A flight attendant at Philadelphia International left a .38 Airweight in her purse, and was caught at the security checkpoint. The firearm was confiscated, and promptly discharged negligently by a Philadelphia Police Officer when he attempted to unload the gun. You have to work pretty hard to ND a revolver. I’d really like to know how that happened.
But it does go to show, there is no magic gun handling ability cops possess, which is what our opponents want to claim. Cops, just like any other group of people, have some people who are sharp and competent, and some people who are morons. You can try to train them, but often times you just end up with a trained moron, which isn’t that much more useful than one you haven’t trained. This woman will likely lose her License to Carry, and probably won’t get her gun back. I’m fairly sure the officer in question is still carrying firearms on the streets.
Why couldn’t they just tell her to go home with her gun and make sure it doesn’t happen again? It’s obviously just an accident and shouldn’t be such a big deal as to cause her to lose her LTCF forever and lose her job.
Why? Because we live in the Zero Tolerance Society, that’s why.
Zero tolerance for the peasants, and total forgiveness for our Lords and Masters.
Philly cops probably don’t even know there are other types of firearms other than their duty issue pistols.
Some do, some don’t. It’s like any other group of people. I’m sure you can even find members of the NYPD who can shoot straight.
Firing the gun is one way to unload it.
Why the heck did he need to pull the trigger at all? Did he mistake it for the cylinder release? You’re right, he must have worked hard to pull that off.
All the cop got was desk duty? LOL. If that was a lowly citizen like us, we’d be sitting in jail facing multiple charges.
I don’t know the origin of the fail inherent in the statement, but the NY Daily Noos had a sources say blurb to the effect of “the revolver discharged when the officer attempted to engage the safety” after identifying the weapon by name earlier in the article.
I think we’re all pretty sure of what happened. Office Joe, had his finger in the trigger guard when he tried to open the cylinder.
Makes me wonder, was it a different make of gun than his duty gun? Rugers and S&W use different button types. One might be used to pushing versus sliding (pulling), whatever…
Guy probably has used the same gun for 30 years.
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But yes, cops are not held to the same standards as citizens. See the recent shooting of the double amputee in Texas. Whom, two police officers were not able to deal with so they shot him.
Honestly, how do you think an armed citizen would fair in the courts trying to argue justified homicide of a double amputee with a pen in his hand?
“So it was a pen, not a gun?” – Judge
“Well your honor, the pen is mightier than the Glock” – Lawyer
“And your client could not outrun the man?” – Judge
“Well he had a four wheeler. And rolled very quickly” – Lawyer
http://blog.nugun.org/2012/09/24/shoot-first-questions-come-later/
Hey, in the account I read the officer who killed him said he was first “cornered” (I think it was, something to that effect) by this most dangerous of desperadoes.
It says something when the Blue Wall stands behind such officers (maybe it won’t in the long run), the damage to the “brand” these sorts of incidents do is incalculable. We should have listened to our founders when they warned us about select militias….