Three People Injured in Florida Gun Range Mishap (Jennings arms pistol malfunction?)

True. However I don't own any revolvers and it is only a matter of time before he can do it consistently.

Besides most of my handguns are Glocks and they don't go off by themselves. :biggrin:

If he's slowly getting the hang of it, then you could pick up an Advantage Arms conversion kit. The inexpensive .22 ammo along with the lighter recoil spring would make it easier for your son to get the hang of racking the slide. I've been working with my 5 year old using the conversion kit on my G 19. He's slowly getting the hang of it.



gf
 
No matter what we try, my sister-in-law CANNOT rack the slide on her pistol. I keep telling the brother-in-law to get her a revolver, but he hasn't yet...I'm hoping, in the meantime, that she's not a disaster waiting to happen.

Damned if I wouldn't get a revolver as opposed to using the aforementioned Jennings firearm!
 
If he's slowly getting the hang of it, then you could pick up an Advantage Arms conversion kit. The inexpensive .22 ammo along with the lighter recoil spring would make it easier for your son to get the hang of racking the slide. I've been working with my 5 year old using the conversion kit on my G 19. He's slowly getting the hang of it.

gf
Good Idea!
 
No matter what we try, my sister-in-law CANNOT rack the slide on her pistol. I keep telling the brother-in-law to get her a revolver, but he hasn't yet...I'm hoping, in the meantime, that she's not a disaster waiting to happen.

Damned if I wouldn't get a revolver as opposed to using the aforementioned Jennings firearm!


The problem may be with the instructors rather than the techniques. Through experience, I've found that in some cases wives have a difficult time learning firearms safety from their husbands, or even with the husbands nearby. When I get a husband/wife pair in my class, I have the assistant instructors observe and see if this is becoming a problem. If it is (as it has in several cases), we'll split the husband and wife up into different groups. This usually allows the wife to be more comfortable, especially when she's around a bunch of other women and she ends up getting more out of the class.

You may have success in having your sister-in-law learning from an instructor that's not related or too close to the family. I have a couple of great female instructors I work with here in PRHI if you're up for a "road trip". :biggrin:



gf
 
I've read numerous stories about Jennings firearms doing stuff like that. Personally, I believe that this is one brand that should be banned. Clearly, a gun that can fire without the trigger being squeezed or by simply deactivating the safety is not safe for ANYONE to handle. It's just a good thing that no one was killed in that incident.
 
I remember back in the days of the "Saturday Night Special" debates that the .25 auto was the choice of weapon to conceal and Jennings being one of the primary brands. The general concensus was that a SNS was a gun that was more dangerous to the shooter than the shootee. I see that now after 40 or so years Jennings is still living up to its reputation.
 
New Member

Hello Folks,

I am a new member and this is my first post. I have been very interested in this incident and am glad to find this forum, as I am a FL resident and this range is fairly close to me. I had never heard of it until this incident. I belong to a very fine Gun Club about an hour away from my home. Safety is their utmost concern - fun and assistance is next. No unpleasant RO's, all are very helpful and friendly If you violate the rules you are corrected if it is an honest mistake, after that you are refunded your money and told not to return. I have visited other ranges that I would never consider going to again. I had more guns pointed at me at one than I had in my tour of Vietnam. I left immediately and told them I would not be returning. Guns are a tool to be used as needed. The quality of the "tool" and the manner in which it is used dictate it's safety.

I am anxious to see the outcome of this investigation.

Glad to be aboard,

Len
 
Welcome aboard Len. We hope you will stick around and provide us with some good insight and experiences. If you find any more info on this please let us know. It sounded like a "bad gun" rather than operator error.
 
Thank you for the welcome. I am going to be near there today and may stop in to see if I can find out more. I have a "Springfield TRP" wanting some exercise.
 
Welcome Len

Although it is callled a "bad gun", it really is a judgement error by the owner/operator (buying a bad gun in the first place; not verifying it was safe before taking it to the range, etc). I "inherited" a Jennings; I wouldn't take it to the range - I disassembled it.

A tool is only as safe as the person using it.
 
What a freak accident. Imagine that happening with the gun on your hip!

Hard to fault the owner, that's sort of like buying a used car (maybe it's all you can afford) and 10k miles later the brakes fail and you slam into someone. Your fault? legally, yep. Preventable? probably. But neglligent? debatable. Could it happen to anyone? definitely.

That said, it's a real shame and i hope everyone involved recovers quickly. For what it's worth, sounds like the owners both made a grab to stop the gun and got shot in the hand. My assumption, anyhow.
 
Read the orgional and all other posts; the gun was pointed down range and went off by its self.
Assuming that's true, because someone said it is, then those who were hit had to have been downrange, yes? When the gun pulled its own trigger, that is. What surprises me the most is not that the gun discharged itself multiple times, because that's so common, but that it didn't happen while someone was "cleaning" it.
 
The problem may be with the instructors rather than the techniques. Through experience, I've found that in some cases wives have a difficult time learning firearms safety from their husbands, or even with the husbands nearby
I've seen evidence to support this, first-hand. I'd say a rule-of-thumb should be husbands don't even attempt this. Unfortunately, there are many instructors who aren't all that good, too. But yes, firearms is an awful lot like billiards--everyone feels some personal guilt about not being able to do it well or even perfectly, without any training or practice or experience of any kind. Again, it's a cultural thing...every drunken retard with a penis feels inherently obligated to society to demonstrate some level of skill and prowess at the pool talbe. No reason, It just IS. Same with guns. Little wonder so few folks actually LEARN anything under these conditions.

Just shot next to a couple last weekend, in fact. Now, he wasn't bothered with trying to teach her safety...he was trying to get her to shoot. He asked for my assist when he suffered a few FTCs with a new Berreta. Hmmm...three visits to his lane, three times I had to pull his forefinger off the trigger while trying to clear the jam. Bad juju. Of course I did it in the nicest way I could...without cutting his b&&ls off, which I would have done had his spouse not been there. But again, why should he know this? No reason. There's no public range I know of that asks if you know and understand ANYTHING about gun safety before you staple up a bad-guy target.

I'm about as pro-gun rights as you can get, but it seriously baffles me why our culture is okay with, essentially, letting anyone walk in off the street and shoot next to ME...with not even the equivalent pertinent credentials generally required to rent a car or a sailboat. Funny. The approach we take to deadly weapons has the same element of reason as our approach to religion...with roughly the same outcome.

Oh, BTW, the '180 rule' applies only if you're the ONLY shooter standing at the firing line, as in an IDPA match. It's a '95 degree rule' if you're at a line abreast of other shooters. Duh.
 
Jennings Mishap

It's been a while since the last post on this incident. Does anyone have an update or further information?

Brainchild, as you posted that you know these folks well, how are Mr. & Mrs. Thourot doing? Any news to report on Mr. Flynn?
 

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