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JC is quite frank and upfront about the incident. He acted out what he was doing when the pistol discharged, and showed me the wounds. It turns out that the pistol was an early 70's Colt Commander with an aluminum frame, and he was using 230gr fmj ammunition. After looking at all four of his wounds, it is a very good thing he was not using HST's.

One thing that I was really interested in about this particular incident was finding out what, exactly, caused the pistol to discharge. As many of you know, a 1911 is a very safe firearm to carry. To discharge a 1911 style pistol you need to release the thumb safety, depress the grip safety, and pull the trigger. I just could not understand how the gun discharged without his hand being in the pocket. The location of the wounds pretty much shows that the gun was fired below his knees from an angle that he could not easily achieve while standing and removing his coat. I am pretty confident that he was not handling the pistol when it discharged. While we were talking through different possibilities I learned that the police found no pencil, pen or other object that could have pressed the trigger. While we were talking about firearm safety, JC mentioned how he safely got his pistol ready for carry. He always put his thumb on the face of the hammer while pulling the trigger to let the hammer down. That's when it hit me, he was carrying a 1911 with the hammer down on a live cartridge. His other pistols have a decock feature and he never thought that the 1911 did not. It is possible that he only lowered the hammer to the hammer stop, but in talking with him it appears that is not the case, the hammer was down on a live round. With spring pressure holding the hammer against the firing pin, it would not take much of a bump to cause a discharge. Even if the hammer was on the stop, that is a very dangerous means of carrying a 1911. The hammer stop is not a safety when it comes to methods of carry.

The purpose of commenting on this incident is to go over the lessons learned, not to beat up on JC. JC has lost his job, his health insurance and his ability to walk normally. He has been shot in both legs and has the possibility of being charged hanging over his head. He does not need me to be piling any more on that load, but there is a lot we can learn from this.

I met with JC this afternoon to talk about what happened on that day.

I am still digesting what we talked about and putting it down into something legible.

The firearm in question was an early '70's Colt Commander with an aluminum frame. The ammunition was 230gr. fmj.

Like most of you, I was really wondering about the "how". In previous emails JC mentioned that the firearm was a 1911. I think we have come up with an answer to "how", and it is a good lesson learned.

Give me some time with my Sweetie and a bit more to articulate what we believe happened and I will post a follow up.