An on-duty LEO of course entering an establishment in the course of duty would be obviously be exempt from any “No firearms allowed” rule. But why would an off-duty LEO be exempt? Especially if he’s planning on getting drunk & doing back flips. Don’t the normal rules for trespass apply to off-duty LEOs?
yes, he did not have his firearm secured properly on his person while doing something careless, and was reckless in his attempt to reclaim it leading to him inadvertently (and negligently) pulling the trigger.
:rolleyes:
Have you read any of the previous comments? I don’t see anyone saying the FBI agent did nothing wrong. The main thing he did wrong was pull the trigger as he picked up the pistol. That is very, very wrong, and a complete violation of gun safety rules. I would also say that the pistol was insufficiently secure on him, and/or he exceeded the retention capabilities of his holster. He either wasn’t wearing a holster, which seems unlikely for someone experienced in carrying a handgun, or the holster wasn’t capable of retaining a pistol during backflips.
But focusing on having a loaded chamber shows ignorance on how guns are carried and used, and misses the main points of answering the OP’s question: 1) the pistol did not fire due to being dropped and hitting the floor; and 2) it fired because someone pulled the trigger, negligently.
No. Common sense would be to either not carry a gun because you’re in a situation where you aren’t going to be in control of it, or carry it in an appropriately ready to use condition. In situations where you’re going to need to draw and use a concealed firearm, you’re very often not going to have time or hands free to rack the slide. If the guy knew he was going to be moving like that (and/or drinking, which I suspect was involved) then he should store the gun before going to the party, if he just took the round out of the chamber it would be really weird.
Lots of places exempt off-duty LEOs from weapons laws, including concealed carry laws, the why is ‘because the law is written that way’. In Colorado that’s irrelevant because signs posted don’t have any effect on whether someone can carry except for certain areas listed specifically in the law (a bar or restaurant isn’t one of those places, but if he was drinking he’s not allowed to carry). Trespass laws are pretty much irrelevant, as trespassing generally requires that you first warn the person for violating trespass, then tell them to leave, then press charges if they don’t. They would technically apply, but pressing trespassing charges against an LEO is extremely risky and difficult for an ordinary person to do in practice.
Yes, I did, and they were all focused on justifying carrying a round in the chamber while dancing.
It would be ignorant to believe that a round has to be chambered. It is not ignorance to ask why one was while the guy was dancing.
as is usual, people focus on the wrong detail.
he shouldn’t have had the gun on his person at all if he was going to be dancing. if you are authorized to carry a concealed weapon, the law generally requires you to keep it concealed. moaning about whether a round was chambered is pointless.
and I’ll remind you, this sidebar stems from septimus’s incredulity that the gun had a round in the chamber period.
I agree. I surely wouldn’t do anything like that with a weapon on my person, but I’m not that accomplished at handling firearms.
Apparently the FBI guy isn’t either.
It is not all that pointless, and the guy moaning is the guy who got shot, who would not have been shot had the gun not had a round chambered and ready for when the dance battle gets real.
And it wasn’t “period”, it was “while dancing”.
There are many things to focus on here, and not all of them are the things that you want to focus on. Sure, we can beat on him for taking his gun into a bar. We can beat on him for not properly securing his weapon. We can beat on him for his dancing, as that was pretty horrendous. We can beat on him for being reckless in the way he picked up his gun.
But, you are saying that we cannot even mention the one thing he could have done to increase the safety of his gun by several orders of magnitude.
But, I get it, if we admit that if you are dancing on the floor and doing flips, that you should remove the round from the chamber so it is not ready to fire with a single trigger pull, then we will have to ask that parents not leave a round in the chamber where theirtoddlers can get to them and shoot someone.
Accidental discharges are very, very rare. When someone calls an unintended shooting an “accidental discharge,” it is almost always a negligent discharge, not an accidental discharge.
John Browning wept.
Generally true. Remembering to flick off a safety, especially under stress, requires many, many repetitions. Except the chances of accidentally pulling the trigger on a gun without a safety is much harder, as those almost always are either striker or double action, and the trigger is harder to pull than a cocked safety off gun.
Target shooting guns tend to be single action, so in 99% of cases those have safeties. In other words, target shooting it doesn’t matter whether you have a safety or not, just that the ones that do tend to be better for that purpose (light trigger pull that doesn’t cause a lot of muzzle jerking).
You can ignore the sign in Colorado, they carry no legal force. But must leave the premises if asked. Aurora seems to be an exception. He can also carry in a place that serves alcohol. As far as I can tell you can’t consume alcohol though.
You are free to mention it, certainly, and a couple of people did. But, several of us familiar with firearms and how they are normally carried pointed out that it is neither usual or necessary to carry a pistol without a round in the chamber.
Why stop at the chambered round? Why don’t police, soldiers, hunters and concealed carriers carry their guns with no rounds in the chamber and no rounds in the magazine? Heck, it would only take five to 30 seconds to load the magazine, work the action (slide, bolt, lever, etc.) and have a loaded gun!!
To be fair, Barney Fife did exactly that. He carried a revolver with an empty cylinder, and carried one sole cartridge in his shirt pocket. It was safer for him and the rest of Mayberry, but we can’t easily tell the Barney Fifes of the world from those who are more conscientious. But remember that this was done for humor in a sitcom.
I’m trying to think of an analogy. I’ll give it a try. You could drain the gas tank in your car every time you come home. That would certainly make it harder to steal, even if you leave the doors unlocked and lay the keys on the front seat. But it would also make it much less convenient for you, requiring ten minutes or so to add gas to the tank from cans every time you wanted to drive it somewhere. Instead, why not lock the doors and take the keys with you? Then, it is ready to go in a few seconds instead of many minutes. It can still be stolen, of course, but normal, accepted security measures are used instead of an abnormal one that renders the car less usable for the owner.
It depends. If there is a local law, then yes, local LEOs not there on duty are supposed to uphold it. But with a Fed? He doesnt have to follow local laws.
There is special training you have to go thru to carry while on the flight, otherwise it is handed in a locked case to the pilot.
We had that happen, while I was on a raid. (I was there to do paperwork, I didnt carry a gun). One of the LEOs started fooling around with one of the perps handguns, a older rare model, and I think military surplus. He dropped it and it went off, scaring the crap out of me.
Regarding the two incidents that keep being mentioned here - There is a straight-ahead simple “trade” of sorts, that I would be very willing to endorse.
- To look at this whole situation with the FBI guy and say “oh well, accidents happen, be more careful next time”
PLUS
- To make it a felony, with a minimum prison sentence attached, to put a gun (loaded or not) any place where a minor later gains access to it. (i.e. accidental or unforeseen access are explicitly legislated to be the responsibility of the person who put the gun there - “it was an accident” would be no defense.)
The situation with the FBI guy was not an accident.
His gun didn’t just go off by itself. It went off when he pulled the trigger. Not an accident.
It’s commonly referred to as a “drop safety”. But as already mentioned, irrelevant. That pistol fired when he stuck his booger hook onto the trigger and negligently discharged it.
I installed a manual safety on my Glock 27 because I’ll sometimes carry in in a coat pocket without a holster. But it’s not something I would use with a regular holster. I normally do not care for manual safeties.
I had a P93 in DAO. Good lawd that trigger was awful. About 3 miles long and 25 pounds heavy!
Federal law HR218 overrides local laws for all LEO’s. If he wasn’t intoxicated he probably wasn’t breaking the law while being there armed. But one still has to follow the written policies of ones agency. So if he broke any of the Bureaus rules he’ll have to face the music.
Plus HR218 doesn’t exempt negligent discharges. He can be charged with that.
No, it didn’t go off by itself, but he accidentally pulled the trigger.
If he had (unintentionally, inadvertently, etc.) rear ended someone with his car, would you say it “was not an accident” because the car didn’t drive itself, but because he stepped on the gas pedal?
I am not questioning whether it is usual, though when I have gone shooting with friends, they have always strongly advised me to not chamber a round until I am ready to shoot, but I am questioning whether it is necessary.
If you are in danger of being assaulted, then those fractions of a second needed to chamber a round may make a difference. If you are in a bar, you don’t really need it. As I’ve seen on many occasions that the reason that people want a CCW is so that they can carry their gun conveniently into places without having to leave it in their car, I would assume that the reason that he had it on him is for the convenience of not leaving it in his car, not because he thought he needed it.
Because that doesn’t make a difference for accidental discharges. If there are rounds in the magazine, but none in the chamber, then a single trigger pull will not fire it.
I would think a better analogy would be to take the keys out of your ignition. Sure, it’s more convenient to leave them in the ignition, and it would take seconds to put them in the ignition, but for safety, you take them out.
There is also the fact that in just about every “I thought it was unloaded” accidental shooting that I have heard of, it is because they had a round chambered, and took out the magazine, thinking that it was empty.
I spent some time driving professionally, and in order to do that, you have to take driving classes.
One thing that they emphasized was that there were no accidents, just varying degrees of negligence.
Err… I hope you were still using a pocket holster. They’re like $25 and cheap insurance for getting it a pocket caught in a doorknob, safety or no.
I couldn’t find a great video, but I have a Nagant revolver that is 20+ lbs, so much that I initially thought it was single action because it doesn’t budge without a lot of force.