Fun With Guns: Hey, Be Safe Out There Edition
Out in Fresno, California, just three days after a deputy was accidentally killed when he grabbed a gun that he or a fellow officer had dropped (the case is still open), there has developed a habit.
This time a deputy shot himself in the leg while trying to put on his holster. It has been revealed that the sheriffs department handguns do not have an external safety.
For example, some guns have an external safety, a little switch on the side that must be pushed to unlock the trigger before the gun can fire. The guns used by the Sheriff’s Department will fire by simply squeezing the trigger so deputies can be quicker.
This shooting prompted a headline in local media.
Reviewing safety procedures did not include even the slightest hint of the possibility of adding a safety to the gun, even though the lack thereof has killed and injured 100% more deputies than the bad guys have.
Nope. Not gonna do it.
Here’s the result of the safety procedures changes.
So for now, deputies will be warned to be careful with their guns, and when putting on their holsters.
“Just visually look down and check where your strap is, because if you are having trouble with it, don’t just yank on it,” said Harlow.
Don’t just yank on it? Well hell, in my mind that’s a pretty good piece of advice for everyone for everything.
Holy cow.
I have to take issue with this statement, JJ: “Reviewing safety procedures did not include even the slightest hint of the possibility of adding a safety to the gun”.
There are very few firearms without a “safety”, and almost zero modern pistols.
Let’s just say all current ones do in fact have one or more of the many safety designs devised to date. There are both internal and external safety designs, and various blends thereof (*see Wiki quote and link below for details).
Any negligent discharges, so-called “accidents”, are 99.99% due to operator error, enabled by poor understanding, training, or practice. The weapons themselves almost never malfunction.
Without knowing exactly which model pistols these deputies use it’s hard to judge what may have gone wrong. But I suspect that they might be using Glocks, which have internal, trigger-based safeties; they can be fired by something mimicking a finger trigger pull.
All those safeties work in different ways, passively or actively, but all block the firing pin from forcefully impacting the cartridge’s primer cap, thereby ‘firing’ the weapon.
Practically the only way to fire a modern weapon is to do it intentionally, or, Fock it up somehow through an operator screwup. No matter what some PR spokesperson says.
My favorite little Firestar has an external safety ‘switch’, et al., my Sigs have ‘decockers’, my Colt m1911’s have ‘grip safeties (when handle is squeezed)’; M1 Garand, AR, AK, etc., other rifles and shotguns have levers or buttons, etc., etc.
1Even my pellet and BB guns have safeties.
We of an older generation learned our respect for, and safe gun use, from mostly WWII veterans in the ‘old’ NRA classes, summer camps, Scouts, government youth programs, and of course boot (where you got to use some big iron).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_(firearms)
“In firearms, a safety or safety catch is a mechanism used to help prevent the accidental discharge of a firearm, helping to ensure safer handling.
Safeties can generally be divided into subtypes such as internal safeties (which typically do not receive input from the user) and external safeties (which typically allow the user to give input, for example, toggling a lever from “on” to “off” or something similar). Sometimes these are called “passive” and “active” safeties (or “automatic” and “manual”), respectively.”
JJ, it’s so good to have you and your Molly Ivins sense of the absurd back with us!
Sandridge–Thank you for the information; I’ll pack it in my little kit bag for further reference.
Another key point here is that these things should not be called “accidents”; they are *incidents* of carelessness.
2Way too many entities of law enforcement still use the term “accidental discharge” or “AD”. That terminology is supposed to make the situation sound innocent (???). However, one too many of these Ads can and should cost you your job.
3Anyone who is surprised by the nincompoopery of the Fresno Sheriff’s office has just not been following the news long enough. Remember, these are the guys who infiltrated a Quaker peace group in the Great Panic following 9/11, I guess on the theory that serving cookies and discussing the Quaker peace testimony might somehow threaten the HeimatsSicherheitsDienst activities of the Bushies. (see account here: http://web.mit.edu/thistle/www/v15/3/infiltration.html ) They got caught when one of their infiltrators died in a motorcycle accident and was identified in the newspaper as an anti-terrorism agent.
That’s the Fresno sheriff’s office for you: trembling in fear of a bunch of aging former hippies holding a silent vigil for peace, but unable to handle a gun without shooting themselves in the foot or thigh or head or whatever.
4Cleaning out the gene pool one bullet at a time
5In a slightly related story about “yanking”, an anti-gay politico in Ghana says he can increase the size of a man’s appendage using his “massage ritual’. Hookers everwhere are rolling their eyes and saying. “Bitch, please!”
The comedy just writes itself, no?
6Sandridge, there is no amount of “fool proofing” that can be done to a weapon to make it safe in the hands of a fool. Background checks to remove weapons from the idiots among us, both general public and police, is the solution.
JAKvirginia, when did Mike Huckajeebus and John Ksuchasheis go to Ghana with Mike Pence?
7Sure it’s only 75% that’s stupid?
8piaqt, J&PKM, et alia,
46.2% of ‘Murikkans have self-certified themselves as being “fools”. There are undoubtedly many more out there.
Looks like Hillary has the mandate, ~2.7 million more votes, ~2% majority margin, out of 136,021,782 votes counted so far.
U.S. Total (Prez vote)
(HRC) 65,527,581 (HRC) 48.2%
(DJT) 62,851,402 (DJT) 46.2%
(others) 7,642,799 5.6%
http://cookpolitical.com/story/10174
9The idea of a cop “infiltrating” a Quaker meeting is amusing. We’re totally open. People do come just to see what we do and think. We welcome everyone and listen to them. If a “seeker” is a phony we’d spot it in a second.
10Old Quaker: You made me giggle. “Infiltrating” the Quakers. I had visions of Inspector Clousseau (sp?) in a disguise. Infiltrating. Some people just take it too far, no?
11Yep, Old Quaker, the Fresno group did spot something off, but as you note, we Friends try to be welcoming anyway. Our group in Davis wondered if we might be on the list – larger, more active – but the Davis police are a lot smarter than the Fresno clown squad. I did have a protocol in case they showed up at the meeting house wanting the library records on people who checked out nonviolent resistance stuff or CO or such; you may recall the SicherheitsDienst had a thing for a while that they could get records from libraries and if you revealed that they had done so, you could be imprisoned indefinitely without legal recourse.
The Kampus Kops later became notorious for pepper spray, but that’s a different story.
12Maybe the “further training” is the problem? Nah. If they’ve got to be told to look, it’s not just the training.
13I guess the engineering union rep has already met the Brownshirtz.
14Actually, even with Glocks, there’s a sensible solution to the negligent discharge (I refuse to say ‘accidental discharge’) issue.
15Carry condition three (no round in the chamber, but a full magazine).
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With a minimal amount of training, one can work the slide during the draw, and the handgun is hot. If you don’t have time to work the slide, you don’t have time to draw. Also, anyone who grabs your weapon and tries to use it on you will get an unpleasant (for them) surprise.
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Impractical? You should ask the Israelis, since they’ve been carrying C3 for a long time now.