Army M4 Carbine Can Fire Even If You Don't Pull the Trigger

[LMT Shooter]

Deliberately moving the selector off safe and deliberately pulling the trigger is an unintended discharge?

Would you agree that not getting the selector to a fully proper position, be it safe, semi, or auto, is operator error?

Again, if the selector is not moving &/or operating as it should, that is a malfunction, but that's not the what I'm reading in the articles.

[Wake27]

It doesn't fire when the trigger is pulled, there's a delay until after the selector is moved again. So the trigger can be pulled while the weapon is in a safe direction, moved off target, the selector bumped into a different position, and then it discharges.

[Slater]

50 years of the M16/M4 family and this is the first occurrence of this?

[LMT Shooter]

It doesn't fire when the trigger is pulled, there's a delay until after the selector is moved again. So the trigger can be pulled while the weapon is in a safe direction, moved off target, the selector bumped into a different position, and then it discharges.

That's pretty much what I first posted, so we agree on that. I still don't see how taking it off safe & pulling the trigger creates an unintended discharge. The term malfunction may apply, if some parts aren't doing what they're supposed to do when used properly, but if you don't use the selector, trigger, charging handle, forward assist, or mag release in the manner they were designed, that's operator error. Take away the operator error and you have no malfunction in this case, or so it would seem. Maybe some parts are out of spec & defective, but to me this is like figuring out how to throw an AR pattern weapon hard enough to make the firing pin hit the primer, causing it to fire, and saying it's a malfunction.

Can someone hold their thumb on the forward assist while firing and declare it to be a faulty weapon because it doesn't cycle?

[LMT Shooter]

50 years of the M16/M4 family and this is the first occurrence of this?

Johnny Knoxville became famous by doing dumb shit that nobody had done before.

[MegademiC]

That's pretty much what I first posted, so we agree on that. I still don't see how taking it off safe & pulling the trigger creates an unintended discharge. The term malfunction may apply, if some parts aren't doing what they're supposed to do when used properly, but if you don't use the selector, trigger, charging handle, forward assist, or mag release in the manner they were designed, that's operator error. Take away the operator error and you have no malfunction in this case, or so it would seem. Maybe some parts are out of spec & defective, but to me this is like figuring out how to throw an AR pattern weapon hard enough to make the firing pin hit the primer, causing it to fire, and saying it's a malfunction.

Can someone hold their thumb on the forward assist while firing and declare it to be a faulty weapon because it doesn't cycle?

The gun discharges after the moment the trigger is pulled, when the selector is moved. From the moment the trigger is pulled and nothing happens, It will be a failure to fire, until the selector is moved to FA. When it discharges, the operator does not intend to discharge the weapon by moving the selector so it is an Un-intended discharge at that point.

[LMT Shooter]

I'm willing to admit that if people do something stupid with a weapon, then stupid things may happen. I call that operator error in this case, given the info I got from the links. If that's a malfunction or unintended discharge to everyone else posting, then OK, I'll concede that point for this thread.

What I'm trying to say is that a jackass may indeed have more problems (malfunctions and unintended discharges) than normal people doing normal things correctly. I would like to solicit responses on my other point, which is that nothing indicates that the weapons in this situation are experiencing these malfunctions or unintended discharges when operated correctly?

[RobertTheTexan]

Commitment issues.

Mark,
I hope you don’t mund but I think I just found my new signature block. This is the best oneliner response I’ve read in weeks!!!

[RHINOWSO]

People who haven't screwed something up haven't done it enough.

If a weapon firing when a selector is moved is acceptable, carry on.

[RHINOWSO]

The gun discharges after the moment the trigger is pulled, when the selector is moved. From the moment the trigger is pulled and nothing happens, It will be a failure to fire, until the selector is moved to FA. When it discharges, the operator does not intend to discharge the weapon by moving the selector so it is an Un-intended discharge at that point.

This, but apparently that is hard to understand.