Open Carry and Retention
With bonus guns on trains!
An Amtrak police officer has sued the national rail corporation, claiming it’s liable for an incident in which a woman was able to grab his gun and shoot him in the foot.
[…]
Police and witnesses interviewed by the Daily News at the time of the incident said a 30-year-old woman, who appeared to be homeless, began arguing with McDonald’s employees about 11 a.m. when they refused to refill her coffee.
When Bullard tried to remove the woman from the restaurant, she grabbed his gun from his holster and shot him in the left foot.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:16 am
“…when they refused to refill her coffee.”
No free coffee refills, so she shoots a cop. Obama has certainly created quite a sense of entitlement, hasn’t he?
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:55 am
It seems the cops shares that sense of entitlement. I mean, you know as an Only One who can be trusted with a gun.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:08 am
Straight… did you read the article? If so I’m interested in how you came to that opinion.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:39 pm
No retention holster?
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Here is the way one gets a replacement for worn out equipment. That the officer was a veteran of 29 years and did not do this demonstrates that he either is lying in his lawsuit or was almost to step 2 when shot.
1) Show your supervisor and/or management the defective piece of equipment and put in writing that it will soon be unusable due to the likely damage from everyday use.
2) About a week later, break the item beyond use. Really destroy it.
3) Show your supervisor and/or management the broken piece of equipment and woefully lament that you did the best you could with it, but as you had reported to them earlier, in writing, it was only a matter of time before it broke completely, and that the item broke as predicted.
No blame can accrue to you, it was their decision to let you keep using it until it broke completely. And now you really need a new one.
Smart management (which you will run into once every 10 years or so) will short circuit your plan by offering to swap immediately their similar item with yours until a replacement can be found. You get a slightly used working item, they get the new replacement. Win-win.
I would add that if the item is necessary to your job, get your own replacement and use it surreptitiously until step 3 is complete and you have your new item.
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:21 pm
For practicing scientists, the shorter version of this process is the “Wall Reaction,” wherein anything from a beaker that does not pour well, to an experimental result that does not suit your desired outcome, can be thrown at a wall and destroyed “accidentally,” requiring a new one.
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:28 pm
No retention holster, lack of retention training, nutjob looking to steal the gun.
You need ALL THREE for a pistol snatch like this to happen.
The cops can control TWO of those variables.
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I think it’s kind of funny, actually. All his life this guy carried a gun and he found out that all he (not the gun, he) was good for while armed was to get himself shot in the foot.
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
This isn’t a case of “open versus concealed” carry as much as it is a case of lethargy. We have a 65 year old Officer (goodness Man, retire!) who is too cheap to buy his owned damned holster. So he deflects blame for his tenderfoot on to “management”. Probably a card carrying member of the AFGE and a union steward to boot. He gets at least 400.00 per year for the express purpose of buying his uni’s and any gear he needs. Maybe he should have spent the money he was given on a better rig and take some time (on his own time) to attend updated training on situational awareness and weapons retention. Then again, maybe cooter has been ridin’ the rails since James Younger and his pals robbed the mail cars off the iron horses for fun and profit!
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:24 pm
My mistake on the comment of open versus concealed carry. I do stand by my comments about Barney “cooter” Fife however.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:23 am
Easy Bobby, I recall what I know about cops who believe they are the only ones with the training and knowledge to carry firearms and don’t want civilians to carry, add a pinch of their hysteria about “officer safety” when they handcuff and disarm a legal carrier during what should be routine interactions with the public, then stir a large serving of Lee Paige, and this man who wasn’ able to protect his possession of his sidearm, then compare to what has been said by other officers and administrators about just the ‘possibility’ of that happening to a ‘civilian’.
Voila, you have the high probability of Only One-ism as to entitlement of carrying a firearm and a big payout when he fails to do the job properly. Or don’t you think he thinks he is entitled to the big payout? Obviously, he does, or he wouldn’t have filed the lawsuit against his own, you know, that pesky little thing about deeper pockets.
It would be reasonable for him to expect his medical bills and downtime recompensed, but he is entitled
to more, ask his lawyer.