Tags
accidental discharge, Dennis Alexander, Dr. John R. Lott, negligent discharge, Parkland, Seaside High School
There are two kinds of active gun owners: those that have had an accidental discharge (AD) and those that will admit they’ve had an AD. Note: Some prefer to refer to ADs as “negligent discharges, which is just fine. One second, you’re sitting there admiring a well designed and made device, and the next, your ears are ringing, you’re surrounded by a quickly dissipating cloud of gunsmoke, you feel more than hear yourself say “oh s**t,” and quickly look for where the bullet went. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of ADs (many take place on the range) don’t damage anything more than furniture, walls and the shooter’s ego. That wasn’t the case in Seaside, CA, as local station KSBW.com reports:
A teacher who also serves as a reserve police officer accidentally fired a gun inside a Seaside High School classroom Tuesday, police said, and three students were injured.
I suspect that’s soon to read “former teacher and former reserve police officer.”
Dennis Alexander was teaching a course about gun safety for his Administration of Justice class when his gun went off at 11 a.m.
Alexander was pointing his gun at the ceiling when it fired. Pieces of the ceiling fell to the ground.
Glock 17 blue gun
This is a blue gun. It looks just like, and is exactly the same dimension as a Glock 17, but it’s all plastic. It has no barrel, no chamber. It can’t fire. There are blue guns (and red guns–same difference) made to resemble all manner of real guns, rifles included. That’s what you use in this sort of demonstration. At least no one was injured…oh:
A news release from the Seaside Police Department said no one suffered ‘serious injuries.’ One 17-year-old boy suffered moderate injuries when fragments from the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and lodged into his neck, the student’s father, Fermin Gonzales, told KSBW.
The teacher had just told the class that he wanted to make sure his gun wasn’t loaded, when the gun fired, according to Gonzales.
Bullets tend to do that sort of thing.
Everyone in the classroom was stunned, and the teacher, who is a reserve officer for the Sand City Police Department, apologized.
I’ll bet and I’ll bet. Alexander has been suspended from his teaching and police jobs.
This is certainly not a good time for this sort of thing to happen. Progressives will use Alexander as a gun control poster boy, and scream that if we allow teachers to carry guns in schools this sort of thing will be happening every day, and classrooms will run with blood.
Of course, that’s what they said would happen in every state as concealed carry spread across the nation. It didn’t happen in those states, and it won’t happen in classrooms. Alexander screwed up–one person in a single school–it’s that’s simple. He didn’t follow the few simple rules, which if followed, will absolutely prevent ADs:
1) All guns are loaded (until absolutely proved otherwise each and every time they’re handled).
2) Remove the magazine or all ammunition first, and always manually and visually inspect the chamber to ensure the gun is unloaded. Then do it again.
3) Always keep a gun pointed in a safe direction.
4) Keep the trigger finger out of the triggerguard and off the trigger until ready to shoot.
One might as they wish, add another rule or two, or slightly alter these, but if these three simple rules are followed, NDs won’t happen. Having taught police officers and a great many others, including in classroom settings, I’d include these rules:
1) Unless absolutely necessary, use blue guns for demonstrations and disarming practice.
2) When using real guns, remove and secure all magazines and ammunition from anyone handling the guns, and have at least two people manually and visually check every gun to ensure they are safe before handling them.
As expected, anti-liberty/gun cracktivists are using this incident, as The Washington Post (surprise!) notes:
The episode happened amid a national debate about arming teachers in the wake of the mass killing at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14. It has attracted wide attention as an example of how even a teacher trained in firearms safety can pose a hazard in school.
How does one counter the antigun argument using Alexander as an example? It’s potentially damaging, but ultimately, it relies, as virtually all such arguments do, on emotion. Nothing poses a greater hazard in schools than a madman attacking unarmed children and teachers. Argue, first and foremost, principle and fact.
Concealed carry everywhere but on school property has not resulted in the kinds of carnage anti-liberty types claimed would happen. A number of states and schools have allowed concealed carry for years, and no such carnage has happened there. Alexander’s mistake is newsworthy largely because it’s rare, and will remain rare.
There is no way to prevent all accidents. Human beings are inherently fallible. But far more people are injured in automobile accidents and from a variety of other causes, than in gun accidents. Consider this from Dr. John R. Lott:
The latest data we have are from 2013. In that year, 35,598 people died from motor vehicle deaths. 32,888 died from gun deaths.
To the uninitiated, that might not sound like much difference, until one understands the facts:
In 2013, 99.4% of car deaths were accidental in nature. Only 1.5% of gun deaths were accidental.
We know people will have vehicle accidents. We know tens of thousands will be injured and killed–every year, but that doesn’t cause us to ban motor vehicles. We don’t because of principle: their positive uses far outweigh the damage caused in accidents, yet the ownership and use of motor vehicle is not an unalienable, fundamental natural right, nor is it an express constitutional right.
The same principle applies in gun ownership and concealed carry. The primary principle must be that as many armed and willing staff as possible be present and available in every school so when an attack takes place, it may be stopped, then and there. To do less is to abandon deterrence, and to tacitly accept some number of injured and dead, and that number will be high, because only very rarely in American history have the police had any active role in stopping a school shooter.
We know people, like the unfortunate Dennis Alexander, will make mistakes. It’s preventable, but inevitable. But to allow the possibility that someone might be hurt by accident prevent concealed carry in schools, which is the only possible practical, affordable way to deter and stop premeditated mass homicide, is not only stupid, it’s immoral.
Stately McDaniel Manor 
The only times I have every been around an AD one or more of those four rules was violated. In the first instance only bricks were hit and in the second the firearm was at least pointed in a safe direction. I would add a couple that should be a part of any basic safety course.
On a revolver open the cylinder and hand the revolver over with your fingers under the top strap. If it is a gate loader open the gate, spin the cylinder to show chambers are clear, leave the gate open. If it is a top break open it up and hand it over that way. If handed a revolver in these conditions always ask permission before closing anything up.
On a pistol always eject the magazine to show empty. Lock the slide back. If you can’t at least show and check for empty. Don’t drop the slide on someone else’s pistol without asking permission.
On a bolt action rifle open the bolt. Don’t close without asking permission.
On a semi auto rifle open and lock the bolt or show that it is clear. If magazine is detachable eject and show empty. Don’t close up the action without permission.
On a shotgun the action, whether break open, pump or semi auto, should be worked or opened to show clear. Don’t close up or work without permission.
If any of the terms above are not familiar to you don’t mess with firearms until you have been trained in them.
Molon Labe!
Keep your powder dry and your faith in God.
Some years ago, a friend of mine was one of the instructors of a large metropolitan police force, it shall remain unnamed for obvious reasons.
He had an “interesting” thing happen one day. He and his fellow instructor had a handful of officers in for the yearly stuff. All of them had been on the force for at least three years. After they finished for the morning the officers were told to clean their sidearms, themselves, etc., then have lunch and be back for the later stuff. They had a room with tables just for firearms maintenance. Well don’t you know just as my friend sat at his deck and pulled out his lunch, BOOM.
One of the officers got things a little backward. She racked the slide, then removed the magazine, instead of the other way around. Then she pointed the muzzle at the wall and pulled the trigger. The firearm in question requires the striker to be forward before the slide can be removed. Fortunately, no one was hurt, a nice ding in the wall for posterity though. My friend ran into the room and was confronted with a sight. The one officer who shot the wall was frozen in place and all the others were trying to run for the doors. Not as much for what had happened but what was to come next. His words were freeze no on goes anywhere, statements, I want statements from everyone.
Firearm safety must be automatic. Muzzle control must be automatic, keeping the finger off the trigger till ready to shoot. All of the safety rules have to be automatic. One must always think about safety too, not get complacent. The only way is to practice and become comfortable then competent with the tools at hand.
Sadly, many of the officers I encounter lack training or ability. Reasons why are for another time.
“Then she pointed the muzzle at the wall and pulled the trigger.”
Dear God, why? Do you know what her statement was on that?
I cannot understand this impulse to check a gun by pulling the trigger. I mean, sure, if you did things correctly, nothing will happen, but you’re checking it, which means you are at least entertaining the notion that you did not do it correctly, which means that it will fire, which means that a pointy metal thing is going to come out of that gun very fast.
It’s like people only think it though up to the “nothing will happen” part.
I never did hear what was in her statement, but I’m sure it was entertaining for some.
On the Glock pistol after clearing the firearm one must pull the trigger i.e., release the striker to remove the slide for cleaning.
To correctly clear a pistol one removes the magazine, racks the slide to eject the chambered round, inspects the chamber to see that it is empty, then closes the action.
People that feel compelled to check a firearm by pulling the trigger are simply showing how stupid they are. And it is stupid not ignorance we are talking about. Ignorance is not knowing any better. Stupid is knowing or having been shown how to do something and still doing it wrong.
One of the two AD’s I mentioned in my post was pulling the trigger to see if the safety was on.
Ah, I’m not a Glock person, so I forgot about that feature. Thanks.
By far the grand prize for an “accidental discharge” should go to Officer Gomes, formally with the Portland Police Bureau. Greasham Police had responded to Gomes’ home where they found his wife laying on their bed, nude, with a singular entry wound “in the area of her right buttocks.” Officer Gomes explained that he had neglected to unload his 12 gauge before “playing around with it.” The responding officers made no arrest because “they saw no evidence of domestic violence.” The District Attorney actually confirmed this assesment. Although Mrs Gomes required 50 units of blood at the ER, sufferred massive internal injuries from the buckshot pellets and had to have a leg amputated, she survived.
As this case unfolded, I took the liberty of calling the Portland Police Bureau and asked to speak to the firearms instructor. I introduced myself and explained that I was calling about this accidental shooting. I then suggested that since the unspecified behavior that Officer Gomes was engaging in when the shooting occurred seems to be normal and considered acceptable to Oregon law enforcement, the PPB should implement a program to distribute Kevlar condoms to their officers sonthat they can practice safe shotgun sex. The training officer’s response was barely intelligible and not printable.
Dear James W Crawford:
“Playing around with it.” Yeah. Talk about having no excuse or explanation…
My favorite was a video of a purported DEA agent addressing a school class while waving around his Glock. Right after he pontificated that “I’m the only one here qualified to handle this gun” he shot himself in the foot while holstering the Glock.
Dear Bucky Barkingham:
Yeah, that was a classic. I’ve referred to it several times.
Dear Mike,
I’ll admit that I’ve had one AD, “Country range” (i.e. side of a dirt road rock pile – over 40 years ago) with my mom’s last husband’s single shot Thomson Center Contender – had not fully locked action and the pressure from the rest held the action just slightly open preventing the hammer from falling – as soon as i started to raise the piece it discharged – scared the bleep out of me (and it had some rifle round as well!)
I’ve sent thousands of rounds down rage, I don’t ever forget that one.
I had one back in 1980 or 81. I just emptied a magazine on my Mo. 1911.
After I removed the magazine and inserted full one, I hit the slide release
with my thumb and my index finger strayed just enough into the trigger
guard the forward momentum of the slide was enough to cause it
to touch the trigger. It was highly tuned and had a hair trigger. Luckily
I was smart enough to be holding the pistol down, The impact was
about 10 to 20 feet in front of me.
Your line reminded me of the old sayings about bikers or masturbators.
There are two kinds of bikers; Those who admit to dumping their
scooters and liars. You can guess the other saying.
Dear Leonard Jones:
That unstated saying is handy (oh, I’m sooooo ashamed of myself…).
There was an old Dr. Demento classic: “Can I do it till I need glasses?”
By that measure, I should have been totally blind before I hit 15!
Dear Leonard Jones:
I somehow managed to put off glasses until my 50s…
Pingback: FBI: Integrity? | Stately McDaniel Manor