Thank you for the educational discussion. Even though I live deep in the heart of Texas, I do not have experience with firearms. I may have misidentified the dry firing of the weapons into the unloading station. Pkbites, I defer to your expertise.
As to why the show is so awful, I have several points. Now, I know that any workplace drama is never going to get the details of that profession correct. I know that police officers must laugh at how their profession is often portrayed. I know that I rarely find a movie or TV program that accurately describes what it is like to work in a public school, my sphere of experience.
However, this show strains my credulity:
[ul]
[li]The rookies seem completely unprepared for the duty before them. They are lacking any knowledge of how to do seemingly basic things (like safely unload their weapons). In one scene, they very poorly clear a room and secure suspects.[/li][li]First aid: I cannot imagine a police officer performing mouth-to-mouth on a known drug user without at least a barrier. That would be a very bad habit to get into and would likely be forbidden by any reasonable department.[/li][li]The training officers are openly hostile to the rookies and treat them with contempt. I’m sure there is a bit of hazing that goes on, but negligence? Someone could get killed.[/li][li]At one point, the rookie called Andy, calls her dad (an ex-cop) to ask “When can I enter a locked door?” The old man answers and Andy procedes to pick the lock. Wouldn’t an entry protocol have been drilled into rookies’ heads? Her dad answered that she can enter if she has reason to believe a crime is being committed. Okay. Well, she was supposedly serving a warrant. She was unaware of any crime being committed in the moment. She asked for Dad’s help and then disregarded his answer.[/li][li]Also in the above incident, she asked her dad for help because she didn’t feel comfortable asking her training officer questions. What a crappy training if you can’t ask questions![/li][li]Then there is the warrant itself. Andy’s craptacular trainer sent her in to serve a warrant on a woman. Rather than go in the front of the building, he told her to go in through the alley (hence the locked door). Andy asked for the arrest warrant. He handed it to her and she shoved it in her pocket. Only, when she finally arrived at the woman she was to pick up, the suspect asked to see the warrant. Andy pulled it out only to see that it was a restaurant menu. So, she played it off by waving it around, saying “Here it is” and then stuffed it in her pocket. Were I the suspect, that would not have satisfied me one bit.[/li][li]So, her partner LIED to her and sent her into a hostile situation (breaking and entering, even) and gave her a fake warrant. She could have been killed. That’s the kind of partner I want. Jerk.[/li][li]I could just go on, but really, what’s the point? Pkbites, you and other officers may find it to be quite funny. This show looks as though it doesn’t have a technical advisor at all.[/li][/ul]
The show seems to want to be about rookies trying to fit into what is a very demanding job. They are playing up the inevitable mistakes people make in any new job or career. Every job has a learning curve where the formal training leaves off and on-the-job experience takes over. However, the formal training should not leave these poor people utterly incompetent to do the job.
The show doesn’t even know what it’s trying to portray.
So the officer who eventually discharges his weapon loads the magazine in, sticks the gun into the backstop device, and then releases the slide which locks into battery. There is no discharge at this point - the weapon is loaded, nothing will happen in this state if left alone.
Right then, if you go frame by frame, they make a cut to a camera that’s further back. They now show the officer holding the gun further back so it’s not within the shot catcher anymore. The gun is locked into battery and his finger is now around the trigger. He pulls the trigger and it fires. He looks surprised for some fucking reason, when the gun did exactly what a gun is supposed to do.
Considering that it’s a very quick cut between releasing the slide and him pulling the trigger, the show doesn’t even seem to understand what it’s attempting to portray. What actually happened was that a dipshit loaded his weapon and fired for no reason and the gun did exactly what it was designed to do.
We might be drifting into Cafe Society territory, but the officer in question had a major chip on his shoulder. Later in the episode, he felt a need to demonstrate takedown moves on a fellow officer. (In a weird way that made the others uncomfortable) Not much of a stretch to say he may have been trigger happy.
Redundancy. It’s one extra step to further insure a firearm is unloaded. It isn’t uncommon in the civilian world (pointing the firearm downrange, not in a clearing barrel) or the military world.
In combat, every weapon is cleared before re-entering the base. Proper clearing procedure is to remove your magazine, pull back on the charging handle or slide to remove the chamered round, visually check the chamber to see that there is no round present, then have a second person visually check the chamber, and then finally point the weapon in a safe direction (or into a clearing station if one exists), switch the selector to fire, and pull the trigger. The weapon is now clear.
Granted, if a round is fired while clearing, both the firer and the second person who checked the chamber both face court martial for negligent discharge. But it’s better that it happens there, fired safely into the dirt than accidentally into another person later on.
After the weapon is CLEAR, it is placed back on safe and the magazine is reinserted.
As I mentioned before, this is not uncommon in the civilian world either. I used to run a gun range and it was not uncommon to see more experienced shooters clear their weapon by adding the final step of pointing the pistol down range and pulling the trigger. Then placing the cleared pistol back in their range bag.
Sorry, I misunderstood somehow, must’ve read your post too fast. I thought you were saying that people cleared their weapons by removing the magazine and firing the last round, which just seemed bizarre.
In any case, I’m not even sure what the deal is with needing to constantly load/unload your weapons every day. The safest thing to do is typically just to keep the gun loaded and in a holster at all times, and put the holster on and take it off as needed. All of the loading/unloading stuff just has unnecesary handling. Which isn’t dangerous if you’re not a raging incompetant, but neither is just leaving it loaded all of the time.
In law enforcement there really isn’t a reason to load/unload everyday, which is why the scenario in the OP seems so strange to Americans and American Policemen.
In the civilian world, if you have a bunch of range guns that you dont keep loaded, or you are going to clean them as soon as you get home anyway, the unloading procedure I explained makes sense.
In the military, you’re not dealing with weapons that fit in holsters, so the trigger isn’t guarded by anything except discipline. And since complacency trumps discipline every time, we need to unload before coming on base. Then we load again when we walk out the wire, or–if it’s an air assault–when we get off the bird. Since we walk around the base with a loaded mag in the weapon, all we have to do is charge a round for it to be ready to fire.
The show is based on the Toronto Police Service they do not wear breast badges on their uniform. As well most if not all Canadian police are not authorized by service regulation to carry their sidearm off duty. The only time they can is if they have an active threat on their lives or if they are on call. As well for mostly ice in Canada they can not carry privately owned sidearms they have to use what is issued to them.
Aa couple of services in Ontario do have their members wear badges on their shirts I believe Hamilton does or did and the Ottawa Police do. As well most if not all municipal police services in Saskatchewan issue breast badges to their members.
When I was in the Navy, our armed watchstanders (when in port) turned over their firearms (9mm pistol) at an unloading station with a solid “bucket” that one held the gun pointed into while unloading/reloading.
Had a .270 rifle discharge in a bed room with 4 people present. Dug a nice divot in the cement floor. Ears rang for a while. Long version is funny sorta but I was just pointing out that a 9mm and a .270 hunting round have a big difference in ear pain in closed spaces.
12 gage into a bed is also an attention gitter. That one put me back on the 410 for another year. Also was the final lesson I ever needed on when to & when not to have a finger on the trigger.
I haven’t heard of them in a police context, but army firearms ranges apparently all have what they call a cleaning barrel, usually an oil drum full of sand. When you exit the range you’re supposed to remove mags, empty the chamber of your weapon (manually, not by shooting :)) then dry-fire it into the barrel, both to make super doubly extra sure you’re not leaving with a loaded weapon and so that the range supervisor(s) can be assured of it too.
I remember a Marine friend laughing his ass out telling the story of a puzzled desk jockey who came up to the barrel and emptied a full Beretta mag into it, round after round after round, terminally surprised every time, apparently not grokking why it would possibly keep firing (they’d forgotten to remove the mag, natch).
As I said, it’s typically full of sand since its whole purpose is to in theory catch the odd bullet. So no ricochets and as long as you’re firing down into the sand, the bullet stops right quick.
In some ways, Archer is one of the more realistic shows on the air. Over the top cartoonyness aside (wait, are we talking about L&O, CSI or Archer?), there are many times when they acknowledge the ear-ringing effects of close-proximity gunshots. That show is hysterical.
It makes no sense. If I haven’t fired my weapon why the hell would I want to remove the mag and fire the round in the chamber when I’m going off-duty? Do I enjoy the aroma of Hoppes No 9? Do I get aroused by the act of shoving a brush and/or a cleaning patch through the barrel with a cleaning rod? Because I’ll definitely have to at least field strip and clean that firearm before I can call it a day.
And for the record, whenever there was an unloading can around, I’d always point my weapon into that when I released the slide to chamber a round. Can’t do any harm and malfunctions can happen. Don’t you usually point the muzzle in a safe direction when you chamber a round?
They aren’t firing a round – they’re removing the mag, unloading the round in the chamber, and dry firing (what now should be an empty weapon) to verify they didn’t fuck up those very simple steps in unloading.
Also was the final lesson I ever needed on when to & when not to have a finger on the trigger.