Oooops in the news

There was a local news story here yesterday. It seems an elderly veteran was checking in at the registration desk of a local medical building. During the course of getting out his ID, he somehow managed to drop his CCW firearm. Said firearm discharged upon hitting the ground. Fortunately, the only thing the round did was create a new ventilation hole in the ceiling. No one was injured. The receptionist said he was extremely apologetic before grabbing his gun and fleeing the building. At last report, police are still searching for him.

A few months back,up by me, an off duty officer dropped his firearm in a shopping mall that was posted no weapons allowed..same thing happened with the ventilation, luckily.....he searched and found himself......

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Originally Posted by Blade

There was a local news story here yesterday. It seems an elderly veteran was checking in at the registration desk of a local medical building. During the course of getting out his ID, he somehow managed to drop his CCW firearm. Said firearm discharged upon hitting the ground. Fortunately, the only thing the round did was create a new ventilation hole in the ceiling. No one was injured. The receptionist said he was extremely apologetic before grabbing his gun and fleeing the building. At last report, police are still searching for him.

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mmm, you'd think a pistol shouldn't go off by just dropping it? I wonder what he was carrying. I know training dictates that if you ever drop your pistol you should let it hit the ground instead of trying to catch it mid-flight. That's another good reason that I carry a Beretta.

If I had to take a wild guess, especially seeing that he was an older vet, I'd bet it was probably a 1911. The 70 series and older guns lacked a firing pin safety, or any passive safety for that matter. They could indeed discharge if dropped.

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Originally Posted by Blade

If I had to take a wild guess, especially seeing that he was an older vet, I'd bet it was probably a 1911. The 70 series and older guns lacked a firing pin safety, or any passive safety for that matter. They could indeed discharge if dropped.

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Isn't that what the half-cock is for? isn't that kind of a passive safety?

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Originally Posted by ponzer04

Isn't that what the half-cock is for? isn't that kind of a passive safety?

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I guess the ole vet had that ole 1911 locked and loaded, or at least we know he had it loaded.

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Originally Posted by denner

I guess the ole vet had that ole 1911 locked and loaded, or at least we know he had it loaded.

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I gathered that from your other statement, I was asking Isn't that what the half-cock safety is for on a 1911 and isn't that kind of a passive safety?

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Originally Posted by ponzer04

I gathered that from your other statement, I was asking Isn't that what the half-cock safety is for on a 1911 and isn't that kind of a passive safety?

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I'm really don't know much about 1911's, especialy the older ones w/o the firing pin safety block, but I would assume a half cocked 1911 would be qualified as a passive safety. I assume you could either carry it with one in the chamber hammer down, half cocked w/ one in the chamber and cocked and locked w/ one in the chamber or all of the above w/o/ one in the chamber. Of course if you carried one in the chamber half cocked you would still need to manipulate the hammer to cock before the pistol will fire. I don't know because this is all speculation, the pistol for all we know could have had a defect or bad sear or something as well.

Yeah, I don't know for sure that it was a 1911. There are other guns that can fire when dropped. Of course, any gun can fire at the wrong time if it's defective or something breaks.

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Originally Posted by ponzer04

Isn't that what the half-cock is for? isn't that kind of a passive safety?

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Yes.
The "half-cock" notch on a M1911's hammer is not an active safety. That is, you are not supposed to set the gun's sear into that half-cock notch and then consider it safe. It wouldn't be.
The 1911's half-cock notch is there to catch a falling hammer, should it slip off, or be knocked off, of the full-cock notch for any reason. This had its origin with the use of the 1911 in the horse cavalry.
If I remember correctly, from an original M1911 horse-cavalry manual that I once read, the cavalry was originally supposed to carry the 1911 in "condition two," hammer down on a loaded chamber, and troopers were supposed to thumb-cock preliminary to full presentation from the holster. The half-cock notch was there to catch a thumb-slipped hammer.

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Originally Posted by Steve M1911A1

Yes.
The "half-cock" notch on a M1911's hammer is not an active safety. That is, you are not supposed to set the gun's sear into that half-cock notch and then consider it safe. It wouldn't be.
The 1911's half-cock notch is there to catch a falling hammer, should it slip off, or be knocked off, of the full-cock notch for any reason. This had its origin with the use of the 1911 in the horse cavalry.
If I remember correctly, from an original M1911 horse-cavalry manual that I once read, the cavalry was originally supposed to carry the 1911 in "condition two," hammer down on a loaded chamber, and troopers were supposed to thumb-cock preliminary to full presentation from the holster. The half-cock notch was there to catch a thumb-slipped hammer.

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Ah, education, and interesting, you'd think there would be alot of slipping thumbs while cocking a 1911 w/ your thumb on horseback under stress. I knew we'd get a 1911 man to help us out, thanks Steve.