I can admit to one. I had gone to the range and had gotten home and was cleaning my Glock 19. While I was reassembling the pistol, my neighbor stopped in for a visit. We talked for a few minutes as I finished and during this time I cycled the slide and dry fired it a few times. I then wanted to test the slide lock so I reached into my range bag for a magazine, inserted it, racked the slide, then pulled the trigger. BANG!
There are a number of things I did wrong: 1. Had live ammo in the same area where I was cleaning the gun (This no longer happens). 2. I was too busy talking to realize that I was loading a full magazine into the pistol. 3. I did not check the chamber when the slide was racked to verify no cartridge was present. 3. Because I was in conversation, I did not pay attention to the fact that the slide did not lock (which was my purpose for putting what I expected to be an empty magazine in the pistol to begin with)
Now for the only good part of my scary lesson. I followed the rule that you never point a gun at something you do not want to destroy. The round went into the concrete garage floor two feet in front of me. I can not begin to explain how pissed I was at myself and I realize that at that moment my life could have been ruined.
The reason I am writing this is to pass on a valuable lesson. Do not allow yourself to become complacent; EVER! I can only surmise that the only reason no one was hurt was where I chose to aim. This has changed the way I handle my weapons FOREVER. I had gotten too complacent and the main safety (my brain) was taking care of other matters. DO NOT EVER ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN TO YOU!
