City Lab
• On September 6, an off-duty cop accidentally fired a round inside the restroom of a Target in Honolulu. The bullet bounced off a stall door before drilling another stall. He allegedly called 911, but the incident never appeared in the police department's public reports, leading TV station KHON2 to wonder if somebody tried to cover up the mishap.
• In June, a veteran detective with New Jersey's Camden County Prosecutor's Office shot himself in the leg at his office's loo. Informs the South Jersey Times: "Prosecutor's office spokesman Jason Laughlin confirmed the accidental shooting on Monday. However, he said he could not confirm a Philadelphia Inquirer report stating the detective was seated or about to sit when the gun fired."
• A man was walking to the bathroom (OK, this one squeaks by) in April in Attleboro, Massachusetts, when the gun in his pocket went off. The bullet hit him and then struck his wife in the foot, says the Sun Chronicle, sending both to the hospital.
• In December, a man had to be carted away in an ambulance from an Italian restaurant in Kentucky when his concealed weapon punched a new hole in his body. Reports the News-Enterprise: "He set his pistol on the toilet paper dispenser while using the restroom and it slipped off and shot him in the leg, said Elizabethtown Police Sgt. David Neary."
• Last spring, customers at a Burger King in Manchester Township, Pennsylvania, were shocked by what sounded like a "cannon going off" in the men's room. The source, writes the York Dispatch, was a guy whose 9mm pistol discharged, sending him into a panic as he tried to flee through an emergency exit (and then, when it wouldn't open, the front door).
Its interesting that there seems to equal representation in regards to negligent discharges by law enforcement. Of course, one easy fix would be wearing a separate belt with the holster attached. The officers mentioned here aren't in uniform, so the holster is likely attached to their regular belt.
ReplyDeleteWith uniformed officers, they can just take the whole duty belt off and leave the gun in the holster. Restrooms are a challenge because you cant safely put the gun on the floor or leave it in the holster attached to your pants because there is the danger of being "snatched".
Wearing what amounts to a "gunbelt", while much safer would make concealed carry a challenge. In some states, you can be charged with failing to conceal if the gun "prints", as in showing through your clothes. But what it amounts to is that it works best if you can leave it in the holster and not mess with it. Especially within the tight confines of a restroom stall.
The reason these idiots' guns are going off is that guns are the only unregulated industry in the US and therefore do not have common sense safety devices that prevent firing when dropped.
ReplyDeleteWow - a Target?
ReplyDeleteGeeeze, those usually happen in Walmarts.