OK well as I said, take it up with the State PoliceThey investigated; you didn't. Denial goes a long way but it's rhetorically worthless.
Yes, they did investigate and never did they find that the gun discharged on it's own...because it can't happen.
Again -- see my last note. Absolute thinking, especially on an incident you didn't see, will drown you in the River Denial. And I believe the PA State Police know their way around guns.
Yes, I agree with you, the Police know their way around guns, and with that in mind, let's look at some fact.
In the November 15, 1993 issue of Newsweek Magazine, George Will reported that police are more than 5 times more likely than a civilian to shoot an innocent person by mistake.
Don't think that just because the police are trained in the use of firearms that they are less likely to kill an innocent person. A University of Chicago Study revealed that in 1993 approximately 700,000 police killed 330 innocent individuals, while approximately 250,000,000 private citizens only killed 30 innocent people. Do the math. That's a per capita rate for the police, of almost 4000 times higher than the population in general. OK, that is a little misleading. Let's just include the 80,000,000 gun owning citizens. Now the police are down to only a 1200 times higher accidental shooting rate than the gun-owning population in general.
That still sounds high. So let's look at it in a different light. According to a study by Newsweek magazine, only 2% of civilian shootings involve an innocent person being shot (not killed). The error rate for police is 11%. What this means is that you are more than 5 times more likely to be accidentally shot by a policeman than by an armed citizen. But, when you consider that citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as do police every year, it means that, per capita, you are more than 11 times more likely to be accidentally shot by a policeman than by an armed citizen. That is as low as I can get that number.
http://http://actionamerica.org/guns/guns1.shtml
There's more/
http://Search Result: Accidental Discharges - POLICE Magazinewww.policemag.com/list/tag/accidental-discharges.aspxCached
In the Military we don't even call it an "accidental discharge", we call it a "NEGLIGENT discharge" because the gun does not fire by "accident", the SHOOTER, accidently fires the weapon due to negligence, and the police, being around firearms so much, have a pretty high rate of negligent discharges, where they shoot themselves or someone else. This all goes back to the old saying, guns don't kill people, people kill people.
This from a Police officer with over 30yrs esp in law enforcement.
One of the dirty little secrets in the annals of police firearms training is the number of accidental discharges we experience (I prefer the term negligent discharge, because very few of these are a genuine accident). Most of these unintentional rounds are let loose because the gun handler broke one of the safety rules, so a review, of the four basic gun safety rules is in order.
1.All guns are always loaded. (Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.)
2.Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
3.Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. (This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.)
4.Identify your target, and what is behind it. (Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.) What I mean by the term negligent discharge (ND) is, a round fired from an officers weapon that they didnt intend to fire. Several factors can enter into the causation of a ND, but they almost invariably involve mishandling on the officers part.
Most training ranges will eventually see the late, great leg shot, as one instructor described it. This type of ND is usually caused by trying to holster a weapon with your finger still on the trigger. Depending on holster design and placement, this error generally causes a grazing wound down the side of the leg, or sometimes a through and through hole in the strong side buttock. Often, the only permanent damage suffered by one of these officers is hearing the; jumped up and bit me in the butt-tocks comments from their co-workers -- usually in the Forrest Gump voice. Clearly, this is a violation of safety rule #3 and the solution is to constantly emphasize the need for a straight finger, except when on target. Causes and cures for the negligent discharge
It would be a good idea to educate yourself on a topic PRIOR to bloviating on it. You look less ignorant this way and you can base your opinions on facts, rather then fantasy, misinformation, lack of information, prejudice or just plain ole stupidity.
