'm excellent at noticing even the most subtle of things. I've never seen that hole.
I place the gun down on the floor locked back. I'm totally stunned as to what just happened, but my brain tells me to run a systems check. Be sure I'm not hit and am not in shock. Like a child I jump up to test my foot, which was just 4 inches left of the mysterious hole, only to bash my head hard into the floor joists above. I think to myself "Fuck!" though as yet not a word escapes my mouth. Old school traning from back in the day thanks to dad, show no sign of pain, discomfort, shock or fear. Remian stoic even smile (toward your enemy) if possible. Old habits, and skills, truly are hard to shake. I then think woa that was probably loud as hell even if from all the way dwon here and unusual. Likely they heard that on the first floor. Play it off is my next concious thought. So I leave the weapon on the floor, lock up the door, and begin slamming every door in the basement and stompnig around. I knock over one of many spare interior doors leaning against a wall to the ground making a huge racket. I then go outside via one of the back doors and make more racket opening and closing doors. Meanwhile my mind is racing. What the fuck just happened? Am I hit? I feel okay but that might be my pain threshold which is very high or simply adrenalin. Relax is what i tell myself. This time I stand by the truck in the driveway and physically check myself for a wound. I come up empty. Thank God, Imight be able to sell this is what I think. I go back into the house through the basement and go back into the locked storage room. I put the gun away in it's case and lock it as I normally would the ILS and the case itself. I count and recount my magzines 5 times to find I'm not missing one at all. Imust have holstered the weapon while on 'auto-pilot', released the mag to top it off as I normally would but then placed it in my spare mag hoder slot of the belt rather than topping it of, replacing it, and loading a second magazine. This has never happened to me before in over 25 yrs. of weapon handling. I did once have an AD with my paintball marker but that doesn't count as the trigger system was electronic and someone who handled it prior had left it set to on.
I went back upstirs and Mrs. Janq asked what was I doing down stairs.
I told her that I was checking on the boiler draining it off and refilling it as well as taking some trash outside. It worked and I moved on to resolving the dog issue.
Jebus...! I go back to the basement and with my flaslight trace the hole through the floor into another board adjacent to it. I don't find the bullet though, nothing but a black gunposwder smear mark on the floor. My ears rang fo three hours afterward.
The lessons I've learned here are do not ever go into auto pilot mode. Upon being stunned by the missing magazine thing I subconconcously attemted to lower the hammer on an empty chamber as I would normally do using ne hand to brake the hammer and the other to pull the trigger. Only this time it wasn't empty. I totally skipped the part where I cycled the slide thrice and check the bore to be sure it's clear. Stupidly I did just that after the AD, when it was too late to do anything.
Another lesson I've learned is that AD can happen to anyone, even those like me who normally are "uber careful whne handling firearms" and that haven't lost their fear (respect) for what they can do if mishandled.
- Janq
