Cop shoots self by mistake

While training helps to reduce the likelihood of a straying trigger finger, it does not eliminate it:
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Well that's true, training alone will not eliminate stupid.

Training does help, developing muscle memory helps.

In my classes I spend a heck of a lot of time on "point shooting" practice before any ammo is allowed in the class.

You naturally want to point where you are looking. I start with spending a lot of time pointing the finger long before the handgun is picked up.

Then with an empty handgun, a lot more time is spent pointing. With a revolver the pointing (trigger) finger is under the cylinder, with a pistol, along the slide.

I try to develop muscle memory of pointing until you are ready to shoot.

Point your finger where you are looking, it's natural, add a gun and still use your finger to point, your barrel is pointing where your finger is. When you're ready to shoot, you're all lined up.

At normal self defense situations (under 3 yards) you're going to be hitting around the "A" section of the target, if that's where you're looking.

But again I spend a heck of a lot of time using your trigger finger to point long before ammo in involved in training.

And the best part. IT TRAINS YOU TO KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT.

Training and practice helps a good deal, but it wont overcome STUPID.

And to add: Choosing a holster or method of carry that allows crap to get into the trigger guard, and access to the trigger falls under the STUPID department.

In my law enforcement "firearm investigation" days, I learn its not the gun that causes accidental (stupid) discharges, its the person with the gun.

We need to first stop calling it Accidental Discharge, and call it what it is. STUPID DISCHARGE.
 
Choosing a holster or method of carry that allows crap to get into the trigger guard, and access to the trigger falls under the STUPID department.
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I can understand what you are saying to an extent. I bought a DA revolver holster with exposed trigger. After a short while trying it out I decided I could not use it. One of my unloaded training trigger pulls was with a rain coat that had draw strings on the waist and I was seeing if they could cause problems. SO there are definitely things that are more risky. That being said, I have yet to see a holster or come up with a method of carry that eliminates the possibility of something entering the holster. Most holsters have open bottoms. most don't fully seal at the top.
 
Just like you train to keep your finger off the trigger, you should be training to look at the holster when you reholster. That, and doing so "hesitantly", should help eliminate most holster related issues.
 
Just an anecdote, a gentleman almost shot me in the foot, holstering his 1911 after he loaded it for a stage in IDPA. Thus, he didn't put the safety on and had his finger on the trigger. It was exciting. He missed my foot by about a foot and the SO by several inches. I was score keeper.

Then, he started to wave the gun around saying: Wha happen?

The SO grabbed him.
 
Training can decrease mistakes, but it doesn't remove them entirely. Whenever I give a gun safety lecture to co-workers or friends that haven't shot a gun before, I give them the example of Siegfried and Roy. You couldn't find an example of someone more highly trained and experienced with wild animals and look what happened to them. someone let their guard down or made a mistake for a moment. I then connect this mood setter with the example of a cop across the street from our house that accidentally shot his friend and killed him. Guns are tigers. It doesn't matter who you are, you'd better treat that tiger with caution and never let your guard down, or you're dinner.
 
I tell my students to tie an imaginary string around their trigger finger. Live fire, dry fire, just practicing aiming ... whatever ... as soon as the sights come off the target the finger comes off the trigger, just like it was pulled off by that imaginary string. No exceptions, no excuses.

It has to become automatic. And this thread suggests to me that I probably need to stress that even more than I do. It's not enough to just tell them, because to them it doesn't mean anything, and in the context of an all-day class that statement is going to get lost.
 
Whenever I give a gun safety lecture to co-workers or friends that haven't shot a gun before, I give them the example of Siegfried and Roy. You couldn't find an example of someone more highly trained and experienced with wild animals and look what happened to them. someone let their guard down or made a mistake for a moment. I then connect this mood setter with the example of a cop across the street from our house that accidentally shot his friend and killed him. Guns are tigers. It doesn't matter who you are, you'd better treat that tiger with caution and never let your guard down, or you're dinner.
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The only point I'd challenge about this analogy is that Siegfried and Roy had it harder. They were dealing with an animal that had the ability to make a decision. Guns do not. That doesn't in any way mean we can be complacent, just that at least the gun can't have a bad day (barring mechanical failures).
 
"...It's amazing the number of police officers that..." Happened before there was such a thing as a DA or striker fired pistols too. Caused primarily by poor and insufficient training with a fair bit of screwing around with their kit. Only saving grace of the DA revolver was the truly horrendous trigger pull.
"...cop across the street from our house that accidentally shot his friend and killed him..." Cops occasionally get shot by other cops who were playing "quick draw" with DA pistols, up here, as well. Happened several years back when one of the SWAT type teams were waiting for their instructor to appear.
"...Guns are tigers..." Nonsense. Firearms are inanimate objects that do not have instincts or react to outside influences. A firearm will do exactly nothing if you yell at it or hit it with a stick. Doesn't care if you fail to feed it either.
Tigers do not have any ability to make a decision though. Kitty doesn't know what right or wrong is, like people are supposed to.
 
I think it is exactly like a Tiger, especially the old Remington 700s! :)
Someone had to post it. You were all just waiting.

you should be training to look at the holster when you reholster.
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I disagree. Just like reloads you should train to keep your situational awareness when re-holstering. In competition you may only re-holster when the coast is clear, but in real situations you may have to re-holster long before to regain use of your hands or the situation may not be as calm as you think. Keep your eyes up all the time. Feel that your holster is clear with your off hand if need be.

Also, if you are pointing the gun at yourself while re-holstering you probably aren't doing something right. Ricochets aren't fun either, but better than direct.
 
johnwilliamson062 said:
I think it is exactly like a Tiger, especially the old Remington 700s! :)

Someone had to post it. You were all just waiting.

I disagree. Just like reloads you should train to keep your situational awareness when re-holstering. In competition you may only re-holster when the coast is clear, but in real situations you may have to re-holster long before to regain use of your hands or the situation may not be as calm as you think. Keep your eyes up all the time. Feel that your holster is clear with your off hand if need be.

Also, if you are pointing the gun at yourself while re-holstering you probably aren't doing something right. Ricochets aren't fun either, but better than direct.
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If you feel the situation isn't yet clear then I would argue you shouldn't be reholstering. If you think looking at your holster for a second or two is going to allow the bad guys to get the drop on you, then keep that gun at the ready. There are different schools of thought on this of course. I think the point is to calm yourself and slow down when reholstering to prevent a ND.
 
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If you feel the situation isn't yet clear then I would argue you shouldn't be reholstering. If you think looking at your holster for a second or two is going to allow the bad guys to get the drop on you, then keep that gun at the ready. There are different schools of thought on this of course. I think the point is to calm yourself and slow down when reholstering to prevent a ND.
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My thoughts as well.
 
What if I am transitioning to another weapon?

There are a lot of situations where you might need your hands for other than holding a pistol without the situation having calmed. Treating or moving wounded, climbing, operating a motor vehicle, applying restraints etc. etc.
Avoid looking down.
 
Avoid looking down.
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I would rather use one second to look down, than potentially cook off a round. I get keeping an eye on the threat, but what we've seen in many of these stories is that there are coats and other garments that can get in the way. They need to be cleared. Hell, depending on what happened the holster may have even shifted. In this case the officer shot himself in the upper leg. Now should you avoid flagging yourself while holstering? Sure, but I imagine I can come up with some hypothetical for that too or it was just a bad error (people aren't perfect). The officer is lucky he didn't hit his femoral artery.

A number of the actions you mentioned could possibly be done with one hand while the other hand holds onto the weapon. I would again reiterate that before treating the wounded, etc, if there is still an active threat I need to engage that threat. I'm not doing the wounded any favor by getting shot while trying to tend to them.

I'm going to say what I said above again. There are different schools of thought. I've taken courses from instructors that thought differently. I take what they say, consider their logic behind it (a good instructor will explain and expect you to ask for an explanation), and then incorporate what I think is the best option for me. If you can do everything you need to without looking at the holster, okay then. My comment again was to avoid being in a rush to reholster. Maybe the officer needed to be in a hurry to reholster. Maybe if he'd slowed down he wouldn't have had the ND. I can't say anything for sure.

I consider this a decent video on the subject. I'm not saying everything from this instructor or on that channel is perfect or is the gold standard, but I think it's a good explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gwx389xdfE
 
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Some a youse guys completely missed the point about guns being tigers. So far everyone I've given the lecture to got the point and can figure out that a tiger is a beast and a gun is an inanimate object and that has ZERO to do with either situation. I've been pretty impressed with how all these first time shooters immediately displayed good safety skills.
 
Some a youse guys completely missed the point about guns being tigers. So far everyone I've given the lecture to got the point and can figure out that a tiger is a beast and a gun is an inanimate object and that has ZERO to do with either situation. I've been pretty impressed with how all these first time shooters immediately displayed good safety skills.
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That's honestly encouraging to hear that you're helping train a whole group of safety conscious shooters. And you're right, we're missing the forest for the trees. But remember, this is the internet. If we didn't debate to the point of stupidity they'd revoke our passes. :D
 
Studies show that the DA pull is not enough to stop many finger on the trigger accidents. It's in the literature.
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True, and a relevant study is:

C. Heim, E. Niebergall, and D. Schmidtbleicher, 2007, Involuntary firearms discharge – does the finger obey the brain?, in Polezeitrainer in Deutschland -- http://www.policetrainer.eu/Policet...discharge_does_the_finger_obey_the_brain.html.

While a DA trigger pull was not enough to prevent inadvertent activations of the trigger while vigorously multitasking (which happened 6% of the time), it was enough to reduce the rate of such inadvertent activations relative to the lighter SA trigger pull (which happened 20% of the time). Thus, one must conclude that a DA trigger is an effective, although not perfect, safety mechanism.
 
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