Thinking Man's Corner

Submitted by: James Perry – GALEFI President

BOOM! The typical sound we associate with a firearm when the trigger is pulled. We are used to it and we expect it so it seems normal to us. There are times when the sound a firearm makes are unusual and not what we expect. Two of those sounds can be the loudest sounds we ever hear from a firearm. Have you ever been in a shootout or performing a demonstration in front of a large group and pull the trigger only to hear “click.” Yep, the loudest sound in the world just happened. In a gun fight it can be devastating, in front of a class it can be embarrassing to say the least.

The other side of that is the BOOM that happens when it should not happen. As an instructor I have had it happen in class where the command is given to dry fire the weapon and of course someone fails to completely empty their weapon and the expected click becomes the thunderous “BOOM.” The BOOM also occurs many times when people clean their “unloaded” firearm or pull the trigger when not fully intending to do so.

I recently witnessed a respected firearms instructor with many years’ experience commit the act of pulling the trigger with unintended results. Short story, he fired a bullet through his hand. As always we can look at the why of this incident and determine cause. However, I write this article to incite more careful thought and evaluation into our handling of firearms. Not only did the officer injure himself but the incident had a visible impact on everyone around him at the time and I’m sure on family and loved ones when they received news of the incident.

For me, a cop for over 43 years now, firearms instructor for over 30 years, DT instructor over 30years, SWAT certified, etc., you get the idea. Same for another instructor standing with us. It was however, the first time in my life I had witnessed someone shoot themselves in an accidental discharge. I have witnessed a suicide and it did not have the effect this did. This incident bothered me tremendously. I witnessed a former partner, friend and well respected officer commit a mistake that we all hammer home to everyone on how not to let it happen. To clarify before some of you read this and think I am a weak wimp who broke down crying or whatever, nope didn’t happen. After we sent him to the hospital, we went on with a full day of training.

But, initially for the first several seconds, it was one of those so called out of body experiences thinking “what the hell was that.” I knew no gun was supposed to be fired at that moment. Training had not started and the three instructors were engaged in a conversation down around the 25-yard line of the range. The students were all back about the 90-yard area. I broke from the conversation and turned to go to the students. As I made the turn the BOOM happened. Everything froze, time seemed to stand still as I immediately thought who, what, where and am I hit. None of those answers were immediately clear. The involved officer himself was frozen for what I’m sure was a split second but seemed longer. When he stood from the chair he had been seated in, he held his hand applying pressure to a through and through wound. He obviously was a healthy officer because the brightest blood was flowing a river from his hand.

This is where shell shock set in on everyone around that morning. He was up and walking toward the range house. Myself and the other instructor were beside him. We yelled for the medical kit and the officers around the range building scrambled to get it. The involved officer immediately says “they are going to fire me.” A couple more comments were made but it was obvious he was highly concerned over his job, his position in the department and his reputation among other officers more than his injuries. You could see shock and fear in the other officer’s faces. Proof positive, your mind will play tricks and run uncontrolled in highly charged events. 

Many thoughts went through all our minds as we packaged him for the ride to the hospital. I might add the hospital staff said we did a great job on bandaging him. And no we didn’t wait on the ambulance. As soon as he was bandaged he was placed in a patrol car and driven to the hospital by another officer. From BOOM to hospital in under 15 minutes. For the record this incident was a result of breaking the gun down for an inspection, magazine had been removed but a live round was still in the chamber. The weapon was pointed downward and downrange from everyone else.

So where am I going with this. Around the world, just hang on. My first thought of course was who’s hit, where are they hit, how bad is it, is anyone else injured, where is the med kit, do we have enough and current supplies in the med kit for this. I know, always keep med kits current and handy. Next, deep breaths, calm down, control the situation, settle everyone else down. It is a planned training day and the show must go on! Now don’t think I didn’t think about him often over the next few hours until we got great news report from the hospital. The bullet missed all bones and nerves. He is a great guy who lives right so God blessed him.

The next big thought was calming down the others who were going to be handling a firearm all day. Scared, say scared. Yep. Nervous! What we witnessed did not go away that day and probably has not gone away for everyone even though it has now been several months. I did not write about it until now for many reasons. The main reason was just considering the why associated with these type incidents. 

As an instructor with years’ experience I think, and as my good friend Leo Hathaway says, “I could be wrong”, that time on the range and time handling a firearm is somewhat akin to a mathematical equation. The more you do it, the more the odds are stacked against you that sooner or later “its” going to happen. And then we all know Murphy is a part of the equation, always there, always lurking in the background, just waiting on that one little oops to manifest himself.

Now for the real issue as I see it. We have passed laws banning talking and texting while driving because we know distracted driving causes accidents. So does that carry over to distracted gun handling? What do you mean you say? Well, if you are talking or doing something other than devoting one hundred percent of your attention to the gun in your hand, can that lead to a pull of the trigger when you don’t really intend to or pulling the trigger on a gun that is loaded when you think it is not. I think so. We have run drills on the range where we can induce an officer to fire from loud unexpected noise or created multiple tasks which caused a brain overload which again caused a trigger to be pressed when not intended.

How much can our brain handle and what factors affect how it works. Fear, tired, cold, injured, age, multi-tasking, perception, lighting conditions, weapon malfunction or a tweaked weapon. The list goes on. Bottom line, anything that distracts us from absolute awareness of our finger and the trigger can cause unintended results. Can we stop everything in a gun battle or training and have only one thing on our mind and one specific action to accomplish? NO! 

The Supreme Court says give a verbal command where feasible before using deadly force. We teach officers to yell these commands loudly to create good witnesses of those nearby. We want them to testify they heard the commands before the officer fired his weapon. But what happens when our mouth is moving? Our brain is split in its actions. It has to see and process what is going on around it. It has to weigh options, make spilt second decisions, focus the eyes on sight picture, sight alignment, trigger press, etc. Can all this lead to a trigger being jerked or pressed not exactly when we would really like it to happen? Should we teach mental focus techniques to our officers, instructing them every time they pick up a firearm they think of nothing but the weapon and their finger that operates said weapon? Can’t happen. Won’t work.

Are our brains comparable to the CPU of a computer? Why do computers wear out and why do we need to replace them? Garbage in, garbage out as we say. Do we overload computer brains? Do we overload our own brains? Does age affect the brain and its ability to process all that goes on constantly around it? Are some elderly people poor drivers? Are some elderly people poor firearms handlers? Regardless of age do we have more thoughts running through our heads at times than we can control to the point of being absolutely sure of what our trigger finger is doing? I say a possible yes to all the above. I do not hold a PHD so I am not qualified to answer in a professional opinion. But common sense says yes.

How do we change it, how do we avoid the next unintended discharge? Can we avoid all unintended discharges? No. Two incidents that I am very aware of involved instructors teaching classes and discharging weapons during their speech. One of these resulted in a death, the other resulted in the bullet passing down the line only inches in front of all students and hitting a wall. There have been others including one famous video of an incident where the officer shoots himself and then says something about being a professional. Might have been prior to that incident but will never be looked upon by peers as a professional again. In all these cases, the mouth was moving, the brain was split in its actions and an unintended discharge occurred.

These events have an effect on those who pull the trigger, those around them, their families, their peers and in some cases the general public. For the officer can it cause hesitation down the road in a critical incident? Possibly. Can we fix the officer after an event such as this? Possibly. The core of this is everyone is different. Everyone has a brain which processes and delivers results at different speeds with current surroundings influencing that outcome. We don’t live in a bubble with an atmosphere we can totally control. 

As instructors we need to slow ourselves down and be absolutely sure of the action we are taking and the outcome we want to achieve. Continue to teach the basics, weapon downrange, finger off the trigger, etc. We have to teach advanced skills and place ourselves and others in stressful training scenarios to insure good results in the real world. But just remember, a split second is all it takes and we can’t take that bullet back. Train hard, train for realistic world events but use all the safety humanly possible every time you pick up a firearm.