Saturday, October 20, 2007

Accidental Shooting: Curious Story

Two people have been charged with a felony here, but the story has a very interesting detail:

Holmes handed the gun to the 17-year-old, Charlie Tate, who removed the clip from the weapon and touched the trigger with his right index finger, the complaint says. The gun then discharged, with the bullet striking Moore in the chest, according to the complaint.

"Touched"? Are we talking a highly-modified 'hair trigger' commonly used only by target-shooters? Extensive modification of the trigger mechanism?

Something doesn't quite add up.

By the way, whoever wrote the story should learn the difference between "magazine" and "clip."

3 comments:

Unknown said...

If the clip is missing, how does it fire at all?

Dad29 said...

First off, Lois, it is a "magazine" which holds the un-fired rounds.

To answer your question: one round had been loaded into the chamber BEFORE the magazine was ejected. (It stays in the chamber when the mag is pulled.)

This is called "locked and loaded," and since the safety (if there was one) was not on, the gun will fire when the trigger is pulled.

Unknown said...

Sorry, although I have been shooting since I was a little girl the terms were never emphasized. I did not understand the difference between a magazine and a clip.