Hopefully this post will serve as a reminder to practice proper gun safety at all times.

As a reminder the four rules of firearms safety are:

All guns are always loaded.

Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.

Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.

Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

The rules are designed in such a way that in case one is broken the other three will protect you.

The following photo and posts are used with permission from the person involved. He has gratefully volunteered to allow himself to be an example of what can happen when things go wrong.

This was the initial post that accompanied the photo:

We all laugh and think of how stupid one must be when we see a self inflicted gun shot. I don’t know exactly what the **** happened but I do know the outcome. I had a ruger LCR357 discharge through my left hand. I did not have my fingers in the trigger guard or on the trigger [edited to add: the poster later acknowledged he most likely pulled the trigger by mistake as it would be nearly impossible for a double action revolver, with concealed hammer and a transfer bar safety to fire without the trigger being pulled]. It was time for the lcr to be cleaned. So I cupped my hand and went to open the cylinder and bang. The damn thing went off. I kept as calm as someone who had just been shot could be. Called 911 and the wife. Thank God my two year old was in a safe place. I just wanted to let you all know that even the safe and knowledgeable can make mistakes and bad **** can happen. Stay safe and God bless you all

It was a critical defense jhp from Hornady

You know the first thing I did was clear the weapon and make sure my son was ok. Then got the bleeding under control. My son was in another room. You always say that **** won’t happen to me. Well it did. Please please please please be careful guys. I’m no dummy and I know that you are not supposed to aim a loaded weapon at your hand. But years of safety and confidence got a giant hole in my left hand

Burn it burns so fing bad. It shattered every bone in my hand. My middle finger was toast. It was hanging by some skin. The best way I can try and describe it is this. The funny tingle feeling you get when you arm or foot falls asleep X 100000000000 then grab a molten hot chunk of steal and zip tie it to your hand. And the burn is the most odd feeling I have ever felt. Now after the surgery it’s numb. But I know when the nerve block wears off this ain’t gonna be fun. When it first happened they gave me 4 doses of fentinal (spelling is wrong I’m sure) and it didn’t even take the edge off.

Nope my middle finger on my left hand Is gone. I basically blew it off. The shot literally broke the bone of the middle finger off in my palm. Severed all the nerves and the tendon. The round exited through the knuckle closest to my palm. My hand Is pretty bad. The palm looks worse than the back of my hand

Thanks again to the poster for allowing us to use his photos and posts as an important reminder.

The full thread can be found here, on TheOutdoorsTrader.com.