Originally Posted by
26 Inf
... From 1965: A soldier in the 82nd, during the operations in the Dominican Republic, chambered a round while preparing for guard duty that had been chambered and ejected several times. His weapon discharged, though it was on "SAFE" according to witnesses at the scene. The soldier was negligent about where his weapon was pointed and the round killed a local child.
The soldier was court-martialed and acquitted. Investigators were able to repeatedly duplicate the incident by chambering a round from the magazine several times. They discovered that this malfunction, firing when a round was chambered, could be duplicated at around 10-15 chamberings. They also found that at about 10-15 chamberings, many rounds did the opposite and the primers became desensitized enough that the rounds would not fire...