In the blog entry below this, you’ll see a retrospective on a helicopter crash a couple of years ago, with links to discussions on it at the time. You’ll also find what we didn’t have then: the Go-Pro camera’s recording of the crash, and how quickly and unexpectedly it happened.
A profound lesson from it relates to the third of the now-standard Four Rules of Firearms Safety created long ago by the late Col. Jeff Cooper – so long ago, apparently, that some today neglect to give Cooper credit for creating them.
Rule Three was to keep the finger off the trigger until one’s gunsights were on target. Today we go a little more depth into that; I for one teach it as “Keep the finger outside the trigger guard until you are in the very act of intentionally discharging the weapon.” In any sort of moving vehicle, that’s all the more critical…and in a small helicopter aloft in the wind, it’s even more so.
When the aircraft went down, there were three fully loaded hunting handguns on board, two of them holstered; only John Strayer’s was drawn. He was the one who had spotted the first quarry of what none of us could have known was going to be a shorter day of hunting than we expected, and his gun was appropriately drawn and ready. It was a Smith & Wesson Model 29 Mountain Gun, a relatively lightweight .44 Magnum loaded with powerful, deep-penetrating hunting ammo. Powerful enough that if it had unintentionally discharged in the wrong direction, it was totally capable of killing both the man on his immediate right (the pilot) and the man to his right, which would have been me.
It was John who was wearing the Go-Pro camera, and if you look closely, as the Hiller was coming over the copse of trees looking for the hog he had spotted, there’s an instant where he glances down and the camera catches his .44.
You can see that the double-action revolver is in his right hand. The hammer has not been cocked. His gloved left hand (it was cold in that open-side-cockpit helicopter on a January morning, even in Florida, with the wind coming through) is securing the gun in place, grasping it around frame and cylinder.
Then, the rotors hit the trees and the aircraft went down. (Helicopters, it turns out, don’t have much of a glide path.) At about the instant of final impact or just before, what may have been a reflexive reaction to the rotors hitting the treetops caused John to reflexively duck his head, where the Go-Pro was mounted, and the camera catches a very brief glimpse his revolver in hand.
John Strayer’s hand, still holding the .44 Magnum, was driven through the front of the cabin’s Plexiglas bubble by the impact, the jagged shards cutting his hand to the bone, including both the middle finger (primary grasping digit) and the trigger finger.
THE GUN NEVER DISCHARGED.
This photo, taken shortly after the crash, shows the severe damage Strayer’s hand sustained. John is grasping that very gun, with his index finger along the frame, as it was through the crash, and after, until he was able to exit the wreckage and re-holster.
Let’s review Col. Cooper’s rules, not exactly word for word but close enough:
Rule 1: Every gun is loaded. (Even if you’re sure it isn’t, treat it as if it was. Strayer’s most certainly WAS.)
Rule 2: Do not point it at anything you are not prepared to destroy. (Strayer never let his gun come inside 90 degrees toward his partners. The muzzle of his S&W did punch through the “bubble” of the cockpit, but that part, along with the rest of the bird, was destroyed by other forces in about the same fraction of a second by forces beyond his control, so…)
Rule 3: Do not let your finger inside the trigger guard until your sights are on target. Or, ideally, until you are in the very act of intentionally firing. Here, I think, is the most telling lesson of this particular incident: Strayer’s self-discipline in this regard was simply extraordinary.
Rule 4: Be certain of your target and that which is beyond it. (John Strayer had that under control, too.)
John Strayer is not, by any means, just “a guy with a gun.” He owns a gun shop. He has won more shooting matches and championships than he can remember. In the International Defensive Pistol Association, he is one of about only a couple of dozen people who’ve earned “Five Gun Master” status, out of more than 20,000 registered competitors.
And he is a “poster boy” for firearms safety, as at least one reader of this blog has already pretty much said before now.
Somewhere, I like to think, Col. Jeff Cooper is reflecting on this, and smiling…
Regarding Rule 2, pointing the muzzle of any firearm away from the top of the cabin, either towards the floor or out the door, is the only acceptable policy when in a helicopter. A negligent discharge toward the roof could cause damage that results in a crash. Even if you don’t shoot yourself down, you might become alarmingly unpopular with the other souls on board.
Addendum to Rule 3: Murphy’s Law always wants to trip your trigger somehow, so make sure that your trigger guard and holster are allowed to be 100% effective. Please, no loose guns in anything, anywhere, anytime.
All good rules for gun owners.
I would like to add: If you dry fire, do not keep any ammo nearby. Reload only when you are at the place where you store your firearm. It is too easy to reload and then walk through the house, while your mind is in dry fire mode and you decide to try that snap shot at that nasty door knob.
Also, I have caught myself dry firing with an empty gun, but also had a loaded similar firearm nearby. That also is a no-no.
That is some impressive gun retention with him still retaining control even after his hand going through the plexiglass.
Also, excellent example on why to obey Rule #2 (modified).
Mas. also related to Rule 3 is something you have emphasized elsewhere: the importance of leaving ANY single-action revolver’s cylinder empty under the hammer. Even those SA’s with transfer bars look like they might fire accidentally if the trigger happens to get pressed and the hammer simultaneously gets snapped back somehow, far enough to get enough force to ignite the primer. I may not put it to the actual test. In parallel, I have at least once looked down at a lever-action carbine that I was carrying to see that contact with something had unexpectedly fully cocked the hammer.
GLAD YOU ARE O K OFF TOPIC WHAT WAS LT MCGEES OF N Y P D SERVIE REVOLVER WHEN YOU WER AT F T S THANK YOU
“If you dry fire, do not keep any ammo nearby. ”
Oh yeah. I was with a friend who nearly murdered his bathtub on the downstairs floor of his house when his “rack, safety off, fire” brain programming didn’t realize that he finished dry fire, and was reloading the gun to reholster.
Luckily, the floor joist caught the bullet, and saved the life of his tub.
It would have necessitated destroying the bathroom to get a new one in.
“Somewhere, I like to think, Col. Jeff Cooper is reflecting on this, and smiling….”
Amen to that! I’ve seen video and photographic evidence of the teaching of Rule #3 being applied around the world, and even in some Hollywood movies. Certainly Colonel Cooper and the teachers who have stressed the four safety rules have saved many body parts, and even some lives in the past decade or so. Think about the fact that, along with the increase in gun sales, we haven’t also seen what is to be expected; an increase in negligent discharges. That’s because the four safety rules are being taught, and followed. This is a very good thing.
Actually he was probably smarter to NOT try to reholster as you went down. Not enough time, and he did the prudent thing- Pointed it AWAY from everyone just in case.
I’d hate to mention how many broken mirrors, doors, and harrowing misses, have been told about damage caused to Border Patrol Offices over years, by PIs practicing “Quick Draw”, who caught a glimpse of themselves, AFTER FINISHING PRACTICE, AND RELOADING THEIR REVOLER, THEN FORGETTING IT!
NO CARTRIDGE RELOADING INVOLVED.
The Reports written to cover this damage up were even more incredible too.
BOB, you have a helluva good memory.
At that time, Frank McGee’s carry gun (on and off duty) was a 3″ barrel Model 36 Smith & Wesson Chief Special, blue steel. It had the semi-square butt. Frank was largely responsible for the semi-square butt Chief being the gun NYPD officers could buy for off duty at that time, because on the range he had determined it was more “shootable” than the round butt version. If an NYPD officer wanted a round butt Chief during that period, he had to buy it on his own without the through-the-department discount.
Frank owned a nice collection of 1911 pistols, though; just never carried them at work. 🙂
BOB, it sounds as if you know some relevant history. Welcome to the blog. I hope you stick around.
Acronym MATT is what we teach
Muzzle
Action
Trigger
Target
Four cardinal rules. Explain, teach, and there will NEVER be a problem…
TOTALLY OFF THE SUBJECT——Where is your annual magazine? There’s a thing out with the same title…………but, it’s nothing I would buy after all these years of looking forward to your annual.
Mas, along with everyone else, glad to see everything turned out alright.
The question that came to my mind looking at the pictures is “Where’s his lanyard?” (I admit I’m biased as my beloved Webley MK1 has one.)
I would think that such an accessory would be useful when holding an expensive pistol out the side of a helicopter.
However, since I have never done such, I would like to hear your opinion.
One more item along Rule 3: a slack lanyard attached to a handgun with an open trigger may loop around the trigger and pull it. I am speaking from experience, although I didn’t quite get an ND. Lanyards seem to make the best sense on something like the 1911.
Two-gun Steve, I’m curious. I own two weapons with an open trigger guard, both derringers. Both have about a fifteen pound trigger pull. Also am aware of the tiny North American Arms revolvers. I’ve never seen full size handguns with this feature, with the exception of intentionally altered ones for use with heavy gloves in extreme cold or for fast draw exhibition shooting. Is my memory failing me in my old age?
I’m not a fan of lanyards either, mainly because I abide by the rule that if it is at all possible to hang a piece of gear on something, I will, without fail, at the most inopportune time.
You old guys seen the new Taurus “Curve”?
This old guy has only seen the pictures, Eddie, but if I get my hands on one for some trigger time I’ll report here.
The ad I saw for the curve had a head on shot where the curve appears to make it a right hand only pistol – or – they will have left and right-handed models.
I would like to think I would have the presence of mind to toss the gun before impact. More realistically I’d probably be holding it in a death grip and hoping that would slow my descent.
Dennis, by open trigger I meant one you find inside trigger guards, but with space under and behind it, like revolvers, DA autos, and safe-actions. The Webley MK 1 looks like it has very little space under the trigger, at least in DA, and maybe a thick, regulation lanyard won’t find its way under, or get hooked around, the trigger. The Colt New Service might be similar. You would want to be extremely careful about attaching the wrong line to the average handgun, though, except maybe to ones with the 1911 type trigger. I don’t think I would ever (again!) tie a line to any trigger guard.
Your derringers remind me of hand grenades with straightened pins. I want you on my side in a gunfight, though. Thank you.
Two-gun Steve, I get what your concerns are now. As for the derringers, one is an American Derringer Corp. 45/410 with a manually engaged crossbar safety, which disengages when the hammer is pulled back. I don’t carry it at all due to the safety disengaging fairly easily while in your pocket. The other is a High Standard M-1 .22 mag that began life in hard chrome finish, but now has maybe 5% finish left due to being carried in my pocket, on and off duty, for 34 years. Even though it has an open front trigger guard, its heavy (15lb.+) long, double action only, trigger pull makes it, I believe, a very safe, last resort, back up gun. I still carry it in the breast pocket of my jacket as a back up. I know most folks will say “heaven forbid you ever have to use that mouse gun”, but once, just the fact I had it with me, enabled me to bluff my way to a safe conclusion in a possible deadly force confrontation while on vacation with my family.
Thank you for your confidence in me. Since I started following this blog, I’ve come to the conclusion that you and most of those commenting here would “do to ride the river with”.
Two-gun Steve,
Thank you for the followup about what you meant by an “open trigger.”
I had never considered attaching a lanyard to the trigger guard of one of my other pistols; and never will now.
Of course, my Webley has a lanyard ring at the butt of the pistol, so that is what I was thinking when I asked my question.
Sincerely,
Iwoots
“Do to ride the river with”? Now I know you are all old guys. Haha
I haven’t heard that euphuism since Loui L’Amour.
Correction. The High Standard is a model DM101. They say the memory is the first thing to go. I can’t remember what the second is.
Eddie, you’re probably right to attribute that phrase to Louie L’Amour, but I think of the legendary Border Patrolman, Bill Jordan, when I reference “riding the river”.
http://www.darkcanyon.net/BillJordan_TopGun.htm
I would hazard a guess that most of us “old farts”, at one time in our past, owned a Jordan River Holster encasing a Model 19 Smith and Wesson Combat Masterpiece. Still have mine.
The history of lanyards would be something to look at. I have always thought lanyards were cool. Of course they have been connected at the butt of the grip. Possibly the lanyard started with horseback use. Other service for them could be in open helicopters, or in watercraft. Losing your hand-cannon on a wilderness river trip, for example, could be worse than just inconvenient. The main drawback would be entanglement somehow, as in hunting in bushy forest, or in a boat propeller (Yipes!). Making sure that a lanyard cannot possibly get caught in the trigger would be a natural precaution.
The first thing that comes to mind is the military. During the Vietnam war I suppose there were hundreds upon hundreds of hard landings and crashes with a helicopter cabin full of armed troops with varying degrees of firearms safety awareness. Thus if follows there must have been numerous ADs resulting in wounds, deaths and damaged helicopters. Not to mention dropped weapons that went out the door and were lost.
I’ll have to mention this to a member of my extended family and get his input. He was a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam (he also flew Marine One for a couple of presidents, and fished a few Apollo astronauts out of the ocean).
A helicopter’s mission in life is to crash if left unattended for even a brief moment. Helicopter pilots all know this, but a wise passenger should as well.
Personally, I’d have the gun tied to me in some fashion, and myself securely strapped in, as no doubt the passengers in this chopper were. If it weren’t secured to me, when a crash became imminent, I’d chuck the gun out the door rather than have it become not only a possible AD source, but heavy objects flying around inside of crashing vehicles of any sort become deadly.
I doubt that even Chuck Norris could summon the chill to re-holster during a helicopter crash.
Well, yeah he could. He’s Chuck Norris after all.
In the brief time I have been reading and posting on this site, I have discovered a carmaradarie that is missing from others. Also, a level of maturity exists here – for example, the very few times there has been a questionable post, everyone here has chosen the high road. I have seen far different reactions on other sites. Having said that, no one here takes themselves too seriously either – something we need much more of these days.
A helicopter’s mission in life is to crash if left unattended for even a brief moment.
After riding around and jumping out of them as an airmobile infantry lieutenant in Vietnam, IMHO helicopters cannot actually fly. The only thing that gets them off the ground is the absurd faith of the pilots, who believe that they can fly them.
Since many of my students are beginners, I prefer and use the NRA rules. Of course, that’s what I learned back before the Colonel wrote his.
You’ll also find what we didn’t have then: the Go-Pro camera’s recording of the crash, and how quickly and unexpectedly it happened.
Link?
Larry, go down to the blog entry just below this one, and click on the embedded video.
and then there is the Detroit Police SRT officer with his finger on the trigger as he leads an entry team serving a search warrant and ends up killing a 7 year old girl but gets away with blaming it on someone who reached for his gun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Aiyana_Jones
Dean, do you know something about that incident which the authorities who investigated it in detail do not?
Mas, while doing a little background research on Dean’s post, I ran across something that I have no prior experience with. A “one person grand jury”? I assume this must be Michigan’s equivalent of a “special prosecutor”. Could you enlighten me? I linked two mentions of this.
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/01/28/timeline-weekley-case/22497475/
http://archive.freep.com/article/20130918/NEWS02/309180140/wayne-county-jail-project-grand-jury-audit-kym-worthy
Whichever, can you imagine the screaming fit the haters would have had if the Ferguson or New York officers had been no-billed by a “one person grand jury”? It seems the “one person grand jury” indicted the Detroit officer, but the prosecutor was unable, after several attempts, to convince a petit jury of the officer’s guilt.
Dennis, the one-person grand jury is a new one on me, too.
Guys – are we in the Twilight Zone with this “one person grand jury” thing? Oxford Dictionary defines the word jury beginning with “a body of people.” We simply must learn more about this! How in the world can it be even legal? Dennis, your “can you imagine” – just in Missouri, would have been catastrophic! Can you imagine being that one grand juror after the media “outed” you? You’d be forced to apply for the witness protection program.
Mas, Don-Pa, follow-up on “the one person grand jury”.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1285097?
sid=21105793072093&uid=3739256&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739744
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2012/11/chief_assistant_prosecutor_cal.html
Evidently, this is peculiar to Michigan, done in secret, without the knowledge of the target of an investigation. By law, the “one person grand jury” who is actually a sitting judge, doesn’t hand down an indictment, but rather a “presentment of findings”. This judge can compel testimony from reluctant witnesses. Mas has spoken of this “presentment of findings” in prior threads, pointing to when a prosecutor decides to go to trial without using the grand jury process.
This process, other than the secrecy thing, sounds similar to what was called an “examining trial” in the state I served. This was used as a tool by the defense though, hoping the judge would decide the prosecution did not have enough evidence to go to trial, and at the very least, to get a better idea of what chances the defendant would have if the case went to trial.
Live and learn. Thanks, Dennis.
I KNEW I had heard of something similar before. Dennis, once again, thanks. Man, these senior moments are annoying!
Mr. Ayoob, was the cause of the crash ever determined? (As an aircraft mechanic, I’m curious.)
Carburetor icing, apparently.
“Somewhere, I like to think, Col. Jeff Cooper is reflecting on this, and smiling….”
Fezzywig said: Amen to that! I’ve seen video and photographic evidence of the teaching of Rule #3 being applied around the world
I recall ole Col. Jeff Cooper writing as the Gunner’s Guru in Guns & Ammo “Cooper’s Corner about 12 years ago. Topic was our progress in Iraq or “the sandbox” as he called it, and his great feeling of accomplishment that photos from the front showed young soldiers and Marines abiding by Rule #3. Thanks Mas for fleshing it out as “Do not let your finger inside the trigger guard until your sights are on target.”
At our shop we paraphrase it: “Keep your finger off the trigger ’til you’re ready to shoot!” No matter the semantics, we who know the way have a duty to instruct novices as they partake in our craft. Safety is an attitude that can not be bought or sold.
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