CNBC Attack on Remington

[criticalbass]

Any story that paints guns as the problem rather than the people behind them is another feather in the cap of the anti-gun crowd. <from post by de-evoproject>

The story did not paint guns as the problem. It painted Remington as the problem. I'm glad everyone who has posted here has always had their gun pointed in a safe direction when they switched the safety off to unload it. . .

That's a pretty weird problem if you think about it. Also, Remington has basically tried to keep it a secret, so a now and then unintentional discharge is going to happen on some of the guns that require the safety to be off for the bolt to work. A bottom mag dump feature is good, but lots of those have blind mags, and there is still the matter of the round in the chamber. CB

afterthought--I wonder how many deer have been scared away by an unintended shot from this problem.

 

[ignerntbend]

You need to clean a gun in your house. Your finger is outside the trigger guard and the gun goes off and kills the coffee pot.
Your fault dude. That's what you get for owning a gun. That's also what you get for owning a coffee pot.

 

[Gideon]

"But critics, including ballistics experts who have been hired to testify against the company, say small amounts of rust, debris, or even a small jolt can cause the trigger connector to become misaligned, forcing the trigger itself to lose contact with the rest of the firing mechanism."

If I never change my oil, can I sue Pontiac when my car stops working?

Keep your guns clean, people, it'll save us all a lot of trouble.

 

[criticalbass]

You need to clean a gun in your house. Your finger is outside the trigger guard and the gun goes off and kills the coffee
Your fault dude. That's what you get for owning a gun.

With some of the chamberings in 700s you could kill several people's coffee pots down the block. Long ago friend of mine had one in, I think, .375 H&H. Loaded with true solids (bronze bullets) for big Alaska bears. Forgot it was loaded and pulled the trigger (I guess to "rest the hammer spring.")

I forget all the damage, but the bullet ended up two houses away.It did lots of damage to his house, lots next door, and some in the last house, and these were a long way from shacks. His final cost was over ten grand, and by today's money standards that would be around thirty to forty. Nobody hurt, and nobody sued (long ago Alaska). Just lots of ribbing.

This has nothing to do with the original thread except that it deals with the recurring "safe direction" theme, and that's a good reminder for all of us. CB

 

[ignerntbend]

Most people just shouldn't own guns.

 

[de-evoproject]

Most people just shouldn't own guns.

100% agreed.

 

[surjimmy]

I can't believe this, Remington is at fault PERIOD! Forget pointing the gun in a safe direction. You mean to tell me that if you were at a gun show and was looking to buy a rifle and when you let the safety off and it fired you would buy that gun? Give me a break, even the US Marines has called it unsafe. a Sniper on the firing line pulled the trigger, called misfire. When the RO told him to clear it, he touched the bolt handle and the thing went off. Remington put out an unsafe weapon and new about it. From that moment on they are at fault. It doesn't matter that the Mother pointed the gun at her trailer to clear her weapon, the gun went off when it was not suppose to. Now she lives with the fact that she killed her little boy, all because Remington didn't want to spend 5.5 cents.

 

[de-evoproject]

I can't believe this, Remington is at fault PERIOD! Forget pointing the gun in a safe direction. You mean to tell me that if you were at a gun show and was looking to buy a rifle and when you let the safety off and it fired you would buy that gun? Give me a break, even the US Marines has called it unsafe. a Sniper on the firing line pulled the trigger, called misfire. When the RO told him to clear it, he touched the bolt handle and the thing went off. Remington put out an unsafe weapon and new about it. From that moment on they are at fault. It doesn't matter that the Mother pointed the gun at her trailer to clear her weapon, the gun went off when it was not suppose to. Now she lives with the fact that she killed her little boy, all because Remington didn't want to spend 5.5 cents.

Highlighted why somebody got killed. Guns can malfunction, it happens. It even happens in guns that DON'T have a known manufacture defect. As long as THE PERSON HOLDING THE GUN practices muzzle awareness and gun safety, discharge from malfunction is just annoying, a little bit scary, an indicator something needs to be fixed and good reminder to keep practicing gun safety.

Once its in your hands, you are responsible for where the bullet goes. Not the company that makes it.

 

[alank2]

Hi,

+2 on both of criticalbass's posts.

The story surely is a sad tragedy, and I never like how media stories use such tragedies as fodder for their emotional whiplash. That still doesn't change what happened.

She made a mistake. No doubt about it she violated a rule and did not know where the muzzle was pointing and what was behind it. This was her fault and I truly feel for her as this would be something I would think someone would never recover from.

Remington is also at fault here:

First, a mechanism that requires the user to take off the safety before opening the bolt is just plain stupidity. They should have never designed or made it that way. I am going to go as far as saying I am not a fan of safeties for this reason. How do you know they are safe? To me that is putting a little too much trust in something and it might tempt you to relax a bit with the safety rules which is a bad idea.

Second, when the designer of something goes back and says wait a minute, we might have a safety problem, and the corporate wigs decide to not listen, Remington really put themselves in a bad position.

Third, after they made the wrong choice of not listening to the designer and owning up to fixing the problem, they are forced to create a campaign of lying and deceit to their customers. This is where Remington lost me. I know all companies likely do this, but these guys got some guts doing it so brazenly and for so long (decades). Usually companies will quietly fix the problem and then lie to the people who have the unfixed model and hope nothing bad happens. These guys kept making something they knew had a problem for decades AND kept lying to their customers about it. They would have been doing THEMSELVES a good service by fixing this decades ago.

People rag on Ruger a bit for all of their recalls, but I'd rather deal with a company any day that admits to a mistake and better yet, fixes it on their dime, than one that would tell me a safety problem doesn't exist and lie to me.

I don't think the story made gun owners look too bad, but it did make Remington bad as well they should.

I understand the slippery slope of having gun manufactures subject to a product and safety government agency, but I don't think the 2A should make gun manufacturers untouchable if they produce a defective product. It really surprises me how the 2A is ignored in so much of our countries' law for the people, but yet it is claimed and not questioned when companies want to use it continue to produce defective products.

I know Remington is arguing their product isn't defective, but if it fires and the trigger isn't touched, it is defective. If a design and their manufacturing techniques lead to a rifle that is known to do this, this is a problem.

Good luck,

Alan

 

[surjimmy]

Your missing my point, of course you should always be aware of muzzle direction. Remington put out a product that doesn't work and does not do what they tell you it will do. How about this.... Your in your tree stand a world class buck comes out, as you go to release the safety the gun goes off, the deer runs away and you loose your chance at a record buck. You then find out that the gun maker new about this problem but did nothing to correct it. Your telling me you wouldn't be on the phone calling Rem raising 18 different kinds of hell. If you say no I call BS. The safety does not work, the safety does not work on an item that is very dangerous Remington knew about this, let me repeat that "REMINGTON KNEW ABOUT THIS", and yet to save a nickle they chose to still produce the product and sell it, and have the balls to say nothing is wrong with the safety. When the designer himself told them about it.