16 June 03

From a friend who owns a gunshop in the south:

"A shooter at a big local match, while loading a handgun using the front slide serrations' on his pistol, allowed several of his left-hand fingers fo rward of the muzzle (an error nearly impossible to avoid when using this specious gun handling technique). Somewhere in there, his strong-side index finger m ade its way inside the trigger guard, and the pistol discharged. The shooter wa s astonished, as he was obviously unaware of where his fingers (on both hands) were. His left index finger was shot off, and he then pressed the trigger a second time in an apparent startle response, and shot off the middle finger on the same hand!

The damage is not life threatening, but he now has a permeant, disabling injury."

Lesson: I don't know how often this has to happen! Grabbing the slide of an y autoloading pistol ahead of the ejection port is not only a poor tactical procedure (because the ejection port is thus usually blocked), it is a verit able invitation to a shooting injury to the shooter's weak-side hand, as we see from the forgoing.

On any autoloading pistol, placing slide serrations ahead of the ejection port is a senseless and dangerous design flaw, in my opinion.

/John

16 June 03

From a friend with the LAPD:

"On Thursday, two of our narcotics cops were involved in a shooting in my division. I was the first sergeant on scene.

Two rival gang members had squared-off on a pedestrian-packed sidewalk. Eac h pulled out a handgun (one a no-name autoloader/mouse gun, the other a Ruger six-inch revolver w/38Spl ammunition) and commenced shooting at each other a t a range of ten feet. The Ruger shooter scored six hits! The auto shooter scored only one. Both shooters then calmly walked away from each other.

The Ruger shooter passed his pistol off to a buddy who then turned and faced two of our guys with the revolver still in his hand. Our officers both fire d instantly upon seeing the gun. Each officer (armed with Beretta 92Fs) fired two shots. All four shots missed completely! Fortunately for them, the suspect could not have fired anyway, as the revolver was completely expended and had not been reloaded. He dropped to the ground and surrendered without further incident. The shooter himself was arrested a short time later.

The second gang member, the one with the six holes in him, passed his gun to his thirteen-year-old girlfriend, who started to walk away. Two of my sharpest officers pulled up and saw the hand-off. They grabbed her and him, and recovered the gun. He went DRT shortly thereafter.

Our Chief Bratton showed up minutes later! (one would never see either of our two former chiefs do anything like that). I briefed him and showed him the scene. The very first thing he wanted to know was that our officers were oka y and being taken care of. He made it clear that the suspect's unlucky demis e was 'just as well.' I like him already!"

Comment: So do I!

Lessons: Sometimes criminal suspects are competent shooters! We need to be better, faster, and act decisively and without hesitation. At the moment of truth, we will shoot about as well at we did on our worst day of training. The two officers who missed need to take the hint and get to the range!

/John