The Summit County Sheriff’s Office says it arrested a Keystone man on multiple charges related to firearms.

Just before midnight, Monday, March 12, a man living at Wintergreen, a workforce housing complex in Keystone, called to report that he had accidentally discharged his 9mm handgun inside his condo while attempting to clean it, Lt. Mike Schilling said in a statement.

An investigation determined that the man had been consuming beer and hard liquor since about noon that day and that he was intoxicated at the time he discharged the firearm, Schilling said.

Deputies located the discharged round in the floor of the man’s closet, lodged in the carpet, he said.

No one was injured in the incident, Schilling said. But because the man was intoxicated, deputies arrested him on charges of illegal discharge of a firearm, a Class 5 felony; prohibited use of weapons, a Class 2 misdemeanor; and reckless endangerment, also a Class 2 misdemeanor, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

“Our community expects responsible gun ownership and handling, and the law requires it,” Schilling said in a statement. “Firearm accidents can be devastating, but this was not just an accident. Handling a firearm while intoxicated is a crime and dangerously irresponsible.” 

This is the second firearm-related incident in a matter of weeks. Late last month, a skier reported to deputies that he lost his handgun while skiing in the Keystone area, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Another person reportedly found the gun and took it home before calling the Sheriff’s Office to report the found property and shipping it back to Summit County.

The Sheriff’s Office in its statement reminded gun owners that firearm safety guidelines require people to treat every firearm as if it is loaded, never point a firearm at anything that they’re not willing to destroy, keep their finger off the trigger unless they are planning to shoot, be sure of what their target is and what is beyond it, and to never handle a firearm while intoxicated.

The Sheriff’s Office also noted that Colorado has several firearms laws that gun owners should be aware of including laws about when using firearms is prohibited, requiring the safe storage of firearms, how to store firearms in vehicles and requiring gun owners to report a lost firearm.

“The community and their representatives in the legislature can debate gun laws extensively — I respect the process and passion on both sides of the issue,” Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said in a statement. “But at the end of the day, once laws are passed, my office has a duty to enforce them.”