Last Saturday morning a Hartford police officer managed to shoot himself in the hand. He was inside the police station attempting to remove his gun belt when his sidearm “accidentally discharged” according to Hartford Police spokeswoman Christene Mertes.
Dear Christene,
It’s no accident. Firearms cannot fire by their own will. It takes one of us human beings to mess up and pull the trigger for that to happen.
It’s very unfortunate that this 15-year veteran shot himself in the hand, but he needs to learn how to properly deal with his sidearm if he is going to continue carrying it around every day.
Negligent: guilty of or characterized by neglect, as of duty: negligent officials.
Discharge: to fire or shoot
It was, sadly, no accident that this firearm discharged and injured this police officer. Firearms are inherently dangerous (despite the ruling of Canada’s Supreme Court in R. v. Morris) and must always be handled with respect and care.
Failing to do so cost this police veteran the use of his hand for a time… he’s very lucky that’s all it cost.
Dear Mr. di Armani,
With respect to your comment that firearms “can not accidentally discharge” and that “it takes a human to mess things up and discharge a firearm” I would ask your advice on how you would have reported an incident in which a loaded firearm discharges after it is hit by a door which landed on it when a windstorm blew open the door?
I’d call it a malfunction. What would you call it?
Firearms being pulled out of holsters are not malfunctioning. They are being handled without due care and attention.
do you have the statistics for rcmp negligent discharges?
Thanks