by salawat | 2025-08-03 15:00:02+00:00
The trigger was pulled because a ferric material, probably the firing pin, was brought into an intense magnetic field, bypassing any of the normal safeties typically involved with a mechanically actuated firearm. You do not under any circumstances take a loaded firearm into a place without environmental consideration. The mechanical safeties in a firearm are all secondary to the primary safety which is your brain. If you don't use your brain, that isn't a problem with the firearm. That's a problem with you. By the way, that ferric metal part is required by law in most jurisdictions so the damn thing will show up using most conventional metal detecting technologies.

>It could also happen in a sauna with one sitting alone and having the gun put aside.

Horse hockey. Most rounds will only go off at 275° Fahrenheit and above, and if they aren't chambered, aren't a problem. Yes, people have set out to deliberately set off ammunition to characterize the thermal sensitivity of it, and most primers are specifically designed to be more shock sensitive than thermally sensitive. If you're in a 275° sauna with a loaded firearm with a round chambered and pointed at yourself, I would still categorize that as a you problem, not an it problem.

https://www.thefirearmsforum.com/threads/cook-off-temperatur...

>Its not supposed to shoot without pulling the trigger.

The trigger was literally pulled by the executive decision to introduce the loaded firearm to an environment that replaces the dominant form of safing, the mechanical interlocks, with an alternate triggering mechanism. It wasn't magic. You take ferromagnetic thing near big magnet, big magnet pulls magnetic thing (firing pin) forward, firing pin strikes primer of chambered round. ND.

The device is designed to prevent the pin moving forward under typical usage conditions via push by mechanical safeties (which depending on the strength of magnetic field and the material they are fabricated from could compromise their function as well), but has no constraint on pulling. Why? Because no one is generally considered to be daft enough to waltz into an MRI or other Big Frigging Magnet with a loaded firearm with a round chambered, especially after it has been pointed out that all metal on your person must be safely stored for access to the MRI. This is a glorified lesson on why when your life is at stake, you double up on safety. Don't just trust that hydraulic jack. Use a jack stand. You can't even make the argument that the firing train shouldn't have ferromagnetic parts, because most jurisdictions require metallic components capable of being detected by a metal detector.

Things the user could have done to rectify the situation as an increasingly responsible firearm owner:

A) Clear the round in the chamber. No round locked in, no problem, still jeopardizing the MRI machine, but no discharge risk. B) Put the weapon in the same locker everyone else puts their metal stuff in as procedures state. No risk to anyone's property at that point.

I'm sorry, but you won't convince me this was a failing of the weapon. This was a tragic, but nevertheless self-inflicted ND on the part of the wielder. No one else can be blamed for this gentleman's egregious lapse in vigilance, understanding of rudimentary physics, risk management, and the operating principles of his everyday carry.