ND at the Great American Outdoors Show needs to be talked about

Editor’s Note:  Guns.com was able to confirm through PA State Press Secretary Troy Thompson that on February 12, 2015, Capitol police responded to reports of a gunshot at the Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, PA.  Officers ascertained that two vendors were involved, a single handgun round was fired into the ground and that no injuries occurred.  

After completing their investigation, officers ruled the incident to be an “accidental discharge” or AD.  Additionally, the Dauphin County District Attorney has stated that they would not be pursuing any criminal charges.  The NRA was also contacted but did not return a comment.

Recently, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania hosted the largest outdoors shows in the country.  The event, with the support of the NRA, was a huge success, and hopefully marks a continuing trend for this gun loving, rust belt town, especially in light of recent attempts to turn the presence of firearms at this show into a political football.

But everything didn’t go quite as planned.  According to a very small local news report, there was an accidental negligent discharge (or simply ND, as I prefer) at the event. Although no one was injured, there’s kind of a hush-hush quietness around what happened and that doesn’t sit right with me.

I first heard about it when Rob Pincus of I.C.E. brought it up on social media. Kudos to Pincus, a respected and well-known firearms instructor, for wanting to bring the ND to light. “This is a learning opportunity for all of us and doesn’t need to be kept private,” Pincus wrote on Facebook after trying to learn more about what happened.

To those who wanted to keep the ND swept under the rug, Pincus observed, “It took 45 seconds for the entire industry could be talking about Costa muzzling a group of photographers with an Airsoft gun on other side of the Planet… But no one wants to talk about a live around being discharged at one of the largest industry events of the year? WTH?”

I understand why no one wants to talk about the 800 pound gorilla in the show room. Criticizing ourselves opens up the gun-loving community to attacks by liberal news media and anti-gun politicians.  But I’m with Rob Pincus on this one. Let’s police ourselves.  Let’s talk about it.  Let’s keep stuff like that from happening ever again.  Let’s learn from it.

Until next time, continue to hone your skills and keep adding to your tactical toolbox…and, be safe.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Guns.com.