When I was in Egypt with the MFO we had people having Negligent discharges into the clearing barrel because they didn't realize they had to drop the magazine before charging their weapon and pulling the trigger.
We also had this one moron who somehow managed to drop an M249 from a guard tower. Only thing that was salvageable was the receiver and the barrel.

I thought weapons were tested to survive such drops?

Heh plastic furniture isn't going to survive a drop from that high onto a concrete foundation.

Read: broke the stock, pistol grip, handguard and part of the heat shield.

LOL! That is pretty bad. Those things aren't cheap :). I have one that my dad told me: he once went to an indoor range and there was some guy there with his (I guess) young teenage son. Dad hands the son a .357 revolver and the kid proceeds to shoot the ceiling with it multiple times....not good for the ceiling to say the least.

Multiple times! I could see someone doing that with an uzi or something but with a revolver?

A few years back my buddy was showing me the shotgun his grandfather had just gave him and ended up pointing it right at my chest, so I took it from him, checked it, and gave him a lengthy lecture on proper gun handling before letting him have his shotgun back.

I have two that spring to mind. The first was told to me by a soldier friend, apparently one day out on the ranges a fellow recruit was shooting his L85 with iron sights, and was adjusting the position of the gun in his shoulder between shots when he ND'd. Not normally a massive problem, gun was pointing down range so there was no immediate danger. However the butt of the gun wasn't against his shoulder and the iron sight was just in front of his face meaning that the gun kicked back and the iron sights hit him in the face and fractured his cheek bone. To add to it, this would normally be left to heal by itself, but he then fell over whilst drunk (apparently he was a fuck-up in several ways) and messed it up more, meaning he had to have an operation where they cut between his gum and inside lip to stick a plate up there.

Second was during a counter piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden when a Merlin flying from a Royal Navy ship was sent towards a merchant vessel which was asking for help. There was a small boat tailing it, and the Marine snipers on board could see that the people on board had AKs along with an RPG. When they saw the Merlin they tuned away from the boat and started throwing their weapons into the sea, but then the guy with the RPG accidentally fied it straight down into the deck of their boat. The warhead didn't detonate, but the boat very quickly sunk and the would be pirates ended up being rescued by Royal Marine ORCs.

There's a YouTube video here of a guy torture-testing his Glock by dropping it from a plane. Also, I remember reading that the Austrian Army's torture test for the AUG involved dropping it 50 feet onto concrete (and the rifle was undamaged by the fall). With these examples in mind, I'm actually a little surprised that a U.S. mil-spec weapon couldn't survive falling from a guard tower - which I assume was no higher than 50 feet? Then again, a SAW is a larger, heavier weapon with more moving parts.

That's awesome