Wasn't there personally for these events but they all happened when I was in Afghanistan.

-US troop had a negligent discharge with an M203. Round didn't go off (the arming safety works!) but it did come apart when it hit the ground and a section mate got some shrapnel ricocheted into his leg.

-Canadian troop shot himself in the leg while doing an unload drill on a C6 RWS while standing in front of it on the cab.

-US troop was using a .50 round to pound out a pin on his gun, primer first. Went off in his hand and he lost some fingers. There's actually pictures of this one on the internet.

-Canadian troop was messing around with him loaded 9mm on his bunk. Round went through him and into his bunkmate below.

Stuff I did see, but via UAV:

-Couple of Afghan policeman went up a hill mountain in their civvies on their day off for a little recreational mortar shooting. We almost Pred striked them.

-Some Taliban broke out an 82mm mortar during a firefight with our battlegroup. They were about 500M away but fired it full charge. Near as we could tell it landed somewhere in the next district.

My first handgun was an XDm in 9mm. For awhile, I would top off my gun with the +1 in the chamber by inserting the cartridge directly down the chamber and then releasing the slide. Thankfully, a buddy observed me doing that and warned me to never do that with a handgun.

1994. Hohenfels Germany. 1/4 Infantry. My company brought a dozen M-60 machine guns back after running the M-60 range at Graf for the previous four days. We were breaking them down inside our building and one of the machine guns still had a round in it. It went off and into the floor. The Army had that little crater patched up within a couple days.

2002. The day after Thanksgiving. I pointed one of my "empty" S&W .357 magnum revolvers at the basement wall and pulled the trigger.:eek: Fourteen years later my wife still won't let me patch the little crater that the hollow point made when it impacted with the concrete wall. Says it's a good reminder for me to always make sure that the guns are really empty.

My first shotgun was a Mossberg 500 I bought from a friend. This was before he and I knew much about the advantages of having a shotgun with a stock for home defense, so he decided to leave it with just the pistol grip and with a vertical foregrip on the pump. Anyway, The day before I sold it, I accidentally pulled the trigger while pumping it, but thankfully the safety was on so I did not discharge the shot....into my wall...

The shop I worked at had one, got more than one person like that because the pump release button was super stiff, so there was no way to be gentle with it

I dropped my FAL bolt on my balls once, broke it open while sitting on my bed and it slid out instead of staying put (usually have to pull it). Luckily it didn't land too hard

The one at mine was smooth, so pumped it very casually and it bit me.

The first time I fired an M1 Garand, I only know the things I know from the movies so I asked where the safety was and the owner actually didn't know...I figured it out because I've handled M14 types before. Same place.

I was shooting an IPSC match 20 years ago and got a squib with my SA M1911A1. I put another round behind it and my handgun locked up.

The second round caused the barrel to split from the crown to the front of the chamber. I had to beat the slide off the frame with a rubber mallet. I shit canned the bbl and bushing, installed a new bbl and bushing and it was up and running again in 3 days.

A few years ago I installed a silencer on my M1A Scout. I had always heard M1As/M14s were a bitch to suppress. I did not realize why until round 3 when a blast of hot gas burned my face for three days. Open receiver will get you every time. I now run that rifle with a breech shield adapter and haven't been burned since.