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You and I know that when a person fires his or her gun, they’re responsible for it. They did something to cause the gun to discharge. Guns don’t just “go off” by themselves, no matter what kind of bull$hit you may read in the press or hear from those who are responsible.

With a few notable exceptions involving design or manufacturing problems, modern guns are safer than they’ve ever been. You can hit them, drop them, kick them, throw them, and otherwise abuse and misuse the hell out of them in a range of very inadvisable ways and they still won’t discharge.

Unless, of course, you pull the trigger…or cause it to be pulled somehow. That’s no doubt exactly what happened when some of Louisville’s finest responded to a report of a group of kids in a vacant garage on Monday.

All of which brings us to this delightfully bogus headline from the Associated Press: Kentucky officer’s gun discharges, wounding 2 teens . . .

When officers arrived Monday evening, they drew their weapons “due to multiple unknown threats” and a short time later, the garage door opened and several teens ran out, according to a news release from Louisville Police interim Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel.

“As one officer tried to detain the suspects, his service weapon discharged one bullet,” the release says. “The discharge is believed to have been unintentional.”

Yes, we’re sure it was unintentional. The cop no doubt didn’t intend to fire his duty gun. But that doesn’t mean the discharge wasn’t the result of his piss-poor gun-handling and therefore negligence on the part.

It wasn’t clear that anyone was injured until about an hour later when Norton Children’s Hospital informed officers that a teenage boy had arrived with a gunshot wound, police said. As officers responded there, the department was told another teenage boy had arrived at a different downtown hospital with a gunshot wound.

The boys gave conflicting statements about their wounds and both denied being at the garage earlier, but police said they connected them by reviewing body-camera footage and other evidence.

While Mayor Craig Greenberg assured Louisvillians that he’s absolutely committed to openness and transparency in all things, the name of the cop who wounded to civilians hasn’t been released yet (though he’s been placed on administrative leave).

Jernalizmists like those who toil away at outlets like the AP know less about guns than Joe Biden does about particle physics. But at the same time, they’re not stupid. They know full well that the Louisville cop’s gun didn’t just launch that bullet on its own. Something — or more precisely, someone — made it go bang.

But by wording the way they did, by reporting that “the gun discharged,” that keeps the focus on the gun rather than the person who was holding it at the time.

Guns R Bad™ as we all know and have been reliably assured by our betters in the media, politics and the gun control industry. It’s harder to rally public opinion to Do Something® about guns if people are distracted by what people do with them rather than staying focused on the objects themselves.

If they’re not careful, Joe and Jane Sixpack might get the crazy idea that guns don’t kill people, that it’s actually people who are doing the killing and using guns as tools. And we sure as hell can’t have that, can we?

 

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54 COMMENTS

  1. “You and I know that when a person fires his or her gun, they’re responsible for it.”

    except if your name is Alec Baldwin

  2. It’s okay guys. They will investigate themselves and find no wrong doing.

    Make sure to support your local “thin blue line” with a bumper sticker right next to your “don’t tread on me” flag you bought on Amazon.

    • I bought my Gadsen flag at my LGS. Is that ok?

      I’m sure they will decide that they did nothing wrong. Wish I could count on being my own inquisitor.

    • Haven’t you heard? Guns have a mind of their own – they do what they want. Mine, apparently, want to rust occasionally. I’ve been trying to train them not to but, to no avail.

      • Don’t get me started on rust. I was really into milsurps for a long time. I’m a history buff. It got so bad I was cleaning more than shooting. It is an addiction. And rust never takes a day off.

    • one of two causes for this:

      it was a frangible round, split, and gave what would seem like justice to two of the blighters in that garage.

      or the gun was one of those smart ones that can programme the flying bullet to go away from the gun, find and hit one target, then curve and hit a second. Those cost extra but California love them. Saves on ammo ya know.

  4. I just listened to a podcast by Lee Weems, “that Weems Guy podcast”, about this very subject. One former, and one current law enforcement officer, speaking about the dangers of muzzling suspects who are actually not a threat. And then actually killing them, negligently.

    Even the so-called professionals, even the so-called experts, even the ones the gun grabbers say, the cops, should be the only ones to carry guns. They negligently shoot people far too often.

    Even the training community sadly has a problem with not maintaining standards by enforcing safety rules.

    “Never a point your gun at something that you are not willing to destroy.”

    • And never run after someone with your finger on the trigger, only way any of my guns will go bang is if my booger-hook is wrapped around the trigger applying adequate pressure… No such thing as “accidental” discharge, all are intentional some are negligent…

      • I just about shot a guy in the back running with a riffle and I tripped when my finger was on the death toggle with the safety off.

    • And keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. We use to get points deducted every time our finger found the trigger and we were not on the target.

    • I was one of the RSO’s at our Municipal Range, which the Cops used to lease for training. Some of the worst and poorest gun handling I ever saw was from the LEO’s, and they don’t take kindly to being corrected either.
      We all breathed a sigh of relief when they built their own range

  5. know less about guns than Joe Biden does about particle physics

    Or the day of the week, who’s POTUS, where he’s at or basically anything a normal person would have a grip on from day to day… Not the best available example…

  6. I love and respect the Gadsden Flag. California rattlesnakes come with such a warning, if you aren’t deaf (Uh, my bad).
    My yellow one has that famous reptile in fighting stance, but I prefer the shorter version of the familiar warning, and in all caps:

    BITE ME!

  7. Horrible training for sure but if there was a garage full of teens doing something worthy of them all fleeing the scene and denying it later kinda paints the picture they probably should have needed to get shot anyway to thin the herd.

  8. How about this scenario, the two genius kids come up with a plan.
    That had access to a gun and thought Lottery.
    They shot each other and went to different hospitals.
    I say this because usually after someone or thing is shot, there is a blood trail.
    Two people hit by the same bullet and no blood at the scene?
    The one that was detained at the scene didn’t say anything about being shot?
    Like “Hey dick, you shot me”!
    In our litigious society I wouldn’t put this scenario past anyone.
    That being said, the cop should be suspended because a ND should not happen.

    One of the teens was detained at the scene, he added, while another “ultimately was able to flee and we do not have information on that suspect at this time.”

    No weapons were found at the scene, he said, though a car believed to have been stolen was in the garage.

      • So here’s a joke:
        There are 4 teenagers in a garage with a stolen car.
        Somebody calls the cops and they bust in.
        One cop has a ND but 3 out of 4 the teens run, 1 is caught in the garage.
        He is detained and eventually let go.
        Hours later he and one that ran show up at different hospitals.
        Both claim to have been shot by a popo.
        Yet there was no blood in the garage and the guy didn’t say he was shot.

        I’m the only one who finds that this story is very strange in some way?
        That’s the joke.

  10. I disagree with guns can’t just fire, it doesn’t happen often but it can happen, back in the early early 80’s when I was a young 15yr old lad I had a shotgun just go off while hunting, we were walking across a field and “boom” gun goes off and flies out of my hands, I didn’t even have my finger on. the trigger, I told my dad what happened l, of course he didn’t beleive me, I was the dog for the rest of the day. when we got home I went to clean my gun and found the safety switch would not work correctly, I showed my dad, we took the shotgun to a gunsmith and sure enough it was broken internally, the gun smith said the part that was broken would have let the gun fire if it was moved around enough, the gun was fixed and I still have it today. He also said it more than likely a factory defect.

    • It doesn’t really matter and it clearly didn’t warrant shots being fired. When I was young we’d walk around the neighborhood and we loved going into the new homes as they were being built. Yea, there was always that one in the group to to do something dumb, but for the most part, we were just explorers.

      That said… some “joggers” clearly have no business being there… still no justification for vigilante actions and violence.

  13. Well you have to be careful. My gunm is like a ninja sword the instant it clears the holster it just automatically starts shutezing. Maybe that cop should have just kept his gunm in his holster. And what about the attack dogs? 10 or 12 kids is going to be hard to stop with a 120lb Germany shepherd but if they had released 120 1lb chihuahua’s I bet they could have caught them all.
    Theres power in numbers.

  15. A 120 lb Chihuahua would have killed them all. Ditto for any of the small terriers in a 120 lb version. Good thing they don’t exist.

  17. I don’t understand why firearm mfrs don’t put more effort into technologies to make accidental discharges more unlikely. I.e. More safety mechanisms. E.g. Why not include two separate buttons that need to be depressed with two different hands to fire a weapon as an optional feature. This would all but guarantee no gun is ever fired unintentionally and would make them safer for beginners and less coordinated individuals. The industry could be spending a lot more money on research to eradicate this long tail of accidental discharges. At the end of the day this would result in statistics that favor gun rights when arguing policy. Any technology mfrs voluntarily add that make guns safer undermines the argument for greater regulation. So it’s a no brainer.

    Any fear that creating such safety mechanisms will lead to regulation that requires these mechanisms is unwarranted as that hasn’t happened with existing safety mechanisms.

    The goal of gun rights is to ensure we can fight back against a tyrannical gov when and if necessary. Let’s stay focused on that goal and support increasing gun safety in any way that doesn’t undermine that goal.

    • “I don’t understand why firearm mfrs don’t put more effort into technologies to make accidental discharges more unlikely. I.e. More safety mechanisms.”

      More ‘safety mechanisms’ means more mechanical complexity, I.e. More chances of failure.

      Good guns are dead nuts reliable and simple mechanisms because failure means you get killed. There is no do-over from getting killed…

      • EDIT – You’re far from the first to ask that question.

        The gun *has* to work, the first time. Period…

    • Two different hands? So if you’ve had your hand disabled for whatever reason your gun is locked on ‘safe’?

    • why firearm mfrs don’t put more effort into technologies to make accidental discharges more unlikely. I.e. More safety mechanisms.

      First of all, it is a “negligent” discharge, there is no such thing as accidental discharge…
      There are mechanisms already in place, one is that trigger that must be PULLED to engage the firing mechanism and the other is your brain that (if functioning correctly) will keep reminding you to keep your boogerhook off of the trigger until you are ready to make the gun go bang… Anyone who needs more than that should reconsider carrying a firearm out into the world… Been carrying and shooting firearms for over 60 years and I’ve never had one go off until I told it to…

    • Because a lot of times it’s the failure of the “safety mechanisms” that cause the failure in the first place. The more complex the mechanism, the more the likelihood of failure.
      If Browning had his way, the 1911 would never have had the Grip Safety. Why? He believed it was redundant and a cover for poor gun handling skills.

  18. @Jsbz: “Any fear that creating such safety mechanisms will lead to regulation…is unwarranted, as that hasn’t happened…”
    Firing my Belgian Browning High Power one day, I experienced a horrifically gritty trigger pull. Seems the mag that I dropped still had dirt or sand on it where a cute little spring activated plunger rubbed up and down on the front face of it. This was the CONTRACTUALLY REQUIRED Trigger Disconnector that supposedly made the sidearm “SAFE” when a magazine was removed. Put into play by a French Committee of some kind, DEFINITELY not a combat Veteran. They claimed that it would end Negligent Discharges and was actually supported by military brass and police chiefs of the time. People get seriously and permanently DEAD because well meaning kibitzers are all wanna-be weapons engineers. Please look around and ask around before making a comment like you made. You are 89 years behind the times (it was called a P35 for a reason).
    Kommiefornia requires these idiotic and dangerous magazine disconnectors. Because, uh, uh, uh, SCIENCE!

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