Chief shoots his own officer...

What part of "keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target" are people missing? Are the words too long? Perhaps the concept is too difficult?

Perhaps people who don't understand the concept shouldn't have guns. Especially if they are law enforcement officers.

From WOWT News:

A Carter Lake Police officer is recovering after being accidentally shot by the chief of police at police headquarters Wednesday afternoon.

Chief of Police Shawn Kannedy and two other officers were discussing firearms around 2:45 p.m. when Kannedy's weapon discharged, striking Sgt. Dan Driver in the torso.

Driver was taken to Creighton University Medical Center where he's in good condition.

The matter is under investigation by the Pottawattamie County Sheriff's Department to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest on the part of the Carter Lake Police Department.

Chief Kannedy has been placed on administrative leave.

I'm leaving out how the news media's story changed several times, starting from "officer shot himself in the thigh" to "officer was shot in the torso" to "chief shot officer" to "chief's GUN shot officer" (note how the emphasis changed from the person to the object?) because that is a discussion for a different blog.

Since this one is about guns, let's stick to that.

GUN LAWS:

1. The gun is loaded. Act that way.
2. Do not point the gun at anything you are not prepared to destroy
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target
4. Know both your target and your backstop (what is behind the target)

If you can't follow the gun safety laws, then don't handle a firearm. Every single time a person gets shot "accidentally," it means the person with the gun broke at least two of the gun safety laws. You can get away with breaking just one--the gun may or may not go off, but at least you won't kill anyone. But if someone gets shot "accidentally," then at least two were broken. And probably all four.

If the chief and his officers were discussing guns, fine. But why did he have a loaded weapon outside of a holster, when not on a range or in a defensive situation? If they had to discuss his specific firearm, why didn't they unload and clear the weapon first? Failing absolutely everything else, why was the firearm pointed at a person? Why did the chief have his finger on the trigger?

Looking above, you can see that I put "accidentally" in quotes all the time---that is because an "accidental discharge" is an extremely rare thing. And that isn't what happened in this case. An accidental discharge (AD) occurs when the gun really does go off by itself---the firing pin block didn't work when the gun fell to the ground, or the sear was ground down such that when racking the sliding with the finger safely off the trigger the gun fired anyway. These sorts of things are so incredibly rare (particularly with modern handguns, such as what law enforcement uses) that they are almost nonexistant.

What happened in the chief's case (and in almost every single case of the media reporting an "accidental discharge") is actually called a Negligent Discharge. NDs occur when the person holding the gun is negligent. They aren't obeying the gun safety laws, and someone gets hurt due to their negligence.

If a normal citizen has an ND, and someone gets hurt, that citizen is normally charged in court for it. In the chief's case? We'll see. It is interesting to read the the chief's GUN shot the officer, though. Magically, all by itself.

I don't think so!

What really happened? I wasn't there, and I don't know. But I do know this: for the gun to go off and the bullet to strike the officer, if the gun was in decent condition (which it should have been--surely the chief of police has a working firearm) then someone had to be holding the gun and pointing it at the officer, and that someone had to pull the trigger.

ND.

Obey the friggin' gun safety rules.