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Comment by nosignono | Hacker News Reader

This wasn't a case of an idiot, except perhaps placing the muzzle in a direction that a human would be present.

The gun was in the holster, and the entire holster was removed from the belt and placed on a desk. There's nothing in that course of action that would allow a finger or anything to get into the trigger well. The gun should absolutely not have gone off.

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I didn’t read nabla’s comment as accusing the deceased of being an idiot. Rather, it was a statement that the military is full of idiots (aka teenage boys) and therefore any standard issue weapon should be designed appropriately.

A gun that can go off on its own even when handled properly is the opposite of idiot-proof.

> the military is full of idiots (aka teenage boys)

The Air Force is not. (The average Air Force servicemember is older, better educated, better paid and subject to more demands than the average servicemember in the other branches.)

I know some people who went into the air force out of high school. They are idiots.

Given a large enough group of people you will have examples of just about anything (including idiots)

Another example, it's estimated that 1-2% of all military members are part of or connected to an illegal gang organization.

> I know some people who went into the air force out of high school. They are idiots

Every population has some idiots in it. My point is the Air Force is difficult to get into, has a high fraction of educated servicemembers [1], has lower turnover and higher pay than the other branches. (Back when we measured IQ, the Air Force had a higher average IQ than the other branches and population.)

I know idiots who work at Google. That doesn't it's safe to assume the average person at Google is an idiot.

[1] https://www.collegevine.com/faq/90807/most-educated-branch-o...

I'm not sure if this is the message you intended, but it's worth noting that having a high IQ doesn't necessarily prevent someone from being an idiot.

Historically the word "idiot" was used particularly with those with very low IQ scores but now is a pejorative term.

Within the context, we’re talking about someone who can be trusted to be mature with a firearm. That’s more true for an average Air Force servicemember than the average American. I’d reflect OP’e scepticism if we were talking about the average Army, Marine or Navy servicemember, in large part because young men are stupid and the folks in those services skew younger than the Air Force.

Maybe - although it seems these days, being fundamentalist/evangelical is about the only hard-and-fast requirement..

Even an "intelligent" (i.e. clever) teenage boy or young man is often still an idiot (i.e. prone to astonishingly bad decisions).

If it was in the holster, most people don't teach that the muzzle direction rule applies (since in the holster it's supposed to be inert). A lot of carry methods have the muzzle pointing at things you would not want it pointing at when unholstered.

Yeah agreed. If people taught this than thigh holsters would be out (muzzle direction when sitting down), so would shoulder holsters. Pretty reasonable to expect a gun to not go off randomly, especially when reliable drop safety mechanisms have been around for a long time.

There's a joke about appendix carry of Sig pistols providing cheap bottom surgery for mtf trans people.

There's no holster in the world that would convince me to carry any gun in that position hah. I've seen some advertisement for concealed carry holsters that make me cringe. Only carry position that actively aims the gun at you when you sit down or bend over.

Thigh holsters suck anyway, the only people that use them are people that have never had to run in them.

I've never used one, but I did see a police officer with one once. Maybe there's certain sitting positions or something where it's more comfortable to wear all day.

Can't draw in a car with a thigh holster.

(Is easier to sit in.)

In general the safety rules I was taught were defense in depth -- multiple failures need to happen before someone can get hurt. So, even when you have a holstered firearm, pointing the muzzle away from people is preferable because then if it somehow does fail at least it's less likely to shoot someone.

Obviously that's not always practical, but if you are placing a chambered firearm down on a desk, you might as well try to point it in the direction of least harm, it basically costs zero to do.

Yeah I don’t disagree and do the same

"The gun was in the holster, and the entire holster was removed from the belt and placed on a desk."

If they can prove this in the investigation, this completely sinks Sig's defense that this can't happen with the upgraded FCU that they released to supposedly fix this issue since it's in all military variants.

There is a good chance there is security video coverage. Sig is cooked along with whoever their fanboys are in senior command. Hopefully that means the P226 Legion comes down in price :D

Where did you get those details? I've read a couple stories on this incident and haven't seen that mentioned.

I think there is a lot of coverage but this is where I heard the details: https://youtu.be/ssNFf_bMjf8?si=47rN4X7WArPbNckZ

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