Since a number of you were at the Angeles Range last weekend you might find this of interest.

The left-side of Angeles has the concrete benches.  The right-side is the pistol-side and the blackpowder side, and also where our club (Southern California Golden Bears) has their high-power matches where you can position shoot.   I was shooting on the far right of the pistol side (pistol only today, SIG 226 9mm, SIG 229 357SIG and a Firestar M43 9mm), while my brother was next to me breaking in a spacegun upper on his Armalite M15A4T.

Two guys arrived and picked a bench to the right of us by the clay-pigeon thrower and set-up a target at 50yds.  I finished shooting, packed and left.  My brother continued to shoot.  The two guys pulled out a DPMS AR with an 8x32 scope on it and started shooting at th 50yd. target.  Apparently the guy had a problem round and kept getting a misfire on the round.  My brother observed him pull the cocking-handle back about six times (it seems the round was also stuck in the chamber).  The range officer called for a cease-fire and came down the line to check the guns and just as he approached the DPMS guy, the DMPS guy picked-up the DPMS, swung it around (to the right aimed away from the people) and set it on the bench behind the firing line facing the opposite direction from the targets.  As he set it down on the bench behind he apparently pulled the trigger thinking he had a dud round, and it discharged, striking one of the metal fence-posts and ricocheting into the parking lot.  Obviously the DPMS guy could not clear the chamber of a live round and made the stupid assumption that the round wouldn't fire when he pulled the trigger, and an accident resulted from his stupidity.  

Heck, that is not an AR accident. That is ignorant shooter negligence!

That's how people get hurt.

1) Always keep rifle pointed in a safe direction.

2) Keep finger off of trigger.

3) Keep rifle unloaded until ready to fire.

If one has a similar problem, the thing to do is pull the bolt-carrier out and an accidental discharge won't occur.

Must have been the rifle owned by Stu Pidasso....

Damn lucky nobody got their head blown off !!!

STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!

I bet the guy musta felt like a real dumbass after that !!!

Glad nobody took a bullet, probably would have made national news...

"INNOCENT CHILD GUNNED DOWN BY ILLEGAL ASSAULT RIFLE"

In my book, no such thong as an accidental discharge.only NEGLIGENT DISCHARGE. I wonder if this guy was a "graduate" of commiefornias basic firearms safety course!![;D]

That is truly a lucky ending to a senseless and needless situation. Was the shooter punished by the Rangemaster in any way, suspended, etc.

The guy could have killed someone!!

so what happened to the guys on the range with the AD/ND ? booted off ? ass chewed out ? a swift kick to the nuts by everyone there ?

What do you mean kept getting a misfire?? If it don't go the first time why re-try it?? Get it out and away from people!

Yeah 100 wooded, rolling acres, best Homer Simpson...Ummmmm land to shoot on.

Sometimes I wish I had 100 acres somewhere so the only stupid person I have to worry about is myself.

Mattja, I agree with you.  I said the same thing to my brother.

I'll find out what happened to the guy when I go to the range for out high-power match on Sunday, as my brother's not sure exactly what the range did about the idiot.

I have to constantly watch the other people using the range.  About five benches to the left of me (before the other incident) today a couple of guys in their late thirties with a boy about 10, were shooting with an SKS, Mauser and a bolt-action .22.  The adults didn't supervise the kid properly, and when a cease-fire was called the kid hadn't fired all his rounds and layed the rifle down with a round in the chamber , cocked and no safety.  I got up an went over just as the dad saw the range guy checking actions.  Only then did the dad notice the loaded rifle.  A few minutes later when shooting resumed, I went over and watched the kid myself.  He started aiming at my brother's target and I told him that's not his target and don't shoot at it.  Then the kid aims at someone else's target and I tell him that if he wants to shoot a target he has to put his own up.  Only then does the dad come over when he sees me talking to his kid.  I tell him and he's not even bothered.

In some ways making people take firearms training isn't a bad idea.  When I was 10 that's what you had to do to shoot at the local smallbore range before you could come and shoot on a regular basis.  We had to take the NRA Basic Marksmanchip Course.  My father also made us do it regardless of what the range wanted.  I think the best solution would be for ranges to institute monetary fines for improper range conduct.  People don't pay attention to safety, but they pay slightly more than no attention when money is at stake.

The skeet range is another nightmare, because all the over/under users seem to think that it is OK to wave their broken-open shotguns around just because there' no ammo in it.

It's amazing there aren't more incidents.

i hope they threw the fool out.

...with his AR stuck where the sun don't shine!!!!

I think you should try renaming this post Dumba$$ accident at Angeles range today.  No sense trying to give DPMS (which are fine rifles IMHO) a bad name due to someone's lack of common sense.  

No amount of training courses will make idiots practice safe gunhandling techniques. People these days have little or no regard for the safety, well being or personal space/property of others. This goes back to the core of modern society's problem nowadays. You can't "train" that kind of total disreguard out of someone. The best thing to do is just shoot em and get it over with! [frag] [heavy]

Agreed, the title makes it sound like there was a kaboom or something.  The type of rifle has no bearing on the fact that this guy is an idiot.

The best way to prevent these errors is training.  We need a NRA training course implemented in every grammer, middle and high school.  A one or two day class for training.  Maybe other groups, like power tool vendors will also have their training day.  Car manufacture' will have their safety day.

and maybe MMM and HCI egg throwing day.

What a dumbass!!!!!!!!!! They should take away his ar and give it to me!!!!!!!!!!

Regardless, the barrel should still be downrange.  Suppose it had a long hang time in the primer, even with the upper removed the round could still fire 30 seconds later.

I identified the firearm involved by make.  It was an accident at the range involving an AR clone by DPMS.  It's the same as reporting a drunk-driving accident and identifying the type of car involved.

Ticonderoga,

At some point if you get a round stuck in the chamber you might have to transport your firearm home.  With an AR you should be able to remove the bolt-carrier with the bolt in order to transport it safely, so you can fix it in a better environment than the range.  

ME TOO!

Please edit your post to remove DPMS from the 'subject' line, unless you are saying that DPMS was at fault here.

While you probably didn't mean to reflect poorly on them, guns from all manufacturers have misfires - sometimes it's the ammo, too.

In this case, the primary problem is the idiocy of the owner, and he should get top billing on the moron marque.

[red][size=4]

If they did that you would have a lot of guns!

A friggin' moron.  But then, I would expect such behavior from someone shooting a 8X scoped AR at 50 yards.  I've witnessed stupid behavior about half the times I've visited ranges in the LA area.  One jackass didn't see anything wrong with shooting his MAK 90 over my shoulder.  Another guy goes and walks on my shooting mat, as if it was there to wipe off his feet.  Inasmuch as I despise anti-gunners, I cannot fault the Forest Service from closing down the public (unsupervised)ranges in the Angeles National Forest.  They were a magnet for morons and criminals from the city.  

Maybe things are different where you are, but in fact around here we [u]don't[/u] see the make of vehicle mentioned unless that has some possible bearing on the cause of the mishap, like with the Ford Explorer and the Firestone tires.

I guess your point was that the guy was so obviously a reckless idiot that there was no harm in throwing in the rifle brand.  My point is that unless the brand is relevant, there's no point in including it.  

No one's saying you meant any harm - you said nothing even remotely negative about anything but the @$%&#$&(^@! nut case.

Too bad the round didn't go through his windshield or between his toes......he oughta have to take a hunter safety course about three times before they let him shoot.  Or take his picture and post it with an appropriate caption.

I've made some stupid mistakes, but never one that bad, and let this be a reminder to us all to make sure we never do.......

if the upper was a dpms also - then it does deserve to stay in the title.  but then what kind of ammmo was being used?  was it the rifle's fault that the round did not extract or ammo related.

accidents occurr when three or more random acts of stupidity converge.  (crap rifle, crap ammo and idiot on the trigger?)  regardless of ammo or rifle - the person using it is a dumbass!

having near been shot in the back by an ak totting aremenian - some kind of basic instruction couldn't hurt.  treat every rifle as if it were loaded.  never point at anything you don't want to destroy.  not any simpler than that!

steve

This guy was obviously a complete idiot. You mention Public Ranges in the Angeles Forest. Here in Florida, we have a public range in the Ocala Forest. Recently, I heard that they added a safety officer. I've never personally been there, but I've talked to people who have and it seems that those people shouldn't be shooting. One guy I talked to said that another guy shot a clay pigeon directly over his head. He was lucky that he wasn't hit. This guy basically, said If the guy did that again he would have shot back. The reason these idiots even exist is because of the antis. They flip out at the suggestion of teching anything other than to not touch a gun ever. Every child should be taught the proper methods of handling, loading, and firing handguns (revolvers, Pistols), rifles (bolt, semi, lever), and shotguns (Pump, Over/Under) This would ensure that these idiots learn early the safety procedures necessary to keep 'em from killing somebody and giving every gun owner a black eye, as well as fueling the MMM and other Antis. I learned as a young child from my uncle how to treat a handgun. He showed me how to load, unload, chamber, etc. I was also taught to always point the muzzle in a safe direction. My dad allowed this, but it drove my mom crazy. She was anti-gun. My favorite was the first time my uncle handed me a loaded "assault weapon." This was prior to the ban. Unfortunately he sold it cheap before 1994. Man, I wish he still had it. I knew by then how to treat a firearms safely. But, being anti-gun, I thought my mom was gonna knock 'em sensless. Something to the effect. "How could you give a child a loaded assault weapon." When I was 10, I fired a 12 gauge shotgun for the first time. I learned how to shoot skeet. I was rather fortunate that my dad and uncle (his brother), were both pro-gun. I got alot of training before I ever got my first gun. I knew what to do and have never once had a problem. If we could get through to the antis that handing a minor a firearms is not going to result in innocent children losing their lives. I wonder how many children don't even know what a handgun is. That is the real danger. When these kids grow up they become this guy.

I say that we should take every student and teach them about firearms in gym class. They would learn safety, techniques, etc. Personally, I would rather that a kid who knows how to disarm a pistol find it and disarm it than that kid get an adult who can't figure out what that strange curved thingee does.

btt