FWIW, I used to manage a gun range and gun store. If a customer shot himself with a gun I just handed him, I would feel responsible for that, legally and morally. Claiming that the customer should have noticed my negligence and prevented the accident is a cop out. (no pun intended)
More like (as I said above) it’s your responsibility, but it’s the cop’s fault. I think he’ll probably be awarded damages (based on what he know right now) and the store’s insurance policy will pay them, but if it goes before a jury things might change. Even taking what you said into consideration, most people on a jury are going to say ‘you were a cop for how long and you pointed a gun at your hand?’. It’s not going to take much convincing to sway a jury towards that point. IM very HO, he’s probably best off settling with the insurance company and keeping this out of court. I don’t think he’s going to be able to say ‘you handed me a loaded gun, I want 10 million dollars’. If it comes to that, his experience and gun training will be called into play.
(Sorry, I can’t view the video on this mochine.)
Was it known, or obvious, that the cop was a cop? Was he in uniform? Was he a known person at the store?
Yes, he was in full uniform.
ETA, I take that back. I assume he was in a full uniform under his jacket with the badge on the arm, I could be wrong. Here’s a still shot.
Also, for people that didn’t read the article. It’s titled ‘former officer…’, but you’ll note that he appears to be in uniform. He was an active officer while looking at the gun. He’s a former officer because he shot his finger off. He (according to another article I read), returned to work a few days later, but since became a former officer due to his injury.
It’s not that he was a ‘former officer’ while he was at the gun shop. It’s a bit misleading, but it probably makes sense if you’ve been following the story since it came out last April.
Can’t it be both? I am pretty sure both parties can share the responsibility.
The officer is a moron, and completely at fault. Although Anaamika raises a good point. There was enough stupidity there to go around.
Think of it as evolution in action.
I know. 
Look, yes he should have dropped the clip out & Then racked the slide to the “chamber open” position.
Also, there was no need for a clip with bullets to be in that gun.
Very true (and a very hard lesson learned).
That said, why he closed the chamber and gripped it was to see how it fit in his hand. It looks like a smaller framed (CCW size?) semi auto that he was probably considering for off duty; I’m guessing a 9 (he could use the same ammo as his service weapon)
or maybe a 380.
#TrueConfessions: I only looked at the first 20-30 seconds because I didn’t want to see the finger blown off.
I have. The first thing I do is point it in a safe direction, remove the magazine (if equipped), and open and lock back the action and look in the chamber. Usually this is done by the employee, but not always. Either way, I check to make sure there’s nothing in the tube.
Big fail all around but I would put it 60/40 with the cop pulling the majority of the blame. MacTech states the rules well, and with the cop having at least some basic training, he blew more than his finger and rule one. IMHO, your safety is your responsibility when it all comes down to the bottom line. But the store/clerk should have done the same thing (at least in terms of clearing the weapon) before handing it over.
I’ll also join Johnny LA in having seen some clerks do some really stupid things in handing firearms to prospective customers. Most times in the Big Name Stores (Dicks or Dunhams for example) where the clerk has been selling shoes for the last 5 years and was just tagged to work “The Lodge” this morning - but not always. I could name a very respected shop near me that I would enter because from the clerks on down everyone seems to want to wave guns around like flags on the 4th of July. In that situation, I usually say I’ll stop back some other time and slowly back away. If the cop had done that his new nickname wouldn’t be Lefty.
I’ve been a gun owner all my life (35 years of firearm ownership), I’ve used all forms of firearms (with the exception of select-fire, which I WANT to try…) and in all that time, I’ve had a grand total of… ZERO negligent discharges, to me, the Four Rules are non-negotiable ironclad rules.
When I stop into my local “grow ups toy store” (Kittery Trading Post) to look at the guns and see if there’s anything new that I “need” 
I make sure to always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction when inspecting the gun, if I’m looking at a handgun, the gun rep will always lock the action open before handing it over for inspection, I immediately drop the mag, check it for rounds (never encountered any), do a visual and tactile chamber check, and once I’m sure it’s clear, I close the action, ask if the gun is dry-fire safe and if it’s okay to do so (some guns are not safe to dry fire)
I’ve never encountered a loaded gun in KTP, and I’ve seen them escort “customers” out that break the Four Rules, they’ve even banned some really dangerous idiots…
It was dangerous to have the gun stored in a loaded state when people uneducated in firearms safety would be handling it. I’m sure it was unintentional, but still.
But the officer pulled the trigger so it’s mostly his fault. Don’t pull the trigger unless you want it to fire, and don’t point any gun at anything you aren’t willing to see shot.
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Don’t pull the trigger unless you want it to fire, and don’t point any gun at anything you aren’t willing to see shot.
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Pulling the trigger is a normal part of shopping for a firearm. And dry firing is a normal part of firearm practice. So the first part of your sentence is not at all true. The second part is a basic rule, though.
I think in a non-legal sense you can blame the officer because it is good common sense to always check a weapon to see if it is loaded.
But the store has the responsibility to ensure they are not keeping loaded weapons around for anyone to pick up. I put the tort liability mostly on the store.
There is a lot of stupidity and negligence happening here. The officer should not have assumed that the firearm was not loaded. The store clerk should not have put a loaded weapon into the display case.
The four rules of firearm safety are binding on all parties.
I am not - I repeat: NOT - saying that this was the case here but the unintentional thing caught my eye. One of the more extreme anti-gun groups actually recommended slipping live rounds into guns at shows and different places to try and “promote” accidents. The threat was considered credible enough that the PA Game Commission forbids us to use/have actual live firearms in classes - just inert ones provided by the state. If memory serves, someone did actually do this (slipping in live rounds) and got caught. Ohio maybe? Cleveland Gun Show?
I too am sure it was unintentional. But with some of the defective genetic units out there? I’m not laying money down either way.
The officer ought to be thanking the deity of his choice that he only person he shot was himself, and not one of the guys down at the other end of the display case.
The clerk was wrong to not properly check the weapon before he handed it over to a customer, but the fault lies entirely on the guy who was holding the weapon when he discharged it.
If I was in the jury I’d vote against the dealer.
But on the other hand, car dealers let drivers take cars out for a test drive, and the driver could run over a pedestrian, entirely by being a moron. Or smash up and hurt himself, like this guy. A car is one hell of a dangerous piece of machinery.
Plus most drivers don’t come in dressed like Mario Andretti on a work day.
So maybe a lawyer with some law–unspecified by anyone here–behind him would change my mind.
Don’t gun shops have posted legal statements, etc. used on products or by store owners–like the McDonald’s one saying “coffee can be hot, so it’s not our fault if you burn yourself”? It seems that would cover the legal responsibility when dealing with the brain-impaired like this guy.
The shooter is 100% responsible for shooting himself with a gun that “wasn’t loaded”. The store is 100% responsible for handing a random person a loaded gun. If it were a case that a third party were suing both of them for damages, I’d make both pay 100%.
But in the case of the cop suing the store, he took a loaded gun, held his hand in front of it, and pulled the trigger. That’s 100% on him. Maybe the store should lose their firearms license for handing a customer a loaded gun, but he’s the idiot who pointed a loaded gun at his hand and pulled the trigger.
Dude points the gun, with his finger in the trigger guard, at every other customer at the counter prior to shooting his own finger off. What if he’d blown off the top of some 12-year-old kids head?
I think it’s easy to say it’s the cop’s fault because he only shot himself, but he was a customer, and it should be assumed that any customer could potentially be a moron, or homicidal, or suicidal, and they should never be handed a loaded gun. They’re both at fault, and the store should definitely pay up.