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On average cop training with firearms in the US is quite minimal. Most cops are extremely bad shots when intentionally firing their guns. There's a long, long
by dmoy 3y ago
On average cop training with firearms in the US is quite minimal. Most cops are extremely bad shots when intentionally firing their guns.
There's a long, long history of cops negligently firing their guns, even after gun safety tech progressed to the point where true accidental discharges are neigh impossible. It's always negligence now.
"Glock leg" was a common trope among cops, because so many of them were shooting themselves in the leg. They sued both Glock and Sig multiple times because cops were convinced it must be the guns fault. Spoiler alert, it wasn't (well, some hand waving on a certain sig issue, but glocks are impossible to fire without pulling the trigger).
I shoot competitive 3p rifle, and the closest range to me is a cop range. I've seen cops struggle for 5 minutes trying to figure out how to put their targets up. We have rules against drawing from holsters because cops have shot themselves in the leg so frequently (though the cops are still required to do it for testing lol). I've seen cops shooting rifles at the pistol range, which destroys the backstop. I've seen cops shoot at targets on the wrong range.
Like literally other people's targets, up in the air, from a different range. In the direction of an interstate freeway, at an upwards angle. I've seen cops (with aforementioned rifles) shoot groups at 50 yards while rested on a bench that are straight up worse than what I can do at 200 yards while standing up. (For an average non-olympic-tier competitor, you'd expect 200 yard standing groups to be 4-5x larger than 200 yard bench groups, and closer to 20x+ larger than 50yd bench groups).
The average cop doesn't know shit about guns, and doesn't care. And largely that would be fine because most cops will never draw their guns in the blind of duty. Unfortunately we've built up a law enforcement ethos in the US where every cop must be armed even though they really shouldn't have to be.
- dmoy 3y agoOh yea I'm pretty sure that for decades new york intentionally issued guns with 2.5x heavier triggers because cops couldn't keep their fingers off the trigger. Like in the 10+ pound range. This of course very much hurts accuracy when intentionally firing the gun, and makes bullets more likely to go places they shouldn't.
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- e12e 3y agoThere were a number of accidental discharges in Norway while police were temporarily (for more than a year?) permanently armed. Partly because training assumes guns will be locked away until going into imminent dangerous situations - so when carrying - the training/instruction dictates a round should always be chambered. AFAIK this how you get Glock foot too - drawing a weapon with round chambered, rather than draw-load-fire.
- Auracle 3y agoIt’s common advice to keep a round chambered and I’m sure (almost) all cops in the US do. You might not have both hands free to chamber the round and it takes time when you may not have any. It really shouldn’t matter as long as your finger isn’t on the trigger until you’re ready to fire. Personally, I still like guns that have a safety lever. I understand that people in a stressful situation might forget to flip it but training should largely circumvent that.
- dmoy 3y ago> AFAIK this how you get Glock foot too - drawing a weapon with round chambered, rather than draw-load-fire. Not quite - it's usually on the reholster, not the initial draw. Crucially, this means that the policy of carrying without a round in the chamber can still yield the same failure case, because if the weapon is fired, it'll be loaded when you go to reholster unless you intentionally clear the gun every time. Which, for a failure case caused by literally keeping your finger on the trigger while reholstering, is not gonna be avoidable if that's your bar. Someone who hasn't trained enough to meet the most basic of 8-year-old kid-level gun safety isn't going to be reliably clearing before reholstering either.
- giantg2 3y ago"but glocks are impossible to fire without pulling the trigger" Not exactly true. See the gen1 and early gen2 slam fire issues. The fact that it is not widespread knowledge is just kudos to their "safe fire" marketing. And of course mechanical failures in any make/model could be a factor too. But as you said, it's almost always negligence and not a true accident.
- hedora 3y agoI've noticed that any product that markets it doesn't have a problem I hadn't thought of ("runs silent", "rust-proof can", "doesn't randomly fire") inevitably has exactly that problem.
- dmoy 3y agoYea, very similar issue with early Sig p320. But the lawsuits still keep coming in after it's mechanically impossible now. (And in sig's case their firing pin block interacts with a lug attached to the pin, which could hypothetically shear, and since it's fully cocked striker then it's a single point of failure)
- giantg2 3y agoI think gen4+ glocks are fully cooked now too. Not sure if they have multiple lugs/blocks or what.
- dmoy 3y agoStill half cocked. It's a big part of why Glock triggers feel so crappy. But imo the relevant part here is more that Sig decided to have the firing pin block... not block the firing pin itself, but a lug attached to the firing pin. A lug that can, extremely rarely, shear off.
- cryptonector 3y agoNot that brandishing such a glock should cause slam fire.
- ajmurmann 3y ago"On average cop training in the US is quite minimal." Fixed it