SIGH - Seal shoots himself in head

[srothstein]

Imagine this woman's reaction:

The serviceman, who had been drinking with a woman at a bar before they returned to his residence, . . .

The man offered to let his friend hold the weapon, ... When she declined, he tried to demonstrate how safe it was by putting it to his head and pulling the trigger.

Talk about a nightmare bar pickup . . . . I can hear her now: "No more getting drunk and going home with strangers. No more getting drunk and going home with strangers. No more getting drunk and . . . ."

I think she will be saying something much more like "Guns are dangerous ... Guns are dangerous ... Guns are dangerous"

She was already afraid of guns or nervous about them since he was doing this to show her that guns are safe. While I really do feel sorry for the sailor, I am much more concerned with the way it affects the bystander and her view on guns. And, since it is well known in marketing how unsatisfied people tell many more friends than satisfied people, this will cause more anti-gun sentiment. I don't like to mention this type of thing because it is more the anti-gunners way to dance in blood at tragedies, but this is not good news for us.

[texanron]

He didn't make it. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/07/na ... latestnews

[StuffandThings]

As others have said, alcohol was probably a factor. I feel terrible for the woman and the man's family.

Unfortunately this is exhibit A why dad always told me to treat all guns as if they are loaded.

[bayouhazard]

With all due respect, there is no cure for stupid.

It looks like he's cured.

[surferdaddy]

First deployment of the good ship USS FITZGERALD, lost only one shipmate and it was alcohol related. We all know that booze can make the sharpest tools dumb as a bag of hammers. All that aside, this is just sad, so sad. Prayers go out to all effected. Fair weather and following seas.

[PostShooter]

Box of rocks.

Damn shame to make it through SEAL training and kill himself over the dumbest mistake of his life. At least he won't be around to make a mistake that would effect another team member some day during ops. He may have inadvertently saved another life.

[JALLEN]

I live just down the road from the Special Warfare Center. Many of my friends are/were SEALs (mostly O-5/O-6 now retired). I've been buddies with some of these guys for many years, including my bro-in-law, a retired O-6 SEAL.

It seems impossible with all the training they get with guns that something like this would happen. About the time this happened, we were reading An American Sniper, the new book about the SEAL sniper with the most confirmed kills in American military history. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... ooks%2C231. Somewhere in all that training, you would think somebody mentioned that checking for "unloaded" was not done by putting the muzzle to one's head and pulling the trigger.

This fellow had just graduated. It's hard to imagine someone like that doing something like this.

It's another example of why "young" and "foolish" are so often found in the same sentence.

[JALLEN]

He didn't make it. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/07/na ... latestnews

The word here was that he was DOA, but put on life support for organ donation purposes. News reports are often not the whole story, of course.

[Heartland Patriot]

I live just down the road from the Special Warfare Center. Many of my friends are/were SEALs (mostly O-5/O-6 now retired). I've been buddies with some of these guys for many years, including my bro-in-law, a retired O-6 SEAL.

It seems impossible with all the training they get with guns that something like this would happen. About the time this happened, we were reading An American Sniper, the new book about the SEAL sniper with the most confirmed kills in American military history. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... ooks%2C231. Somewhere in all that training, you would think somebody mentioned that checking for "unloaded" was not done by putting the muzzle to one's head and pulling the trigger.

This fellow had just graduated. It's hard to imagine someone like that doing something like this.

It's another example of why "young" and "foolish" are so often found in the same sentence.

Combine those two with large amounts of alcohol, and bad things have a high probability of happening.