Security guard, gun maker sued over accidental shooting at Chesterfield office

An insurance company employee who was accidentally shot in the leg when a security guard dropped a gun inside a Chesterfield office building in February has filed a lawsuit against the guard and the maker of the gun.

The insurance worker, Ian Cornett, filed the suit in St. Louis County Circuit Court against security guard Jack Kellogg and gun maker Sig Sauer Inc. The suit was filed April 27.

It says Cornett was shot in the left thigh and that his ability to work and move has been "greatley impaired and diminished." The suit says he had about $10,000 in medical expenses and $3,000 in lost wages, and seeks at least $25,000 from each defendant.

The shooting happened at about 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 3 in a hallway inside an office building at 390 South Woods Mill Road. The victim was 34 and the guard was 64 at the time.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_a2ccfeb2-82fc-11e0-bedb-001a4bcf6878.html

I have a hard time believing Sig discharged when dropped even if guard had fail to engage decocker. Do any Sigs have an external safety? I wonder if guard tried to catch the falling gun?

features that protect against these things. I would assume (yeah, I know what happens when you assume things) that since he was a security guard that he would be carrying a modern firearm.

I have seen some armored car drivers around here with some pretty old revolvers.

All Sig handguns have a firing pin disconnect and a firing pin block which would make it impossible for the gun to fire if dropped. The only way the firing pin will ever make contact with the primer is if the trigger is pulled. So it is safe to conclude that the security guard attempted to catch the falling gun.

Or, the guard negligently fired the gun and then dropped it.

SIG SAUER, Inc. has initiated a Mandatory Safety Upgrade pertaining to our new Model P238™ pistols. We have determined that a small number of P238 pistols may have safety levers that are not manufactured to factory specifications. Under certain conditions, it may be possible for the lever not to be completely engaged in the safe position. In this condition, the gun will not fire when the trigger is pulled. However, when the safety lever is moved to the off position, the hammer may fall, with the remote possibility that the gun could fire unintentionally, thus creating a risk of injury or death…

At least he wasn't if the story is accurate in describing the firearm as a 9mm. P238 is only chambered in .380 acp.

Of course, assuming that the press reports anything accurately where firearms are concerned isn't always a well-considered leap of faith.

.380 ACP is 9x17mm, aka 9mm Short, Kurz (German), Corto (Italian).

That said, it seems unlikely to me a security guard would be issued a firearm in 9x17mm when 9x19mm ammunition is so much cheaper and more readily available.

if the guard, instead of utilizing the decocker, he pulled the trigger while easing the hammer down so that it didn't fire. In that case, the firing pin disconnect and firing pin blocks would be disabled - not by a design malfunction but by intentional (or ignorant) negligence on the part of the security guard.

Ruger has received a small number of reports from the field indicating that LCP pistols can discharge when dropped onto a hard surface with a round in the chamber. We are firmly committed to safety and would like to retrofit all older LCP Pistols. The retrofit involves installation of an upgraded hammer mechanism at no charge to the customer.

....this idiotic tripe is reserved only for firearms.

...why are guns special???

Car manufacturers have too. I should be asking you, what makes utensils made to kill "special?" What makes things marketed by manufacturers and gun shops to appeal to gunners' baser instincts "special?" How about the promotion of the proliferation of guns? How about lobbying to keep the pipelines open?

Hell yea, they are responsible.

.

Your tobacco analogy fails in a couple of different ways. I don't see a gun version of Joe Camel anywhere. There is no deception like there is with cigarettes trying to get kids addicted to a drug as powerful as heroin. There is no marketing to kids.
Judging from your post, your crusade has nothing to do with making a world a better place or safe streets, banning private guns is the end in itself. It is the sub culture you detest. It represents a built in contradiction in modern liberalism. Of course conservationism has the same problem, just inverse. Here is an essay by a historian named Roy Wortman that I think explains it very well.
http://www.saf.org/journal/12/Wortman.pdf

Speaking of gun violence, you realize that the typical pot and coke head contributes more to gun violence than 99.9 percent of American and Canadian gun owners combined?

Mr Wortman is quite correct is his assessment. Many liberals of today see those who own guns falling somewhere between semi-civilized ruffians and criminals. An unacceptable and highly prejudicial attitude. From there these same judgmental folks decide guns are bad and if they are outlawed, those who possess them will find their way, somehow faster, either to civilized society or to prison.

I have yet to come across a firearms owner who is anything less than pleasant, happy and congenial.

Some liberals lack the understanding that individuals are self-sovereign. There is a discussion I read a while back about how progress is accelerated/enhanced by the combination of teamwork and the sacrifice of individuality. That by working for a common goal and by denying certain personal rights, social progress, wealth and national prosperity would be enhanced. This discussion was in a collection known as 'Table Talk' from Adolf Hitler.

I agree that by letting go of some personal goals, such as greater person wealth, I can give to a charity and enhance society. That is a fine thing. It is key to remember that the authority exercised by the government is derived from the people but that the people's exercise of authority through the government does not remove the authority manifest in the people, themselves.

Thanks for the paper.

Thank you for posting!

grizzled keyboard commando wades into the culture war. The Sgt. Rock of moral umbrage and haute couture never sleeps.

for the use of their product during the commission of a crime?
As can the producers of hoodies, knives, and tennis shoes?


Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

Let's assume for a moment that allowing the DoD to have guns is a good thing. I know in France during W W II Lt. Ed Silk captured a dozen or so Germans by throwing rocks at them but I don't think that's the best plan for today. If it's okay for the DoD to have and use guns, maybe the other federal agents like the FBI need to have them.

You know that most states have an equivalent to the FBI. They probably ought to have guns as well. I believe many of the states model their training programs after the FBI. The state police are certainly in need of the same protection afforded those other LEOs. Of course local LEOs are in the same boat. The criminals, the wolves in the fold, frequently take a dim view of being called to accountability for what they do; running drugs, hitting the competition and such.

Your average uniform on the street is not daily apart of some task force busting some narco-guerrilla. Why does the cop who writes my daughter a speeding ticket or comes to answer my call about my car being stolen have a gun? Why is he packing heat? The everyday cops from my town who are supervising at the scene of 911 calls, directing traffic and walking the halls at high school on the wrong end of town have guns because you never know when you might need one. Not to capture bin Laden or confront a drug lord bent on mayhem, but just in case. When a domestic disturbance gets out of control, when you're first on the scene and it's suddenly life or death, you can shoot back. You can keep the criminal from ending your life out of desperation and insanity.

Many average citizens feel the same way. Where and why can the line be drawn to separate government agents from Aunt Sara and Cousin Phil? Maybe only 1 in 10,000 will draw a pistol this month or this year.
Assuming that everyone is a criminal is just wrong.

Face it. You are wrong. Guns are not cigarettes. Many folks carry, practice, clean and store their guns day after day don't suffer a dose 'weapontien' that rots their lungs or their fingers or toes.

I decided long ago that it was wrong for me to wear my machete and carry my spear gun -- capable of sinking a 750lb shark -- into public. I would never even consider carrying explosives -- I mean guns -- into public places.

I mean, jeez, if we're going to accept as a valid reason to ban certain behaviors because some people find them "tacky" or "demeaning" or offensive, you're going to be in big trouble.

This is what society has come to. :puke:

We find that:
- "It's shame that your uncle is sick."
- "I feel your pain...my cat barfed in my sock drawer once, also."
- "Sorry to hear you spilled your coffee."
- "What?! My t-shirt offends you?"

BOO HOO!

:rant:

--- WELL BY ALL MEANS. I WILL ASAP SPEAK TO MY CONGRESSMAN ABOUT GETTING PUBLIC FUNDING FOR THE APPROPRIATE DAMN SUPPORT GROUP FOR WHATEVER EMOTIONAL MALFUNCTION THESE FOLKS MAY HAVE AND SEEING TO IT THAT THEY ARE NEXT ON THE LIST FOR A :grouphug:.


I feel so much better now. :) Thanks for the reply.

Might as well be a bomb or machete. I guess that's acceptable to you for some reason.

How much helium did you have to pump into your bullshit opinion to elevate it to a moral imperative?

Come to think of it, you probably just had to stuff your ego in there.

in public? Swords can be quite useful and effective in certain circumstances, if you have some training. A short-to-medium length sword in a back-scabbard is easy to carry and out of the way for 99% of all common activities.

With all the backpacks around easy to conceal. Way cheaper than a gun too.

Probably the least expensive blades I'd trust in actual combat would be Cold Steel products... and a decent set of fighting blades from them will easily cost as much or more than even the lowest priced quality firearms. But, if I hit the lotto, or get an inheritance.... mmmmmmm.

And it's cheap. Just a slab of metal. I had to re-wrap the handle so I could hold it. But its sharp as hell. It'll work once for what I might expect it to do.

But you're right about a good blade being expensive. Plus, to me a well made gun is just a well made gun. But a blade entails a whole new level of craftsmanship.

ETA Mine was around $50.

I agree that all of the C.S. knife-style products are combat-worthy. I've tried their utility blades and spears several times, and they are great, tough, no-nonsense products that I would trust for my personal use and never want to be on the wrong end of.

Swords, however, given their unique uses and stresses, are a different set of criteria, and generally "cheap" or even merely "inexpensive" doesn't meet the requirements. Damn.

Bombs aside, if I'm not a criminal, then you really have nothing to fear from me if I have a gun or a machete. If I am a criminal, then your laws mean exactly dick to me anyway, so what precisely have you accomplished by restricting the law abiding? Absolutely nothing positive. You've alienated a significant portion of the population that supports open and/or concealed carry, made it more difficult for millions to effectively defend themselves in public, and done absolutely nothing to solve the issues of violent crime. In fact, you've made it even HARDER to solve those issues because of the expended political capital on the carry issues. Congrats!

But hey, I guess it was all worth it just so people like yourself can "feel" better, and appear more "civilized" in some manner that only people like yourself seem to understand.

But the funny (and sad) thing is that you can't even get it that far. There's just too much popular support for carry. The evidence is in and you guys were wrong by about a million miles on the issue. No blood flowing in the streets, no massive uptick in crime. And all the political capital you spent and continue to spend on the issue is wasted. So congrats indeed.

That's why you're forced to resort to whingeing about carrying firearms in public being "tacky," "demeaning" or words to that effect. And where solely the aspect of perceived distastefulness is concerned, there is no difference.

discntnt_irny_srcsm: "Face it. You are wrong...."

Hoyt: "Yea, but..."

-- But nothing. Your admission of defeat is accepted. Your lame and feeble excuses are noted.






Since you decided it was *wrong* to "wear your machete... and you would never carry explosives..." :eyes: I got you this hat. :dunce:
Have a nice day.

"filthy things"!!

Which one is you, Hoyt?

Without that, very few plaintiffs would have had a case. People have suspected since the 1940s that cigarettes had to be doing some harm, and in fact, the medical evidence was already there at the time. Unfortunately, it had been produced by Nazi scientists which is why nobody wanted to touch it for 20 years. But long after Richard Doll's research in the 1950s established a strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer, and his findings were confirmed by subsequent studies, the tobacco companies kept trying to deny a causal link.

Frankly, I thought at the time, and still do, that the plaintiffs in the tobacco cases were full of shit, claiming they didn't know smoking was harmful. But the tobacco companies hoist themselves by their own petards by having insisted for so long that cigarettes weren't harmful.

By contrast, no firearm manufacturer denies that its products are potentially lethal to innocents if misused. That's why every manual that comes with a firearm (all the ones I own, anyway) contains several pages of warnings about what you should emphatically not do with the firearm.

If you can get past freaking out because it's the Brady "bunch", try this link and remember lawsuits against cigarette companies took decades to produce results:

http://www.bradycenter.com/xshare/pdf/lap/articles/vice-avoiding-dismissal.pdf

use a cigarette to defend themselves from assault.

How much do you practice that in front of a mirror, cowboy?

Just more sanctimonious whining and back crawling. Has it never occured to you guys that gun owners don't give a flying fuck about your sense of environmental aesthetics? That's why you're reduced to sanctimonious snark expressed with emoticons.

The weak bullshit you guys offer day in and day out just hangs the image designed by conservatives as oblivious ideologues right around your neck.

The Tea Party and the Koch brothers thank you.

You actually achieved less than nothing.

:rofl:

but they are your Republicans. So the one dealer that willfully violated the law yeah. Easy target. You also have to remember the jury pool in DC and the absurdly low burden of proof in a civil suit. It is still not the same as the cigarette companies. Here is a question. Since most of our murders are committed by felons and drug dealers in business disputes. Drug profits goes to buy guns. If I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, can I go after bong manufactures and pot growers? If not why not? Your logic says I can. Actually, I would have a better case because their product has no legal use (I mean does anyone seriously buy the tobacco use only sign?) Why are you so down on legitimate gun owners like target shooters, but give bong owners a free ride?

Outside of steel silhouette at long range, what are you talking about? The only silhouette targets I have seen were at police/self defense classes. Oh yeah, I have shot at them with an M-16, that you are part owner of, several times. But my boss told me too.

http://www.google.com/#q=silhouette+targets&hl=en&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=u1fZTdi7K8TAgQfbg-FX&sqi=2&ved=0CEIQrQQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=5e27d1ad3c49e46b&biw=1259&bih=575

It's odd though... Hoyt wants the "toters" to be better trained, then implies that anyone who follows his dictats is mentally aberrant. How would one get better trained without using targets that emphasis proper shot placement? How does hoyt manage to be so two-faced without self-immolating like a particle/anti-particle pair?

'Tis a grand puzzlement...

I was wondering if Hoyt thinks ISSF or Olympics use the Brady "little girl for assault clip" targets or something, I was not thinking defense practice.

I take it you won't be visiting Switzerland anytime soon.

In fact, very often, the less complex explanation is more likely to be correct, per Occam's Razor.

And what Mr. Vice seems to be overlooking is that, unlike with tobacco, there's a federal agency dedicated exclusively to monitoring the trade in firearms and enforcing the laws pertaining thereto. How can you credibly argue that firearm manufacturers should know a particular Type 01 Federal Firearms Licensee (i.e. a gun dealer), with whom they probably don't directly do business to begin with, is careless or crooked, when the federal regulatory/law enforcement agency that's supposed to pick up on that evidently failed to notice as well?

in this.

by pandering to folks' baser instincts.

Or, are you upset that the gunner who is responsible, might be held accountable?

He is likely required to carry a firearm in his position. Not entirely sure what you are even trying to say by calling people "gunners" but I doubt it really fits in this situation. Seriously Hoyt, its time you got a grip.

–noun
1.
a signed note for money owed for food, drink, etc.
2.
any receipt, voucher, or similar document, especially of an informal nature.
3.
Chiefly British . a note; short memorandum.
Origin:
1775–85; short for chitty < Hindi chiṭṭī

Like I told my kids when they were young,it is not the word but the concept you are conveying. In other words, childish euphemisms got the same result.

At least, that's my hypothesis. It's certainly consistent with the fact that he comes off as an adolescent.

:rofl:

Why don't you quantify that so it can be regulated.

You posting here is like Saturday morning cartoons for grownups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Saloon_League

Or would you be a WCTU gal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union

"baser instincts" my left ass cheek. What an asinine, moronic statement.

As long as the decocker is used the hammer block is in place. HOWEVER if the hammer is " thumbed down" the hammer block will not be engaged, and the weapon can discharge if it is dropped hard enough on the hammer spur, and at the correct angle. If the picture is of the correct weapon (SIG 220) which I question it is.

Guard wasn't trained with his firearm properly. The SIG operated as designed. The guard failed to operate the weapon properly.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

There's a transfer bar safety on the firing pin now, I believe. Not sure exactly when it was instituted.

And on a gun that has a decocking mechanism, there's no legitimate reason to "thumb down" the hammer in the first place. The problem remains user error.

the manufacturer is a pretty transparent attempt to hit the deep pockets (unless there truly is some clear deficiency in the Sig, which I doubt). If he had any spine he'd include his employer in the suit, for having an armed guard in the first place...

How does someone in the US sue a Swiss company? If it was made under licence by JP Sauer, a German company?

You're pretty obliged to if you want to secure an American government contract.

The security guard will be held responsible but the lawsuit against sig will be thrown out.

and the manufacturer of the floor covering.

meant to transport goods and people.

to 35K or 40K American motor vehicle fatalities annually

But to understand relative risks, one must take into account the time spent in activities

American vehicles travel about 3 trillion miles a year, probably mostly at speeds of 30-60 mph, which yields something like 50-100 billion driver-hrs annually, with a corresponding fatality rate of something like 4E-6 to 7E-6 fatality per driver-hr. About 80% of US is old enough to have a drivers license, so there might be 240 million drivers driving on average a half hour to an hour a day

Why not attempt to estimate the annual number of person-hrs spent carrying or handling guns to obtain a fatality rate per packing-hr? I might regard firearms as safer than cars if (say) there is a compelling argument that Americans spend at least 36-75 billion hrs carrying or handling guns annually. Only about one in five Americans actually owns a gun, so there might be 60 million gun owners, which means you have to obtain an average for these owners of something over an hour and a half a day, every day, carrying or handling guns

You are comparing apples to oranges. The vast majority of the vehicular deaths are accidental, where as a large percentage of firearm deaths are from homicides (80% of which are gang related, pointing the real source of the problem) and suicides, as well as justifiable homicides. To make a fair comparison, we should limit ourselves to accidental deaths resulting from cars and firearms.

It appears that there are, on average, around 700-1000 accidental deaths related to firearms each year (with the trend being downward and a projected total of around 650 for last year). Compare this to automobiles which result in 30,000-40,000 deaths per year, almost all of which are accidental. I think you can see where this is going for you.

EDIT: Also, a home defense firearm is in operation 24/7 generally speaking. This is a firearm that the person is maintaining some level of access too as long as they are in the residence. A car sitting in the garage is serving no purpose, thus it makes sense not to count that time in your figures. But a house defense firearm is a different story. Honestly, in general, I don't think your calculations are very well thought out.

Of course, I will agree that, in some sense, such comparisons will be apples to oranges, but you should address that particular objection to oneshooter

My point is that if you want to consider the relative dangers, you must consider more than raw numbers: Americans spend billions and billions of hours in their vehicles, and probably considerably less time handling/holding guns

After all, if it's common knowledge that guns are designed to injure/kill people, then surely the responsibility lies with whoever purchased the firearm and issued it to a 64 year-old rent-a-cop, evidently without ensuring that said rent-a-cop was adequately instructed in the firearm's proper operation and safe handling?