Gun has functional defect
Whenever I hear of a tragedy blamed on a defective gun, I roll my eyes. Knowing that the likely culprit was bad gun handling. Not so sure in this case:
The gun that accidentally fired last month, resulting in the death of a 7-year-old Goshen girl, had a functional defect that allowed it to fire without pressing the trigger if force was applied to the hammer, regardless of whether the safety was engaged.
The gun is only described as a Norinco semi-automatic handgun.
March 18th, 2011 at 9:45 am
One of the articles I saw mentioned a Type 54-Tokarev
March 18th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Can’t remember off the top of my head if a Tok has an inertial FP or not.
If it was a Norinco 1911, hitting the hammer with the gun de-cocked wouldn’t do it, as the firing pin isn’t long enough to reach the primer. The only way a Norc 1911 will fire when dropped is if it lands muzzle down, and then the bullet will go into the floor.
Conversely, somebody may have bubba’ed a trigger job and cut the hammer hooks shorter than .020″ and gotten hammer push-off from a cocked gun.
March 18th, 2011 at 11:13 am
There are a rather large number of such designs in existance depending upon how much force.
Well, that’s why we have the rules of gun handling.
March 18th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Good luck suing to get any money from that. Those have not been imported for a very long time.
March 18th, 2011 at 11:53 am
Sounds like a defective sear or hammer.
March 18th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
User malfunction strikes again… He was careless handling the weapon accident or not. The weapon was improperly secured… There is little excuse for letting a pistol fall out of your pocket…
March 18th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Older Tokarev, I think. The only way to carry it “safely” is without a round in the chamber. It’s a cheap ripoff of Browning’s design and even on the 1911 it’s stupid to rest the hammer on a loaded chamber.
March 18th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
The “functional defect” was that some sort of single action semi-auto was handled improperly. Reminds me of the “defect” of that Bryco .380 that was left loaded and unsecured to be found by the twenty year old babysitter, who then proceeded to have a ND with that firearm pointed at a seven year old.
Properly secure your firearm. Handle a loaded gun only as necessary, and you can avoid all that. Of course I am preaching to the choir, many of whom have much more firearms experience than I do.
March 18th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
So, exactly how did the bullet wind up in a seven-year-old, unless that gun was pointed at that child?
March 18th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
It sounds like a Norinco 213, Tokarev clone. Many of these guns like the original Tokarev TT-33 do not have any kind of firing pin safety and will fire if the hammer is down on a round and struck from behind with enough force. These guns have a half cock notch that do provide a good deal of safety and many of them have added on trigger or hammer safeties that can be used with a cocked hammer, but it is best to carry them without a round in the chamber. Sounds like the at fault party is the person handling the gun not the gun itself. Good luck trying to sue China.
March 18th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
It was pointed at him. It was a case that predated the lawful protection of commerce in arms act. As I recall the plaintiffs’ claim was the gun was defective because the safety had to be switched off before the gun could be unloaded. By that absurd standard, there are a lot of “defective” firearms out there.
March 18th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
“…fire without pressing the trigger if force was applied to the hammer…”
That’s true of millions of old revolvers out there too, if you’re dumb enough to carry with the hammer down on a loaded chamber. Dropping the gun on a hard surface will almost certainly fire it. I have two such revolvers. There are many other examples.
March 19th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
The TT33 does have a firing pin spring to hold it back; so even with the hammer down you’d have to give it a hell of a whack to give the pin enough inertia to fire a cartridge.