School employee accidentally shoots student

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... uns-campus

Remember when everyone on WP was saying that giving people in schools guns was a bad idea?

Had this unfortunate student been run over by a car instead, would the left be calling for banning automobiles at schools?

Guns are unfortunately necessary because people don't always behave themselves, which is something aspies of all people should be acutely aware of. Pretending that all people are good won't make it so.

His handling is inexcusable and prosecutable. His finger should have never been inside the trigger guard.

AlterNet story:

Um, guns don't just go off by themselves. They discharge either intentionally or by careless handling. In this case I'm guessing careless handling. Same way cars don't run people over all by themselves.

AlterNet story:

So there was one injury from careless gun handling that is being pumped up as a tragedy caused by having armed school employees but on the other hand there were 26 KILLED because there were no armed school employees to stop the shooter.

Well, if nothing else we know where AlterNet stands on this issue.

Last edited by Raptor on 14 May 2013, 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds like it was an accident to me not proof guns need banning...and I am not on the right, besides the student wasn't killed only injured. I have to say though I am not sure guns are always the solution for people not 'behaving' themselves, do all aspies behave themselves and never bend rules a little or something? I kind of doubt it.

I have a few questions about this situation if someone could enlighten me please.

Would this be a voluntary protector role?
What level of firearm training would the employee have had?
I believe there is a standard gun handling course before being able to carry a gun in public, is this all that is required to take a gun into school?
Shouldn't those protecting others be experienced in combat handgun training?

Ideally, yes, but that depends on the requirements of each school district or state. Myself, I'd allow school employees who have a current state issued carry permit to carry a concealed handgun but only if they are willing to.


Depends on the policies of that district and the law. To get a carry permit the requirements vary by state.


Yes, proof of a gun handling course is required in all states prior to the issuance of the carry permit. Schools tend to be designated "gun free" zones and that prohibits anyone from LEGALLY bringing a firearm onto the campus.


That can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming. There have not been enough defensive shootings by carry permit holders where lacking this specialized training has proven to be detrimental.
The typical police officer often does not even have thorough or even adequate defensive firearm training.

I am a little confused: I though that handguns had a safety switch, so that they could not accidently discharge.

In that case there are two levels of careless/incompetent gun handling, 1) safety off at inappropriate time and 2) insufficient care when handling a handgun that is loaded with the safety off.

So much for safety training, and this guy is a security officer who is supposed to protect people.

Also disregarding the rule "do not point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot".

Depends on the gun; some use active safeties, others use passive ones, and there are a myriad of other internal and external safety systems that may or may not be incorporated into various models of handguns.

Take the Glock, which has entirely passive safety mechanisms. The gun utilizes a passive firing pin lock safety to prevent the gun from firing if dropped or roughly handled, a disconnector safety to insure that it can only fire when the mechanism is fully in battery, a safety spur on the trigger, to minimize the chance of the trigger being pulled accidentally through incidental contact, plus a further drop safety to prevent a discharge due to inertia acting on the internal parts. There is no "switch" on the outside of the gun, however, if you load a round and pull the trigger, it will fire. The drill with the Glock is that "safety on" is keeping your finger outside of the trigger guard, "safety off" is putting your finger inside the guard. This is exactly the same drill as with a double action revolver, which traditionally do not have manual safety catches either. This is all perfectly safe so long as the person using the weapon understands how the layered safeties work, and grasps that pulling the trigger will always fire the gun.

The problem comes when people who are used to one type of gun, say a 1911, encounter an unfamiliar one and assume that it works the same way. The 1911 uses a manual thumb safety, a spring loaded grip safety, a disconnector, and possibly a firing pin lock, and pulling the trigger with the safety on will simply do nothing. Try that with a Glock, and you've got a brand new hole in your wall or worse. However, you need to have the gun off safe in order to load and unload, and if it's an older model or based on the Colt series 70, it may be slightly more likely than the Glock to shoot you in the butt if you drop it.

Which style of safety you prefer, active or passive, is really a matter of shooter's preference, as both are equally effective with the proper training. Without the proper training, no amount of mechanical safety devices make any kind of difference.

Thanks for your response, I find this detail to be amazing.

Do you know any figures for the frequency/number of times a typical police officer will draw and/or use their weapon?

There probably are statistics somewhere but their accuracy would be questionable and the results would vary depending on locations.
It stands to reason that some potentially deadly confrontations are ended when the police officer puts his hand on his sidearm as if to draw it or actually drawing it. Likewise it stands to reason that a lot of these weapon "presentations" will go un-reported by the officer just to save on writing a report and answering questions.

Keep in mind that my words "thorough" and "adequate" are subjective.
To the tactical minded no training and practice can be enough and no cost too great. To the bureaucratic administrator who only wants only to legally cover his ass at minimal cost even minimal training and practice can be fluffed up with creative wording to sound like more than what it is.

Did they hire a guy like Vincent Vega?

The only consolidated figures I could find were for justifiable homicide by police officers. Otherwise the amount of available information is overwhelming.

Off-topic warning:
I saw this video earlier of Brazilian police chasing a fugitive in a helicopter and using automatic weapons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skomhYqOqjM

Interesting side note: There has been a change in nomenclature over the years, "accidental discharge" has been replaced with "negligent discharge" to reflect the fact that modern firearms do not simply "go off". There are some older designs still in circulation that may possibly discharge if dropped, but most guns manufactured since the late 70s or so incorporate automatic firing pin locks or other drop safe features.

Yep, even though they got in trouble for firing like that in a residential area the police in Brazil tend to be a bit heavy on the trigger.
It's a different country with a different culture.