Three People Injured in Florida Gun Range Mishap

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,559904,00.html?test=latestnews

Three People Injured in Florida Gun Range Mishap
Sunday, October 04, 2009

LAKELAND, Fla. — A Tampa couple and an Irish tourist were shot at a Lakeland gun range after a handgun accidentally fired.

Polk County sheriff's deputies say it's not entirely clear how many times Michael and Sherri Thourot's 9mm accidentally went off Saturday, or what caused the handgun to fire. The pistol was a Jennings make.

The man in an adjacent stall, 29-year-old Gary Flynn, of Ireland, was most seriously injured. He underwent surgery after being hit in the shoulder and throat, and was listed in stable condition.

Michael Thourot was shot in the left hand, and Sherri Thourot was hit in the left arm. Both were also listed in stable condition.

-----

A Jennings? Is that the one that the safety can be up or down for safe depending on manufacturer date?
 
It's a Jennings.

You could have perfectly reliable factory ammunition and text book hand gun safety handling and still wind up with this type of damage and injury from a kb! or misfire resulting in multiple discharges.

Then again, it's a Jennings. Their judgment is already in question so it's just as easy to believe that they were juggling it or trying trick shots.
 
Have you ever heard anything good about a Jennings?
I have not.

This could happen at any range, public or private, and 99.999% of the time it is shooter error that causes it. Never give a Newbie a gun with more than one round in it!
 
busted_glock7.jpg



Not the pistol in question, just a guess.
 
There are potentially some federal charges in here...
Illegal importation is the first one.

The Polk County Sheriff's Office said the gun may have been altered, leading to the malfunction. Detectives expect to know more when they take the gun apart and inspect it as they continue to investigate.

Sherri Thourot said her son, 29-year-old Jeremy, brought the 9mm back to the United States after one of his tours in Iraq with the Navy. He gave it to them this summer.

The couple cleaned the gun and made sure it was in good condition before taking it to the range, she said. They never expected to leave in an ambulance.
Click to expand...
 
Keep it pointed in a safe direction.
Unloaded until ready to use.
Finger off trigger until ready to fire.

Like us gun owners aren't already catching enough heat. These accidents are really starting to piss me off. [angry]
 
Tim111 said:
Keep it pointed in a safe direction.
Unloaded until ready to use.
Finger off trigger until ready to fire.

Like us gun owners aren't already catching enough heat. These accidents are really starting to piss me off. [angry]
Click to expand...

Most of that was adhered to, if not all. The problem appears to be a mechanical issue that allowed the thing to fire without a finger, or something similar, pulling the trigger. It was probably modified in iraq before the kid found it and brought it home.
 
terraformer said:
Most of that was adhered to, if not all.
Click to expand...

But if the gun was pointed in a safe direction nobody would have gotten shot. I thought that was the reason for the rule? So that even if there is a serious malfunction, everyone is safe. I just keep thinking that if rule #1 was followed nobody would have gotten shot.

Am I missing something? Still not awake yet.
 
Pilgrim said:
The import problem is not necessarily an issue.

Unless things have changed, it is legal for a GI to purchase and bring home a firearm....at least it was.

I did.
Click to expand...

In the mid 80's a lot of import controls were placed on firearms. I doubt returning GIs were magnanimously exempted so things have likely changed since you were in.
 
Tim111 said:
But if the gun was pointed in a safe direction nobody would have gotten shot. I thought that was the reason for the rule? So that even if there is a serious malfunction, everyone is safe. I just keep thinking that if rule #1 was followed nobody would have gotten shot.

Am I missing something? Still not awake yet.
Click to expand...

The description in one article listed as a quote from the mother said that the gun was firing on it's own while spinning in a circle. If a handgun, placed on it's side, suddenly went full auto while out of a person's hands, I would expect it to spin like what was described. The key to this whole thing being did the gun somehow become a FA and if so, how.

ETA: The second post in this thread says, "How did one round get three people?". That is the natural assumption but apparently it was not one round.
 
Last edited:
Jennings makes junk guns. Can't even imagine someone buying one in a foreign country and importing it to the US! He should be charged with piss-poor taste in guns! [wink]

Having seen what can happen when you try to fire a junk gun, I can imagine this happening just as it was written.

Lawyer friend took a junk gun (.22LR revolver) from one of his clients who had threatened to kill his Wife (this was back in the 1970s, ROs were relatively unheard of, but I don't know any more about the case itself).

He brought it to the gun club we used to shoot at and asked "what did I think" about the idea of shooting it. It required removal of the pin (extractor rod in most modern guns) and cylinder to load. I told him to load only 1 round. When he fired it, the hammer was like a duck-bill pair of pliers and served as the firing pin. At any rate, the round went off "out of battery" out the cylinder BESIDE the barrel!

That was it, he agreed that he would turn it into MSP for destruction pronto. He represented at least one PD and had connections with MSP, so I figure he "went direct" to them for disposal.

If he had loaded the entire cylinder, I'm reasonably sure that two rounds would have gone off when he pulled the trigger.

There are some guns out there with no viable QC in mfg and they really shouldn't be out on the street, mostly for the owner's safety. Jennings fits that description IMNSHO.
 
terraformer said:
There are potentially some federal charges in here...
Illegal importation is the first one.
Click to expand...

Uhh, sure..... yeah. I doubt he actually "brought it back from iraq". He probably kept it somewhere stateside before he deployed or whatever.

Further, barring customs finding an undeclared gun in someone's baggage on re-entry, it's very difficult to even prove illegal importation.

-Mike
 
LenS said:
If he had loaded the entire cylinder, I'm reasonably sure that two rounds would have gone off when he pulled the trigger.

There are some guns out there with no viable QC in mfg and they really shouldn't be out on the street, mostly for the owner's safety. Jennings fits that description IMNSHO.
Click to expand...
Then there are all the other horror stories I've heard about drilled out starter pistols and modified replicas loaded with real rounds. Oh and frequently discovered pistols with multiple different calibers of bullets loaded up... [thinking]

Perhaps we should have the equivalent of needle exchange and let them turn in their dangerous gun for something safe like a Glock?[rofl]
 
The article linked by RI John says this:
Sherri Thourot said her son, 29-year-old Jeremy, brought the 9mm back to the United States after one of his tours in Iraq with the Navy. He gave it to them this summer.
Click to expand...

It's not really clear on the specifics of how the POS gun got into his possession (souvenir, local purchase, etc.), but the process of getting through customs when returning is so hellish I was willing to stay on deployment for another tour just to avoid it. The paperwork involved with bringing back firearms and such is just awful, and I can't imagine someone going through all that crap for a Jennings. RichM can give more insight to it probably, but personally I'd donate to the Brady Campaign before I tried to get a bring-back through Ali Al Salem.
 
terraformer said:
In the mid 80's a lot of import controls were placed on firearms. I doubt returning GIs were magnanimously exempted so things have likely changed since you were in.
Click to expand...

You might want to do some research. There are a distinctly different set of
rules for GIs bringing back firearms under certain circumstances while stationed abroad.

BATFE even has a different import form for GI's...

http://www.atf.gov/forms/pdfs/f53303b.pdf

-Mike
 
drgrant said:
You might want to do some research. There are a distinctly different set of
rules for GIs bringing back firearms under certain circumstances while stationed abroad.

BATFE even has a different import form for GI's...

http://www.atf.gov/forms/pdfs/f53303b.pdf

-Mike
Click to expand...

Yes, but the Jennings, by definition, would fail this requirement:

1 (a) that such firearm or ammunition is generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes . . .
Click to expand...

[laugh] [rofl]
 
drgrant said:
It's a Jennings... anything bad is possible. Jennings + morons handling it = people getting shot.

-Mike
Click to expand...

If it happened as reported, recognizing that QC and "safety" are mere afterthoughts with crap guns like the Jennings, it may not be morons at work (other than for even attempting to fire it).

I can actually believe that any so-called "safety devices" might fail and cause a multiple firing while it is sitting on the bench (something that wouldn't happen with a quality firearm unless intentionally diddled with)!

If a gun were to fire while laying on the bench, it will indeed spin around and go off in different directions, all without any physical help from the shooter.

I see some credibility in the story as reported.
 
nobody expects a gun sitting at reat on a bench to suddenly go off discharging multiple rounds in various directions, not down range.

I will admit there have been times when my wife and I have gone to the range, and I have reloaded a gun and put it down on the bench so my wife could just pick it up and shoot it. Even though I consider my handgun collection to be made up of quality guns (no glock remarks please!) and I wouldn't hesitate to carry any of my guns with a loaded chamber, I think from now on the wife will have to do her own prep work.
 
Lotta mistakes

If she's been around guns all her life, she should have been loading it herself. My theory is he dropped the slide as he laid it down, got a slam fire when he didn't have a good grip, then the gem went full auto, thanks to either Jennings' famous QC or the gunsmithing skills of some Iraqi blacksmith. Either way, it wouldn't have happened if they'd followed the rules.
I've seen one handgun go full auto on a crowded range. It was not a POS, and it wasn't tinkered. It was a brand new in the box, stainless, union-made, .45 Gold Cup. Fortunately the guy had a good grip on it, and all 8 went down range, some higher than others. His complexion got much lighter, and his BVD's probably got a little darker, but nobody went to the hospital. When it comes to untested semi-auto's, Murphy's an optimist.
 

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