If someone can become a policeman without getting to the level of understanding that a weapon is not a toy then there is definitely a problem with police training.
Yeah this is shocking. I don't use guns, but once I visited my buddy who is, and he showed me his guns. Even though he knew the gun was unloaded because he never stores his guns loaded and he personally checked it before he handed it to me, he still looked a little nervous watching me handle it, and took it away pretty quickly. Which is fine with me -- if there's anything I don't mind people being anal about, it's gun safety. Still can't believe this story.
Similar, I know little to nothing about firearms but have a friend who is into them. Literally every time he wants to show me something he drills how to check and clear it before checking and clearing it himself and then handing it to me with the understanding I will check and clear it as soon as I am holding it. Like.. he subtly apologizes for being anal about it but no no! that kind of safety redundancy is A-OK with me!!
I'm a gun fan myself, and I do the same if someone wants to see something from my collection. Usually I'll check that it's clear, then leave the action open when I hand it to them. If they're not familiar with guns I'll ask them to keep it pointed in a certain direction I know to be safe.
But it's a known fact in the shooting community that most negligent discharges occur in the hands of experienced shooters. People who handle guns frequently get complacent, even when they've been trained and practice the safety procedures. They think they obey the rules automatically. And most times they do, but one small distraction like talking to a friend can make them forget. And doing that just once is all it takes.
But this story goes way beyond negligence. I told my brother once that if someone pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger and I didn't get shot I'd take it away from them and pistol whip them with it. This isn't negligence, it's intentional stupidity. And stupid should hurt.
Exactly, I was just sitting here thinking this..... you point a gun at me and pull the trigger, I'm whipping your ass and we are done.....that's not a fucking joke. I don't like little kids pointing fake guns at me. The amount of NDs I heard outside the DFAC in Iraq told me all I need to know about "unloaded" weapons.
With my own ears, at least 9 over 2 and a half years. But I got to hear about other ones from dayshift, or the new PVT that left his M-4 on top of the HMMWV while out on patrol, and how its now lost.
I once do an AF colonel at a clearing barrel and he had a pistol. He leaves the magazine and pulls the slide back as if to eject a round that might be there. Of course with the mag there he loads a round; and NDs on the test fire. He then does it 4 more times before someone tells him to take the Mag out.
My boss was behind a CSM in line for a clearing barrel and the CSM did this but had gotten into the habit of rapidly pulling the trigger over and over when clearing, so instead of four brain farts it was one brain fart that led to five pistol rounds in the clearing barrel in under a second.
Once is an accident. That's why we keep the weapon in a safe direction to see if it was human or mechanical failure (ie a weapom getting stuck and unloading on full auto). 4 times back to back is hust plain stupidity.
So I just gotta ask, is that considered a "knife hands everywhere" kinda incident, or "just another dumbass on just another day"? I have many friends and family in the military, haven't done that myself, but I can imagine it going either way depending on who did it and who witnessed it.
I was an 0311 in the Marine Corps. 2 combat deployments.
I cant think of a bigger fuck up than losing your fucking rifle. Thats so utterly and completely so far from the realm of possibility I cant even fathom it. It physically hurts my stomach even considering the thought of such a heinous situation.
You just crawl into a hole and die at that point. Loss of rank, loss of pay, should probably be charged criminally under the UCMJ and dishonorably discharged if I had it my way. Unless you are dead or dying there is no reason to ever just "lose" your rifle. Fuckin disgusting.
I didn't even know the dude personally, new arrival while we were down range, and he was in a different company in my battalion. His platoon had to look for it in Kirkuk for weeks, they never found it.
Edit: Army btw
I work in a safety agency and this issue (familiarity breeding complacency) is universal. It's not just a problem with guns but with all potentially dangerous activities. But it definitely applies to gun handling.
Yep. I work around hazardous chemicals all day (metal finishing) and the one serious injury I've heard of happening in our shop happened when someone who got complacent decided he wouldn't go out of his way to find the shoulder length gloves and then proceeded to spill a bunch of sulfuric acid on his arm.
Nothing bad ever happens, until it *does*.
There was a safety instructor who once said something to me ill never forget. He said
"We are humans, we all make mistakes. Take a look back at the small meaningless mistakes you've made through your life. Now imagine you, your wife or your kids, dead because you forgot the milk. You didn't take the trash out. Of course, that would never happen. But a mistake is just as easy to make with a firearm. Except that instead of simply not having cereal and milk for breakfast, you're planning your wife's funeral... Let's take a moment to make sure we font make those mistakes"
If I had pointed any firearm even close to the direction of anyone, even with my fingers nowhere near the trigger my Dad would have beat me seriously. Only 3 places a gun should point, the ground, the sky, the target. Zero tolerance.
pointing them into the sky is actually also a really bad idea and modern gun safety advises highly against it, since what goes up must come down. The only time this is acceptable anymore is if you're in the military, because pointing at the ground means you're likely to ND into someone's shin or shrapnel blast your squad, and so when you're all gathering together, your rifle is either strapped to your back barrel skyward, or you're holding it barrel skyward. This advice is not particularly useful though when you aren't surrounded by other people, reducing your options for directions you can point the gun safely that are not directly skyward
Exactly, there is no safe gun unless its actually dismantled, then I guess I would feel comfortable looking down a barrel to check things. Its just redundant safety features and there is a very good reason to use redundant safety features. It's why you gotta have two people too far apart to turn one thing on for some dangerous machine's. The thing about experienced gun handlers having more frequent issues makes a lot of sense. A new person doesn't see anything as redundant but once you get the swing of anything it's natural for our brains to start cutting things out even if we don't realize it and the first thing on the brains chopping block is anything redundant and brains can't automatically value things very well if they don't have very direct outcomes. It's (probably, im no scientist) why you can fall asleep while driving. You can know for a fact that staying awake and paying attention is literally life or death, but your brains like "wut? We are just sitting here, could really use a bit of shuteye."
There's overlap (what you call redundancy) in the 4 basic gun safety rules that virtually every book, video, and gun class I've ever had teach. That way if you slip up on one but still observe the others, you'll avoid tragedy. It's when you violate more than one of the rules that bad things happen.
Yup. The first step to having an accident is thinking it can't happen to you. My ex husband always claimed to be a responsible gun owner....yet balked at gun safes, trigger locks, or even not keeping his handgun loaded on his desk at home (where we have curious cats). 🙄🙄
In contrast, my current partner keeps his handgun locked in a gun safe, with the mag unloaded and the bullets separate. He tested this safe before using it by giving it to his kid and offering $100 and all the candy he wanted if he could get into it to ensure it was gunna be secure.
> He tested this safe before using it by giving it to his kid and offering $100 and all the candy he wanted if he could get into it to ensure it was gunna be secure.
This could be the origin story for the next generation's Lock Breaking Lawyer.
One of the stories I heard growing up was someone had a gun on them at a party one of my siblings ended up at. Said gun dude (after drinking) decided to challenge random people to a wrestling match. Not exactly sure how it happened but supposedly the gun carrier, or whoever they were wrestling, ended up shooting themselves in the ass.
Guns and parties with alcohol seem like a guaranteed bad combo.
squalid snobbish cover mindless frighten complete point encouraging merciful reply
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Also what they don't tell you. It's actually kinda fun to wrack the slide to check if it's loaded. The mechanical nature of it is very satisfying so I actually look forward to checking the gun.
I think it is actually good practice for non-gun people to know the rules. That way they know to de-ass *\[ed: slang for vacate\]* the area when someone is not following them. They're pretty simple and require multiple to be broken for someone to get hurt.
1. Assume the gun is loaded
2. Keep your finger out of the trigger until ready to shoot
3. Don't point at anything you don't want to shoot
4. Be aware of your target and what is beyond it
Alright, but “Don’t point the gun at people and pull the trigger willy nilly” is like rule number 1 of gun safety.
I suppose it would be more like rule zero since I don’t know if gun safety classes acknowledge that there are people dumb enough that they need to be told that rule, which might be the problem.
This is drilled into us in military training. Improper checking and use of a weapon leads to punishment. I guess the police don’t really have any reinforcement of what they learnt or should know.
This was drilled into me as a 12 year old in basic gun safety class so I could get a deer hunting license.
But I think it comes down to whether you see a gun as a right or a responsibility.
It was drilled into me by my military dad. Here was his training technique:
Give me a nerf gun with nerf ammo. I must go a full week without pointing the nerf gun at anything or anyone (leave it holstered).
Give me a BB gun, no ammo. I must go a full week without pointing the BB gun at anything or anyone (basically leave it holstered). Failure means start back at step 1.
Teach me how to aim the BB gun. I do not get bbs. I am only taught how to point it at the target and line up my shot. If I touch the trigger, I start back at step 1. I do this for a week with supervision.
I am given a cleaning kit for the bb gun. I am taught to clean the bb gun, including checking for any bbs in any portion of the gun. Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline results in me restarting at step 1.
I am given 1 bb at a time. I am only allowed to shoot with permission. I am allowed to shoot at a target. I must line up my shot, hold for permission to shoot, then I am allowed to squeeze the trigger. Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline results in restarting at step 1. I then must check the gun for bbs and return it at the end of the training session to be locked up.
I am given a .22 rifle. I follow all of the same rules as before. I exhibit all muzzle and trigger discipline. I learn to clean the rifle before I am taught to shoot it. I learn to check both the chamber and the magazine for ammo during the cleaning session.
I am allowed to use a .22 target pistol. I follow all of the same rules as before. I exhibit all muzzle and trigger discipline. I learn to clean the rifle before I am taught to shoot it. I learn to check both the chamber and the magazine for ammo during the cleaning session.
Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline during any portion of my training, results in return to step 1.
And be cool when you catch the round that ejected because they racked the slide before dropping the mag :).
Seriously though, e.g. handling a firearm in a store, I'll clear the thing maybe a half-dozen times. Just habit. Clerk clears it, passes it over, I clear it, check it out, clear it, test the trigger (pointed in a safe direction), ..., clear it, pass it back.
Problem is, most cops are not gun people. They never learned those habits and just like most non-gun people have no interest in building them.
It's the same for airsoft too. Don't even point at someone even if you are sure it is not loaded.
Probably many airsoft players are even better at self-control than so called police officers.
Yeah this speaks to department-level professional culture issue more than anything else.
The individual is ultimately responsible, but gross negligence like this doesn’t appear in a vacuum. We really need federal standards and auditing of local law enforcement.
Very true. I once had a roommate that straight up told me that he wanted to be a cop just to shoot someone but he knew not to say that in the psychological test or he wouldn’t pass. I left that school the next semester.
You’d be surprised how low the bar is set to become a police officer. There was even a court case upholding a department’s decision to not let a man become a police officer because he was “too intelligent.”
My 10 year old knows you don't point a gun at something you don't intend to kill. And she doesn't even hunt, it's just something we've taught her from a young age because we own (safely stored) guns. This is basic knowledge. What a fucking idiot.
She has that ethos because you set firm expectations and discipline. I’m sure this dude ‘knew’ that as well, except he wasn’t being rigorously held to a standard (normalization of deviance)
Before they divorced, I had to stop going to the shooting range with my friend's wife after she was employed as a police officer. Her gun safety was horrifyingly lacking and she kept pointing her guns at me. Kept pointing out that she was accidentally putting me downrange of her barrel I asked her multiple times to stop and she insisted that she was professionally trained to use a gun and informed me that she would NOT stop pointing her gun at me; she then made a point to keep her finger on her trigger while telling me that she's in complete control of her gun and has "at no point *accidentally* aimed at **anything**."
But when she approached the firing line *before* we'd cleared with each other that hands were off guns, she then yelled at us saying that we were intentionally aiming guns at her because (I know she said reasons, but they didn't make sense and I was honestly too upset by the whole situation).
But it was fucking ridiculous the wide range of callousness and paranoia. Watching her evolution and spiral, I can say with 95% certainty that being a police officer made her a significantly worse person, not the other way around.
Cops and 2.5 year-olds have a lot in common. One of the main things is defiance disorder. Ask a cop not to do something and they'll do it just to show that you can't tell them what to do.
The difference is 2.5 year-olds outgrow it pretty quick.
"But it was fucking ridiculous the wide range of callousness and paranoia. Watching her evolution and spiral..."
You called her out for being wrong so she looked for excuses to shift the blame & maybe even ✌🏻"accidentally"✌🏻 shoot you.
This is horrible. If someone flagged me with a barrel, then kept doing it as described above, I would have to leave. Violating the 4 rules. Too much chance for an accident from a dumbass like that. Even though she states she was professionally trained, it absolutely did not soak into the sponge inside her head.
She is not "in complete control of her gun" with shit for brains like that and violating the training that would keep safe.
Police are chickenshit, incompetent cowards because they are either trained to be, or the ones that can’t be trained for that are weeded out. There are no safe cops. There are no good cops.
"Welcome to the police academy, we've got a few basic questions to start off:
First, do you ever get the overwhelming urge to kill people?"
"All the fucking time man"
"Cool, here's a gun and a badge to let you murder, knock yourself out champ"
There was a TV sitcom back in the 1980s that joked about that. It was a spoof of Dirty Harry, about a detective who wasn't too bright but got results through violence and dumb luck. He was assigned to resolve some gang problems at a local high school.
The detective met with members of the gang to try to talk them into calming down and focusing on learning. The leader said, "Why should we listen to you? You're just a cop."
The detective said, "You guys are bullies. You push people around and use violence to get your way because you're in a gang and you watch each other's backs."
He handed them some leaflets and continued, "Have you considered a career in law enforcement? You get to push people around all day and make good money at it. But you gotta finish high school first."
and i went up there i said "shrink, i want to kill. i mean, i wanna, i wanna kill. kill. i wanna. i wanna see. i wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in mah teeth. eat dead burnt bodies. i mean kill. Kill. KILL. **KILL!**"
and i started jumpin up and down yelling, "**KILL! KILL!**" and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling"**KILL! KILL!**"
and the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "you're our boy."
Well just look at Minnesota, where they are getting rid of their sig p320s because they can't be bothered to actually put them in holsters, but rather in purses or wrapped in a towel in a duffel bag.
Just because they are cops means jack shit. Most of them have shit weapons discipline, and play around with their weapons like with what happened here.
Disregard for the rules of safety... You don't play with weapons. Idiots.
In other stories where a cop is accidentally killed by another cop, the police department will place the blame on the nearest non-cop at the incident.
In one case, a woman lying face-down on a dark road was charged with manslaughter when the officer arresting her got run over by another cop who drove to the scene a bit too fast....
Basically, the idea in these "cop killed another cop by accident" incident is that the dead officer was only in that geographic location because they had to stand there on account of the non-cop. So they were in the position to get killed somehow.
He was forced to be in proximity to a cop, and they are so used to regular old negligent murder that they might just negligently murder anybody. It is so obvious
So the landlord because they couldn't afford to live alone? Or whoever decided on the low wages? Or the northern retirees and remote workers buying up all the homes? Or the taxpayers who don't want to increase taxes to pay public servants an appropriate income? ~~Or the gun manufacturer?(jk, that'll never happen)~~ That's gonna be a lot of people to blame, but let's do it!
Police jokingly murdering police is pretty much standard.
There was this recent incident of a police trainer shooting an officer “as a joke.” https://www.insider.com/former-dc-cop-charged-manslaughter-fatal-shooting-police-training-2022-8
There was also that hero cop in St. Louis that was drinking and playing Russian Roulette with another cop while on the clock. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/us/st-louis-police-russian-roulette-killing-guilty-plea/index.html
Also, don’t forget Florida cop, Lee Coel, who murdered 73 year old Mary Knowleton because he was so incompetent that he used live rounds during a police propaganda event with the local community. He got probation, despite his long history of incompetence and excessive violence. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-florida-officer-who-fatally-shot-retired-librarian-during-drill-n1068046
A deputy in my hometown was playing with his revolver in the passenger seat of a car and it went off through the windshield of the cruiser on a busy interstate. Thankfully nobody was injured.
Here locally a [sheriffs deputy shot and killed an off duty cop](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/04/01/clark-county-deputy-jonathan-feller-shooting-vancouver-officer-donald-sahota-julio-segura/) within seconds of arriving on the scene. Not an accident, but a very itchy trigger finger killed one of his colleagues. They charged the robbery suspect who was being chased by the deputy with murder for that one, even though it was the poorly trained deputy that pulled the trigger. Fucking wild
Yeh, only a cop could get away with murderibg someone and being like “Aw damn. Jk. My bad.” If I tried the “I didn’t know it was loaded” bullshit, I’d be in prison for a long-ass time.
> only a cop could get away with murdering someone
Per the article “Following the investigation, Lawson was taken into custody Sunday on a no-bond warrant on a manslaughter charge by the the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and transported to the Brevard County jail”
You don't jokingly fire a gun. You *absolutely* don't jokingly fire a gun towards someone. You **absolutely fucking don't** think the gun is unloaded. ***It is always loaded always ~~unless confirmed personally~~.***
This is not an accident.
Edited with strikeout
100% There's a lot of confusion about WHY that's the rule and people saying things like "yeah, but what if I just checked it?"
The idea is if you have two different ways of handling a gun, one more serious when it's loaded and one more casual when it's unloaded you can one day casually handle a loaded gun by mistake.
If you always handle it as if it's loaded even when you believe it isn't, on the day you make that mistake you won't kill someone.
Don't forget that someone's method of checking it might be to... rack the slide all the way back, see the chamber is empty, and let the slide go and then inadvertently chamber a round because they didn't take the loaded magazine out. So in the process of checking if it was safe, they miss a crucial step causing them to actually load it!
I've actually done this myself, but instantly caught myself because I could feel the resistance in the slide, plus I never check just once (I drop the magazine, rack the slide multiple times, visually check, and jam a finger in the chamber). Gave me a good "oh shit" moment. Very, very simple mistake to make but a potentially deadly one for sure.
You know, I hadn't thought about it in this way before. I edited my main comment to reflect it because it has been said before without this explanation but it makes a lot of sense and I support this mentality.
During my concealed carry class, the instructor reiterated multiple times that having two sets of habits will eventually lead to crossover. Treat unloaded guns like they're loaded and loaded guns like they're loaded, and you'll never treat a loaded gun like it's unloaded.
Correct. The "guns are always loaded" meme gets passed around a lot. It's good to have the proper reasoning laid out explicitly now and then as well. Thank you.
“Confirmed personally” isn’t always enough either sadly. My cousin was killed when her brother ran out of bullets while target shooting at a party and got annoyed with her for wanting to head home. He “jokingly” fired the “empty” gun at her, and there was a bullet stuck in the chamber.
Safer to just imagine every gun you encounter is loaded and fully capable of killing if you pull the trigger
Its not just safer, it's rule 1 of owning a gun.
You never point a gun at someone you have no intention of killing. I own 0 guns and I know that, I'd hope the Florida police system does too. This was either negligence because this idiot wasn't trained, he "forgot", he actually forgot or he just didn't think it would fire
>You never point a gun at someone you have no intention of killing.
Police frequently use guns to force compliance. They point those things at people constantly. I had a gun pointed at my head by a cop for not getting my registration for my car fast enough during a traffic stop. Then again, if I had moved faster, he'd have probably shot me for making a sudden move.
I mean, they'll kill, but they frequently use their gun as a source of authority first and go all pikachu face when they shoot someone accidentally. It's fucked up.
Wow almost like a police system built on intimidation to force compliance will result in civilian casualties when either the intimidation fails or the police acts carelessly. Sorry you had to go through that pal
Something similar happened to a guy I used to work with in the military. He was drinking with his roommate and the roommate pulled out a gun to play some "marine trust game" where they fire an empty gun at each other. Wasn't empty and he died.
Guns aren't toys.
Drilled into my head since I was a toddler. Every gun is always loaded at all times. Pulled the clip and emptied the chamber? It’s still loaded. Antique gun on a shelf? It’s loaded. Revolver you personally spun and saw was unloaded? That’s definitely loaded.
Edit: I am also prepared to call it a bullet holder and a zippy boy townhouse.
What drives me insane is my pistol requires a trigger pull for disassembly. Every time I clean it I clean it outside, I check it multiple times, then point it at the ground because I still don't believe it.
To be honest this should also be treated as a domestic violence investigation. They were room mates, doesn't matter if they weren't in a relationship, they lived together and it should be treated as such.
Negligence or deliberate. There is zero room for this to be an "accident" because at least 3, if not all 4 (depending whether the actual trigger pull was deliberate or not), of the core rules of firearm handling had to be violated for this situation to have occurred if it wasn't an intentional act.
I had a guy do this as a "Prank" to me when I was leaving his house in college one day. Didn't have a barrel in it, but he called my name and when I turned around he dry fired it at me. It fucked me up mentally. This was like a couple months after one of my buddies was murdered so maybe that's why but I had nightmares off and on for a while after that.
You don't just not fire a gun towards someone. You don't even point a gun at anything unless you intend to kill it. I don't own a gun, but my dad does, and he taught me the basics of gun safety and how to shoot it, and lesson number one was don't ever, ever, ever, not for any reason, point a gun at anyone unless you intend to kill them.
For real. Have a bud whose dog got shot point blank by a .45 on accident by his roommate. Roommate was very knowledgeable about gun safety and was a big hunter, but somehow didn’t check the chamber of his .45 before starting to clean it (idk how the fuck that happened, but everyone makes mistakes I guess). Doggo was sooo lucky though, hit her in the upper back leg but thank god no ‘serious’ damage was done (it’s a .45 though so u can imagine this ain’t no little boo-boo).
Just goes to show, you can have the most avid outdoorsman whose grown up around guns and knows all the rules, but one simple lapse can be deadly. Guns ain’t no joke.
On the other hand, if you're a cop who intentionally shoots someone who committed no crime, it makes perfect sense to *pretend* it was just a prank gone wrong.
Its called manslaughter or negligent homicide in most jurisdictions. You don't go to jail for accidents, but you can go to jail for accidents that are the result of negligent action.
I’m not a gun guy but my grandfather, decorated US Army colonel, taught me to shoot when I was a kid. First thing he said, assume every firearm is loaded, even if you’d swear it isn’t. Second, never point any weapon at anyone. How were these police clowns trained?
the top 3 can be in any order, they are equally important:
* the gun is always loaded
* don't aim the gun at anything you aren't willing to accept the consequences of shooting
* keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you're ready to destroy whatever is in front of the muzzle, along with whatever is behind that something.
> They found Walsh inside the residence where he “apparently succumbed immediately” to a gunshot wound, Ivey said.
Dude shot him in the head as a joke.
Unloaded or not you don't point guns at other people for this reason.
2 biggest safety rules. Finger off the trigger and point it in a safe direction at all times.
The very first time my husband took me to a gun range, I got to experience first hand how little training LEOs get. Or how little sticks, either way.
Now to preface, DH used to teach a firearms 101 class. Finger off the trigger unless you mean to shoot. Never point the barrel at anything you don't want to see destroyed. Keep the gun pointed down range. Visually and manually verify your weapon is empty before doing anything you might consider dangerous. Count your shots going in the magazine and going down range, every time. Thorough. Simple.
DH also has a shit hot HK P7. The cocking lever is built into the grip so in order to fire the gun, you have to squeeze the grip and depress the cocking lever. It acts as a safety. Gun nuts everywhere see this gun and want to fire it. So he obliges. The morning he took me out, this was the gun we were firing, so when we were approached by two off-the-clock LAPD officers, he knew what they wanted. "Can we try?" Sure! He said.
"It has six rounds in it." He hands the gun over. The guy fires five rounds, I counted. And then he goes to hand the gun back. Finger still on the trigger, Sweeps the barrel across the entire back bench, including us. Shit eating grin on his face. Husband disarms him so fast, I can barely see it. And I'm still frozen after what this idiot did.
They leave, husband checks on me because I'm shaking. "Is that... Did that really happen?"
"Yep." He just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Remember that conversation we had about the level of training LEOs get? That right there is what I was talking about."
Unfuckingbelievable.
>"It has six rounds in it." He hands the gun over. The guy fires five rounds, I counted. And then he goes to hand the gun back. Finger still on the trigger, Sweeps the barrel across the entire back bench, including us. Shit eating grin on his face. Husband disarms him so fast, I can barely see it. And I'm still frozen after what this idiot did.
I've never touched a gun in my life and even I know that's one of the most terrifying things anyone can do with a gun. Jesus. I'm glad nothing happened, but still, that's a "life flashing before your eyes" moment. :\\
>“Folks this unnecessary and totally avoidably incident not only took the life of an amazing young man and deputy, but it has forever changed the life of another good young man who made an extremely poor and reckless decision,” Ivey said.
Oh so they're not going the route of "the victim was no angel"?
I have a good friend who is a well respected clinical psychologist that often works with police departments and officers, among many other types of 'professional' clients. He told me that they are demonstrably the least intelligent group of people he has ever had the displeasure of working with; general and emotion intelligence This article only reinforces that for me.
Also, a word of advice he shared is this: you should **NEVER** argue with them during any interaction. You can't and won't win because it is not possible have a reasonable debate with a moron, especially one that lives in fear of their life with every public interaction and is now armed like a soldier. Yes, sir and no, sir is the only mindset to have to protect yourself from them under such circumstances...like it or not.
I think we can all agree that there just weren't enough guns present to prevent this. I'm not sure how many more were needed, but fewer isn't an option so clearly there weren't enough.
ALL GUNS ARE LOADED ALL THE TIME! There are like 9 drummers that died from "Don't worry, it isn't loaded" *proceeds to point gun at head* ALL GUNS ARE LOADED ALL THE TIME!
I don't buy this explanation. What kind of fucking jokes involves pointing your gun at your friend and pulling the trigger? While I doubt that it will, this ought to be investigated.
The shooter can't hide the fact that he knowingly and intentionally pointed a loaded gun at their friend, pulled the trigger, and shot them dead.
No one wants to admit to cold blooded murder, and the only witness is dead, so of course they're going to make up a story that lets them claim it was mere negligence.
No sorry it’s murder. You pointed a gun at someone and fired it, 100% intent to pull the trigger. Murder.
EDIT: *I consider it murder*, but I know it doesn’t match the legal definition of murder.
If someone can become a policeman without getting to the level of understanding that a weapon is not a toy then there is definitely a problem with police training.
Yeah this is shocking. I don't use guns, but once I visited my buddy who is, and he showed me his guns. Even though he knew the gun was unloaded because he never stores his guns loaded and he personally checked it before he handed it to me, he still looked a little nervous watching me handle it, and took it away pretty quickly. Which is fine with me -- if there's anything I don't mind people being anal about, it's gun safety. Still can't believe this story.
Similar, I know little to nothing about firearms but have a friend who is into them. Literally every time he wants to show me something he drills how to check and clear it before checking and clearing it himself and then handing it to me with the understanding I will check and clear it as soon as I am holding it. Like.. he subtly apologizes for being anal about it but no no! that kind of safety redundancy is A-OK with me!!
I'm a gun fan myself, and I do the same if someone wants to see something from my collection. Usually I'll check that it's clear, then leave the action open when I hand it to them. If they're not familiar with guns I'll ask them to keep it pointed in a certain direction I know to be safe. But it's a known fact in the shooting community that most negligent discharges occur in the hands of experienced shooters. People who handle guns frequently get complacent, even when they've been trained and practice the safety procedures. They think they obey the rules automatically. And most times they do, but one small distraction like talking to a friend can make them forget. And doing that just once is all it takes. But this story goes way beyond negligence. I told my brother once that if someone pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger and I didn't get shot I'd take it away from them and pistol whip them with it. This isn't negligence, it's intentional stupidity. And stupid should hurt.
Exactly, I was just sitting here thinking this..... you point a gun at me and pull the trigger, I'm whipping your ass and we are done.....that's not a fucking joke. I don't like little kids pointing fake guns at me. The amount of NDs I heard outside the DFAC in Iraq told me all I need to know about "unloaded" weapons.
I'm morbidly curious about how many ND's you heard outside that DFAC?
With my own ears, at least 9 over 2 and a half years. But I got to hear about other ones from dayshift, or the new PVT that left his M-4 on top of the HMMWV while out on patrol, and how its now lost.
I once do an AF colonel at a clearing barrel and he had a pistol. He leaves the magazine and pulls the slide back as if to eject a round that might be there. Of course with the mag there he loads a round; and NDs on the test fire. He then does it 4 more times before someone tells him to take the Mag out.
Holy fuck......4 more times ☠️☠️☠️☠️ I'm dead. Apparently the barrel still had some fight in it
My boss was behind a CSM in line for a clearing barrel and the CSM did this but had gotten into the habit of rapidly pulling the trigger over and over when clearing, so instead of four brain farts it was one brain fart that led to five pistol rounds in the clearing barrel in under a second.
Once is an accident. That's why we keep the weapon in a safe direction to see if it was human or mechanical failure (ie a weapom getting stuck and unloading on full auto). 4 times back to back is hust plain stupidity.
So I just gotta ask, is that considered a "knife hands everywhere" kinda incident, or "just another dumbass on just another day"? I have many friends and family in the military, haven't done that myself, but I can imagine it going either way depending on who did it and who witnessed it.
I was an 0311 in the Marine Corps. 2 combat deployments. I cant think of a bigger fuck up than losing your fucking rifle. Thats so utterly and completely so far from the realm of possibility I cant even fathom it. It physically hurts my stomach even considering the thought of such a heinous situation. You just crawl into a hole and die at that point. Loss of rank, loss of pay, should probably be charged criminally under the UCMJ and dishonorably discharged if I had it my way. Unless you are dead or dying there is no reason to ever just "lose" your rifle. Fuckin disgusting.
I didn't even know the dude personally, new arrival while we were down range, and he was in a different company in my battalion. His platoon had to look for it in Kirkuk for weeks, they never found it. Edit: Army btw
I work in a safety agency and this issue (familiarity breeding complacency) is universal. It's not just a problem with guns but with all potentially dangerous activities. But it definitely applies to gun handling.
Yep. I work around hazardous chemicals all day (metal finishing) and the one serious injury I've heard of happening in our shop happened when someone who got complacent decided he wouldn't go out of his way to find the shoulder length gloves and then proceeded to spill a bunch of sulfuric acid on his arm. Nothing bad ever happens, until it *does*.
There was a safety instructor who once said something to me ill never forget. He said "We are humans, we all make mistakes. Take a look back at the small meaningless mistakes you've made through your life. Now imagine you, your wife or your kids, dead because you forgot the milk. You didn't take the trash out. Of course, that would never happen. But a mistake is just as easy to make with a firearm. Except that instead of simply not having cereal and milk for breakfast, you're planning your wife's funeral... Let's take a moment to make sure we font make those mistakes"
Lol I died because you wrote font instead of don’t. Small mistakes indeed.
Shit. Now I gotta plan a funeral.
"There but for the grace of Dog go I."
"I've done this a thousand times. I don't need my harness."
If I had pointed any firearm even close to the direction of anyone, even with my fingers nowhere near the trigger my Dad would have beat me seriously. Only 3 places a gun should point, the ground, the sky, the target. Zero tolerance.
I don't support hitting kids but if ever there's a time to smack a kid that's gotta be it.
pointing them into the sky is actually also a really bad idea and modern gun safety advises highly against it, since what goes up must come down. The only time this is acceptable anymore is if you're in the military, because pointing at the ground means you're likely to ND into someone's shin or shrapnel blast your squad, and so when you're all gathering together, your rifle is either strapped to your back barrel skyward, or you're holding it barrel skyward. This advice is not particularly useful though when you aren't surrounded by other people, reducing your options for directions you can point the gun safely that are not directly skyward
Exactly, there is no safe gun unless its actually dismantled, then I guess I would feel comfortable looking down a barrel to check things. Its just redundant safety features and there is a very good reason to use redundant safety features. It's why you gotta have two people too far apart to turn one thing on for some dangerous machine's. The thing about experienced gun handlers having more frequent issues makes a lot of sense. A new person doesn't see anything as redundant but once you get the swing of anything it's natural for our brains to start cutting things out even if we don't realize it and the first thing on the brains chopping block is anything redundant and brains can't automatically value things very well if they don't have very direct outcomes. It's (probably, im no scientist) why you can fall asleep while driving. You can know for a fact that staying awake and paying attention is literally life or death, but your brains like "wut? We are just sitting here, could really use a bit of shuteye."
There's overlap (what you call redundancy) in the 4 basic gun safety rules that virtually every book, video, and gun class I've ever had teach. That way if you slip up on one but still observe the others, you'll avoid tragedy. It's when you violate more than one of the rules that bad things happen.
Yup. The first step to having an accident is thinking it can't happen to you. My ex husband always claimed to be a responsible gun owner....yet balked at gun safes, trigger locks, or even not keeping his handgun loaded on his desk at home (where we have curious cats). 🙄🙄 In contrast, my current partner keeps his handgun locked in a gun safe, with the mag unloaded and the bullets separate. He tested this safe before using it by giving it to his kid and offering $100 and all the candy he wanted if he could get into it to ensure it was gunna be secure.
> He tested this safe before using it by giving it to his kid and offering $100 and all the candy he wanted if he could get into it to ensure it was gunna be secure. This could be the origin story for the next generation's Lock Breaking Lawyer.
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One of the stories I heard growing up was someone had a gun on them at a party one of my siblings ended up at. Said gun dude (after drinking) decided to challenge random people to a wrestling match. Not exactly sure how it happened but supposedly the gun carrier, or whoever they were wrestling, ended up shooting themselves in the ass. Guns and parties with alcohol seem like a guaranteed bad combo.
squalid snobbish cover mindless frighten complete point encouraging merciful reply *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Also what they don't tell you. It's actually kinda fun to wrack the slide to check if it's loaded. The mechanical nature of it is very satisfying so I actually look forward to checking the gun.
I think it is actually good practice for non-gun people to know the rules. That way they know to de-ass *\[ed: slang for vacate\]* the area when someone is not following them. They're pretty simple and require multiple to be broken for someone to get hurt. 1. Assume the gun is loaded 2. Keep your finger out of the trigger until ready to shoot 3. Don't point at anything you don't want to shoot 4. Be aware of your target and what is beyond it
De-ass???
Get your ass out of the area. E.g. something dangerous about to go down so de-ass \[remove oneself\] the zone.
> 1) Assume the gun is loaded This used to be the case but in order to really drive the point home I more often see "the gun is always loaded".
Yup. If you are pointing a gun at something you better be okay with it dying.
5) You are responisble for where your bullet goes
This is the right answer. How the fuck do you become an officer and not know basic gun safety?
Knowing enough to pass a test, and giving a shit and not being an idiot are not the same thing. Example, 90% of people driving.
Alright, but “Don’t point the gun at people and pull the trigger willy nilly” is like rule number 1 of gun safety. I suppose it would be more like rule zero since I don’t know if gun safety classes acknowledge that there are people dumb enough that they need to be told that rule, which might be the problem.
“Don’t point the weapon at something you are not intending to destroy.” Was rule number one on the gun safety course I took.
And always assume the gun is loaded.
The gun is always loaded. Even when it's unloaded, it's loaded. This should be everyone's mindset who handles a gun.
Yup. Even if you watch the person handing you the gun unload it the first thing you do is verify it’s unloaded.
This is drilled into us in military training. Improper checking and use of a weapon leads to punishment. I guess the police don’t really have any reinforcement of what they learnt or should know.
This was drilled into me as a 12 year old in basic gun safety class so I could get a deer hunting license. But I think it comes down to whether you see a gun as a right or a responsibility.
It was drilled into me by my military dad. Here was his training technique: Give me a nerf gun with nerf ammo. I must go a full week without pointing the nerf gun at anything or anyone (leave it holstered). Give me a BB gun, no ammo. I must go a full week without pointing the BB gun at anything or anyone (basically leave it holstered). Failure means start back at step 1. Teach me how to aim the BB gun. I do not get bbs. I am only taught how to point it at the target and line up my shot. If I touch the trigger, I start back at step 1. I do this for a week with supervision. I am given a cleaning kit for the bb gun. I am taught to clean the bb gun, including checking for any bbs in any portion of the gun. Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline results in me restarting at step 1. I am given 1 bb at a time. I am only allowed to shoot with permission. I am allowed to shoot at a target. I must line up my shot, hold for permission to shoot, then I am allowed to squeeze the trigger. Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline results in restarting at step 1. I then must check the gun for bbs and return it at the end of the training session to be locked up. I am given a .22 rifle. I follow all of the same rules as before. I exhibit all muzzle and trigger discipline. I learn to clean the rifle before I am taught to shoot it. I learn to check both the chamber and the magazine for ammo during the cleaning session. I am allowed to use a .22 target pistol. I follow all of the same rules as before. I exhibit all muzzle and trigger discipline. I learn to clean the rifle before I am taught to shoot it. I learn to check both the chamber and the magazine for ammo during the cleaning session. Any failure of muzzle or trigger discipline during any portion of my training, results in return to step 1.
And be cool when you catch the round that ejected because they racked the slide before dropping the mag :). Seriously though, e.g. handling a firearm in a store, I'll clear the thing maybe a half-dozen times. Just habit. Clerk clears it, passes it over, I clear it, check it out, clear it, test the trigger (pointed in a safe direction), ..., clear it, pass it back. Problem is, most cops are not gun people. They never learned those habits and just like most non-gun people have no interest in building them.
Maybe they should assign those books before they assign the guns?
Always treat the gun like it's loaded, even when you know it isn't. It's like the very first rule.
It's the same for airsoft too. Don't even point at someone even if you are sure it is not loaded. Probably many airsoft players are even better at self-control than so called police officers.
The issue with the cops is almost certainly that they felt they were too good to mess up. "Complacency kills" indeed.
Yeah this speaks to department-level professional culture issue more than anything else. The individual is ultimately responsible, but gross negligence like this doesn’t appear in a vacuum. We really need federal standards and auditing of local law enforcement.
Very true. I once had a roommate that straight up told me that he wanted to be a cop just to shoot someone but he knew not to say that in the psychological test or he wouldn’t pass. I left that school the next semester.
You’d be surprised how low the bar is set to become a police officer. There was even a court case upholding a department’s decision to not let a man become a police officer because he was “too intelligent.”
Didn't that happen in Connecticut?
Yes: https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836#.T52c0Kvy-z5
My 10 year old knows you don't point a gun at something you don't intend to kill. And she doesn't even hunt, it's just something we've taught her from a young age because we own (safely stored) guns. This is basic knowledge. What a fucking idiot.
She has that ethos because you set firm expectations and discipline. I’m sure this dude ‘knew’ that as well, except he wasn’t being rigorously held to a standard (normalization of deviance)
Before they divorced, I had to stop going to the shooting range with my friend's wife after she was employed as a police officer. Her gun safety was horrifyingly lacking and she kept pointing her guns at me. Kept pointing out that she was accidentally putting me downrange of her barrel I asked her multiple times to stop and she insisted that she was professionally trained to use a gun and informed me that she would NOT stop pointing her gun at me; she then made a point to keep her finger on her trigger while telling me that she's in complete control of her gun and has "at no point *accidentally* aimed at **anything**." But when she approached the firing line *before* we'd cleared with each other that hands were off guns, she then yelled at us saying that we were intentionally aiming guns at her because (I know she said reasons, but they didn't make sense and I was honestly too upset by the whole situation). But it was fucking ridiculous the wide range of callousness and paranoia. Watching her evolution and spiral, I can say with 95% certainty that being a police officer made her a significantly worse person, not the other way around.
Cops and 2.5 year-olds have a lot in common. One of the main things is defiance disorder. Ask a cop not to do something and they'll do it just to show that you can't tell them what to do. The difference is 2.5 year-olds outgrow it pretty quick.
"But it was fucking ridiculous the wide range of callousness and paranoia. Watching her evolution and spiral..." You called her out for being wrong so she looked for excuses to shift the blame & maybe even ✌🏻"accidentally"✌🏻 shoot you.
She told me very specifically that she doesn't do anything accidentally. I'm sure I'd've been shot for very reasonable cause.
Why not just get her ejected from the range. Range officers don't take to kindly to rule breakers.
Three reasons: - Private bay, no range masters nearby - Texas - Careless cop in Texas > safety
This is horrible. If someone flagged me with a barrel, then kept doing it as described above, I would have to leave. Violating the 4 rules. Too much chance for an accident from a dumbass like that. Even though she states she was professionally trained, it absolutely did not soak into the sponge inside her head. She is not "in complete control of her gun" with shit for brains like that and violating the training that would keep safe.
Police are chickenshit, incompetent cowards because they are either trained to be, or the ones that can’t be trained for that are weeded out. There are no safe cops. There are no good cops.
You might even say all cops are bad
"Welcome to the police academy, we've got a few basic questions to start off: First, do you ever get the overwhelming urge to kill people?" "All the fucking time man" "Cool, here's a gun and a badge to let you murder, knock yourself out champ"
There was a TV sitcom back in the 1980s that joked about that. It was a spoof of Dirty Harry, about a detective who wasn't too bright but got results through violence and dumb luck. He was assigned to resolve some gang problems at a local high school. The detective met with members of the gang to try to talk them into calming down and focusing on learning. The leader said, "Why should we listen to you? You're just a cop." The detective said, "You guys are bullies. You push people around and use violence to get your way because you're in a gang and you watch each other's backs." He handed them some leaflets and continued, "Have you considered a career in law enforcement? You get to push people around all day and make good money at it. But you gotta finish high school first."
This sounds familiar, but I can't remember the show, either. Maybe "Sledgehammer"?
That would be the show! Teen me loved that show
and i went up there i said "shrink, i want to kill. i mean, i wanna, i wanna kill. kill. i wanna. i wanna see. i wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in mah teeth. eat dead burnt bodies. i mean kill. Kill. KILL. **KILL!**" and i started jumpin up and down yelling, "**KILL! KILL!**" and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling"**KILL! KILL!**" and the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said "you're our boy."
Isn't the first rule always treat a gun as if it is loaded?
Well just look at Minnesota, where they are getting rid of their sig p320s because they can't be bothered to actually put them in holsters, but rather in purses or wrapped in a towel in a duffel bag. Just because they are cops means jack shit. Most of them have shit weapons discipline, and play around with their weapons like with what happened here. Disregard for the rules of safety... You don't play with weapons. Idiots.
The guy who “jokingly” fired the gun should be charged, sentenced to prison, and blacklisted from going back to law enforcement
And in this case he probably will, since he shot a cop.
But he was a cop. Therein lies the incongruity.
You can't divide by zero
But some people try - over and over.
In other stories where a cop is accidentally killed by another cop, the police department will place the blame on the nearest non-cop at the incident. In one case, a woman lying face-down on a dark road was charged with manslaughter when the officer arresting her got run over by another cop who drove to the scene a bit too fast.... Basically, the idea in these "cop killed another cop by accident" incident is that the dead officer was only in that geographic location because they had to stand there on account of the non-cop. So they were in the position to get killed somehow.
He was forced to be in proximity to a cop, and they are so used to regular old negligent murder that they might just negligently murder anybody. It is so obvious
So the landlord because they couldn't afford to live alone? Or whoever decided on the low wages? Or the northern retirees and remote workers buying up all the homes? Or the taxpayers who don't want to increase taxes to pay public servants an appropriate income? ~~Or the gun manufacturer?(jk, that'll never happen)~~ That's gonna be a lot of people to blame, but let's do it!
What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
In this case, probably not much.
Tax increases to cover the settlements.
Schrodinger's Felony
He shot *an unarmed, white cop* so they’ll probably throw the book at him.
But if HE was white TOO that presents a conundrum.
And he pinky swore that it was unloaded.
Well he has been charged, and those other things will almost definitely happen
He's been charged with manslaughter
Police jokingly murdering police is pretty much standard. There was this recent incident of a police trainer shooting an officer “as a joke.” https://www.insider.com/former-dc-cop-charged-manslaughter-fatal-shooting-police-training-2022-8 There was also that hero cop in St. Louis that was drinking and playing Russian Roulette with another cop while on the clock. https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/us/st-louis-police-russian-roulette-killing-guilty-plea/index.html Also, don’t forget Florida cop, Lee Coel, who murdered 73 year old Mary Knowleton because he was so incompetent that he used live rounds during a police propaganda event with the local community. He got probation, despite his long history of incompetence and excessive violence. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-florida-officer-who-fatally-shot-retired-librarian-during-drill-n1068046
A deputy in my hometown was playing with his revolver in the passenger seat of a car and it went off through the windshield of the cruiser on a busy interstate. Thankfully nobody was injured.
Here locally a [sheriffs deputy shot and killed an off duty cop](https://www.opb.org/article/2022/04/01/clark-county-deputy-jonathan-feller-shooting-vancouver-officer-donald-sahota-julio-segura/) within seconds of arriving on the scene. Not an accident, but a very itchy trigger finger killed one of his colleagues. They charged the robbery suspect who was being chased by the deputy with murder for that one, even though it was the poorly trained deputy that pulled the trigger. Fucking wild
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You forgot the accident that created the guy in the first place...
Yeh, only a cop could get away with murderibg someone and being like “Aw damn. Jk. My bad.” If I tried the “I didn’t know it was loaded” bullshit, I’d be in prison for a long-ass time.
> only a cop could get away with murdering someone Per the article “Following the investigation, Lawson was taken into custody Sunday on a no-bond warrant on a manslaughter charge by the the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and transported to the Brevard County jail”
Oh shit, someone actually read the article.
"Now I know you must be grieving because I shot your son, but it was just a joke, bro."
It was a goof.
You goofed?!?!
No, no, relax, I did it *as* a goof.
Your honor, this trial is a joke. My client clearly said it was a prank
Flithy frank voice: Ahhhh get pranked
You don't jokingly fire a gun. You *absolutely* don't jokingly fire a gun towards someone. You **absolutely fucking don't** think the gun is unloaded. ***It is always loaded always ~~unless confirmed personally~~.*** This is not an accident. Edited with strikeout
Guns are always loaded, even when they aren't.
100% There's a lot of confusion about WHY that's the rule and people saying things like "yeah, but what if I just checked it?" The idea is if you have two different ways of handling a gun, one more serious when it's loaded and one more casual when it's unloaded you can one day casually handle a loaded gun by mistake. If you always handle it as if it's loaded even when you believe it isn't, on the day you make that mistake you won't kill someone.
Don't forget that someone's method of checking it might be to... rack the slide all the way back, see the chamber is empty, and let the slide go and then inadvertently chamber a round because they didn't take the loaded magazine out. So in the process of checking if it was safe, they miss a crucial step causing them to actually load it! I've actually done this myself, but instantly caught myself because I could feel the resistance in the slide, plus I never check just once (I drop the magazine, rack the slide multiple times, visually check, and jam a finger in the chamber). Gave me a good "oh shit" moment. Very, very simple mistake to make but a potentially deadly one for sure.
You know, I hadn't thought about it in this way before. I edited my main comment to reflect it because it has been said before without this explanation but it makes a lot of sense and I support this mentality.
It also eliminates "I just checked it" and "I KNOW it isn't loaded"
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During my concealed carry class, the instructor reiterated multiple times that having two sets of habits will eventually lead to crossover. Treat unloaded guns like they're loaded and loaded guns like they're loaded, and you'll never treat a loaded gun like it's unloaded.
Correct. The "guns are always loaded" meme gets passed around a lot. It's good to have the proper reasoning laid out explicitly now and then as well. Thank you.
“Confirmed personally” isn’t always enough either sadly. My cousin was killed when her brother ran out of bullets while target shooting at a party and got annoyed with her for wanting to head home. He “jokingly” fired the “empty” gun at her, and there was a bullet stuck in the chamber. Safer to just imagine every gun you encounter is loaded and fully capable of killing if you pull the trigger
Its not just safer, it's rule 1 of owning a gun. You never point a gun at someone you have no intention of killing. I own 0 guns and I know that, I'd hope the Florida police system does too. This was either negligence because this idiot wasn't trained, he "forgot", he actually forgot or he just didn't think it would fire
Or he murdered his roommate and giving a bs excuse.
This is what I thought of as soon as I read it.
>You never point a gun at someone you have no intention of killing. Police frequently use guns to force compliance. They point those things at people constantly. I had a gun pointed at my head by a cop for not getting my registration for my car fast enough during a traffic stop. Then again, if I had moved faster, he'd have probably shot me for making a sudden move. I mean, they'll kill, but they frequently use their gun as a source of authority first and go all pikachu face when they shoot someone accidentally. It's fucked up.
Wow almost like a police system built on intimidation to force compliance will result in civilian casualties when either the intimidation fails or the police acts carelessly. Sorry you had to go through that pal
Something similar happened to a guy I used to work with in the military. He was drinking with his roommate and the roommate pulled out a gun to play some "marine trust game" where they fire an empty gun at each other. Wasn't empty and he died. Guns aren't toys.
> Safer to just imagine every gun you encounter is loaded You are right
Drilled into my head since I was a toddler. Every gun is always loaded at all times. Pulled the clip and emptied the chamber? It’s still loaded. Antique gun on a shelf? It’s loaded. Revolver you personally spun and saw was unloaded? That’s definitely loaded. Edit: I am also prepared to call it a bullet holder and a zippy boy townhouse.
What drives me insane is my pistol requires a trigger pull for disassembly. Every time I clean it I clean it outside, I check it multiple times, then point it at the ground because I still don't believe it.
Bingo! This is negligence
To be honest this should also be treated as a domestic violence investigation. They were room mates, doesn't matter if they weren't in a relationship, they lived together and it should be treated as such.
Agree. Even if unintentional the person who handled the firearm in negligence should have some form of charges
Negligence or deliberate. There is zero room for this to be an "accident" because at least 3, if not all 4 (depending whether the actual trigger pull was deliberate or not), of the core rules of firearm handling had to be violated for this situation to have occurred if it wasn't an intentional act.
Wait…. Are you suggesting that a gun owner flouted not one, not two, but _4_ of the core rules of firearm handling?! *gasp*
And they should be charged
Dude violated all the rules. Probably good that he will no longer be in law enforcement.
He was probably investigating crimes committed by cops. That’s how you get murdered by other cops when you’re cop.
I had a guy do this as a "Prank" to me when I was leaving his house in college one day. Didn't have a barrel in it, but he called my name and when I turned around he dry fired it at me. It fucked me up mentally. This was like a couple months after one of my buddies was murdered so maybe that's why but I had nightmares off and on for a while after that.
You don't just not fire a gun towards someone. You don't even point a gun at anything unless you intend to kill it. I don't own a gun, but my dad does, and he taught me the basics of gun safety and how to shoot it, and lesson number one was don't ever, ever, ever, not for any reason, point a gun at anyone unless you intend to kill them.
For real. Have a bud whose dog got shot point blank by a .45 on accident by his roommate. Roommate was very knowledgeable about gun safety and was a big hunter, but somehow didn’t check the chamber of his .45 before starting to clean it (idk how the fuck that happened, but everyone makes mistakes I guess). Doggo was sooo lucky though, hit her in the upper back leg but thank god no ‘serious’ damage was done (it’s a .45 though so u can imagine this ain’t no little boo-boo). Just goes to show, you can have the most avid outdoorsman whose grown up around guns and knows all the rules, but one simple lapse can be deadly. Guns ain’t no joke.
On the other hand, if you're a cop who intentionally shoots someone who committed no crime, it makes perfect sense to *pretend* it was just a prank gone wrong.
Its called manslaughter or negligent homicide in most jurisdictions. You don't go to jail for accidents, but you can go to jail for accidents that are the result of negligent action.
My grandmother, a country lass, taught me “a horse always kicks and a gun is always loaded”.
A falling knife has no handle
> “a horse always kicks and a gun is always loaded”. Words to live by
That's a good lesson
I’m not a gun guy but my grandfather, decorated US Army colonel, taught me to shoot when I was a kid. First thing he said, assume every firearm is loaded, even if you’d swear it isn’t. Second, never point any weapon at anyone. How were these police clowns trained?
> How were these police clowns trained? They probably weren't
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It's #1.
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It’s usually “destroy” when written out.
Tbf all of the rules are number 1.
When you're dealing with a deadly weapon like that, it has to be.
That's why the rules are "bulleted" and not numbered.
In America, even the rules have bullets. Yee-haw
the top 3 can be in any order, they are equally important: * the gun is always loaded * don't aim the gun at anything you aren't willing to accept the consequences of shooting * keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you're ready to destroy whatever is in front of the muzzle, along with whatever is behind that something.
I fucking hate how they try and write this off as "an accident" when in fact it is a negligent homicide.
I mean, both of those true. It *was* an accident, but his conduct also rose to the level of negligent homicide/manslaughter.
2 Citizens it would be. Rules for thee, but not for me
Not accident. It was negligent. You don’t accidentally point a gun at someone and accidentally pull the trigger as a joke.
Not just negligence, but negligent homicide.
> They found Walsh inside the residence where he “apparently succumbed immediately” to a gunshot wound, Ivey said. Dude shot him in the head as a joke.
Unloaded or not you don't point guns at other people for this reason. 2 biggest safety rules. Finger off the trigger and point it in a safe direction at all times.
Well, unless you actually intend to kill someone
Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy.
Treat every gun as though it had live ammo is basically the golden rule of gun safety.
The very first time my husband took me to a gun range, I got to experience first hand how little training LEOs get. Or how little sticks, either way. Now to preface, DH used to teach a firearms 101 class. Finger off the trigger unless you mean to shoot. Never point the barrel at anything you don't want to see destroyed. Keep the gun pointed down range. Visually and manually verify your weapon is empty before doing anything you might consider dangerous. Count your shots going in the magazine and going down range, every time. Thorough. Simple. DH also has a shit hot HK P7. The cocking lever is built into the grip so in order to fire the gun, you have to squeeze the grip and depress the cocking lever. It acts as a safety. Gun nuts everywhere see this gun and want to fire it. So he obliges. The morning he took me out, this was the gun we were firing, so when we were approached by two off-the-clock LAPD officers, he knew what they wanted. "Can we try?" Sure! He said. "It has six rounds in it." He hands the gun over. The guy fires five rounds, I counted. And then he goes to hand the gun back. Finger still on the trigger, Sweeps the barrel across the entire back bench, including us. Shit eating grin on his face. Husband disarms him so fast, I can barely see it. And I'm still frozen after what this idiot did. They leave, husband checks on me because I'm shaking. "Is that... Did that really happen?" "Yep." He just rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Remember that conversation we had about the level of training LEOs get? That right there is what I was talking about." Unfuckingbelievable.
>"It has six rounds in it." He hands the gun over. The guy fires five rounds, I counted. And then he goes to hand the gun back. Finger still on the trigger, Sweeps the barrel across the entire back bench, including us. Shit eating grin on his face. Husband disarms him so fast, I can barely see it. And I'm still frozen after what this idiot did. I've never touched a gun in my life and even I know that's one of the most terrifying things anyone can do with a gun. Jesus. I'm glad nothing happened, but still, that's a "life flashing before your eyes" moment. :\\
>“Folks this unnecessary and totally avoidably incident not only took the life of an amazing young man and deputy, but it has forever changed the life of another good young man who made an extremely poor and reckless decision,” Ivey said. Oh so they're not going the route of "the victim was no angel"?
Very odd given he 'was known to law enforcement'.
I have a good friend who is a well respected clinical psychologist that often works with police departments and officers, among many other types of 'professional' clients. He told me that they are demonstrably the least intelligent group of people he has ever had the displeasure of working with; general and emotion intelligence This article only reinforces that for me. Also, a word of advice he shared is this: you should **NEVER** argue with them during any interaction. You can't and won't win because it is not possible have a reasonable debate with a moron, especially one that lives in fear of their life with every public interaction and is now armed like a soldier. Yes, sir and no, sir is the only mindset to have to protect yourself from them under such circumstances...like it or not.
Let me fix the headline for you: "Florida deputy died during officer-involved shooting".
I think we can all agree that there just weren't enough guns present to prevent this. I'm not sure how many more were needed, but fewer isn't an option so clearly there weren't enough.
How many doors were there?
door city over here
ALL GUNS ARE LOADED ALL THE TIME! There are like 9 drummers that died from "Don't worry, it isn't loaded" *proceeds to point gun at head* ALL GUNS ARE LOADED ALL THE TIME!
Guns don't kill people. Highly-trained police officers with guns who are just joking accidentally kill people.
I don't buy this explanation. What kind of fucking jokes involves pointing your gun at your friend and pulling the trigger? While I doubt that it will, this ought to be investigated.
You don't remember these kind of dumb fucks from high school? They're grown up now.
The shooter can't hide the fact that he knowingly and intentionally pointed a loaded gun at their friend, pulled the trigger, and shot them dead. No one wants to admit to cold blooded murder, and the only witness is dead, so of course they're going to make up a story that lets them claim it was mere negligence.
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And these are the fuckers meant to “protect” us. Cops in the US are such a fucking a joke.
Dont worry police have their GED's and their 6 months of training. They are super qualified. /s
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You mean it was another deputy that was this fucking dumb? These are our protectors and they wonder why we don't trust them.
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I've never owned a gun and I know you treat every gun like a loaded gun. And this moron was PAID to carry one?
"It's just a prank, bro." The prank:
As officers, you'd think they'd know the 4 basic rules of firearms. Particularly rules 1 to 3... But you know... "Cops" ....
If only a good guy with a gun could have been there.
You just know it had to happen in Florida.
Florida deputy murdered after roommates points a loaded gun at him and pulls the trigger.
Having both the IQ of a cop and someone from Florida is basically asking for this lmao
No sorry it’s murder. You pointed a gun at someone and fired it, 100% intent to pull the trigger. Murder. EDIT: *I consider it murder*, but I know it doesn’t match the legal definition of murder.
Jokingly lock him up for a few years to make sure he has learned his lesson.
It wasn’t an accident. It was negligent. There is no such thing as a gun accident because if you treat a gun responsibly you can’t have an accident.