My first autopsy was at Ft. Bragg. Two 82d Airborne grunts were playing quick draw in the barracks when one of the “unloaded” .45s went off. Since he was slightly bent over when he was shot the round skimmed the myocardium blew thru ribs and after exploding the liver exited. At Womack Army Hospital he was DOA but never let a training opportunity go to waste.. so they split em open from stem to stern, did open heart massage, stuck full O.R. towels behind the liver (I mean the .45 blew the liver apart).. ad infinitum. So I show up to do the autopsy (remember never let a good training opportunity slip away? SF 300F1 and select others have this opportunity at military posts under the supervision of the Medical Doctor directly in charge of the autopsy. You do the cutting, hoisting, cleaning, weighing while he gabs in a microphone) and the first think we do is weigh the corpse. Leather straps under him, crank em up on a huge scale; body slips sideways and since they split em stem to stern a gallon of blood guts parts and pieces splats to the floor. Great clean up job (for someone else).

But it will never happen to you, right? Let’s share some more.. I know this guy who was SF with three MOS(s), certificated sniper/sniper instructor, competition match shooter for a decade. Trained and worked with Blackwater and others. Match shoot in Colorado played by big boy rules. No Loading table supervision, no unloading table requirement or supervision in direct conflict with all sanctioned match rules. So rather than load the required rounds for the match loaded all weapons to their max capability. After the stage since there was no unloading table he walked off to go the next stage. Completely focused on the next stage some part of his mind for whatever reason decided to rest the trigger springs and he pulled the trigger. Round exploded 2″ in front of his foot. At least he kept the firearm pointed in a safe direction… figure out whom that idjit was? Me. 

Safe to say anyone who has gone on enough patrols has had someone in the patrol accidently pop of a round. Think about the potential consequences of that…
We had one of the first Barrett 92B rifles and had it loaded and chambered to shoot. It slipped from my hand 6″ max above the table and discharged blowing a hole thru two walls and coming to rest in a safe. No finger near the trigger. Called Ronnie Barrett personally who fought tooth and nail saying my finger had to be on the trigger.. Oddly enough within a week all 92B units were recalled and retrofitted and this became a non issue. Get the point?

Easy fix to the above. EVERY FRIGGIN WEAPON IS LOADED PERIOD. This has to be your mindset 100% of the time, period. Just cleaned your weapon and did a chamber check? It is definitely unloaded? Bullshit every weapon must be treated as loaded NO EXCUSE.

Easy fix #2. NEVER POINT YOUR WEAPON AT ANYONE FOR ANY REASON UNLESS YOU WANT TO KILL EM. Weapons are pointed up or down and never sweep a person’s torso. Reread above. Ever been in a gun store and seen a novice sweeping the barrel of a firearm around? Doesn’t make your hair stand on end? Guarantee it makes any pro spooky.. reread above again.
Point is you ain’t that smart and you ain’t that good so don’t fool yourself. A lot of civvies think the Navy Seals are awesome (they are). Real pros. They send the good ones to Ft. Bragg to go thru a couple Special Forces courses so they must be OK (pun intended). Anyway this Seal had a couple and decided to play with his “unloaded” pistol, put it to his head, pulled the trigger, adios brains. Years of training and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money in the toilet because he didn’t follow two simple frigging rules. But you know better, huh?