[George W. Bush]

What kind of gun requires you to put its safety in 'fire' position to unload?

If that part of it is true, it's little wonder the jury decided to punish such a stupid gunmaker. Not that I would have voted for it on the jury since no one should be allowed to even handle a gun without understanding that you never point it at anything you don't intend to shoot. Especially another person.

It's always been said that these lawsuits are frivolous because the gunmaker was not at fault in producing a weapon that fired. But in this case, if the facts presented are correct, there would be a strong case that putting the safety on 'fire' to unload could result in a misfiring sooner or later.

I'd really like to know if the gun had to be put on 'fire' in order to unload. This sounds pretty crazy.

One has to wonder if the family has concocted this story just for the lawsuit too.

[An Old Man]

"I'd really like to know if the gun had to be put on 'fire' in order to unload. This sounds pretty crazy."

Start thinking out of the box! Most people when asked about unloading a weapon instantly think about removing the cartridges from the rear of the weapon manually. But. . . what if you are one of those individuals who intends to remove the bullets from the case, and then let the extractor remove the case for you.

If the handler of the weapon falls into the later classification, then maybe the gun was functioning as designed, and there was a real need to place the safety in fire position.

What do you think? Accidental death or Murder in the first degree?

Semper Fi

[supercat]

What kind of gun requires you to put its safety in 'fire' position to unload?

Many do. Oftentimes for some reason the mechanism is designed so that the safety locks the action in the fully-closed position. Perhaps someone can explain the reasoning behind this.

[MarkL]

What kind of gun requires you to put its safety in 'fire' position to unload?

Actually, quite a few... Many firearms have safeties that not only lock the sear and/or trigger, but also the action as well. One that comes immediately to mind are the Colt 1911 pistol (when the safety is on, you can't retract the slide).

Mark