Originally Posted by pluckit

Another nice safety feature of the Pursuit is that the rifle can not be fired unless the trigger is pulled. This eliminates the possibility of an accidental discharge in two ways. One, if the hammer is struck from behind when not cocked it will not strike the firing pin. the other is if the hammer is being pulled back and slips loose and falls forward before fully cocked it will not strike the firing pin. From what I read somewhere a long time ago, A lot of accidents in the early days were from people grabbing their loaded rifle by the muzzle, like when sitting in a wagon, and while pulling it towards themselves, got the hammer snagged on something causing it to be pulled back just enough to not reach the half cocked position but enough that when the snag came loose it was back far enough to fire the rifle when it became un-snagged.
Maybe that is what happened to the unfortunate individual referred to in an earlier thread. Maybe the rifle was resting, loaded, beside him in the passenger seat and when he grabbed it by the barrel and pulled it towards him, the hammer snagged on the seat, came loose and caused the rifle to fire. All conjecture of course, but anything can happen.