When will we stop our fetishization of police?
Guns are always dangerous. Always.
This, once again, puts the complete lie to the idea that more guns means more safety.
American police officers are among the most highly trained gun users in the world, requiring repeated safety training and at least annual qualification.
And still a live round was in a gun intended to be filled with either nothing or blanks, and a person is dead as a result.
Yet the “second amendment people” Trump suggests might come into play if Clinton becomes president think we should allow anyone who can drop a couple hundred dollars at a gun show to carry a loaded weapon into churches, colleges, high schools, Piggly Wigglys, bars, restaurants, public parks, etc.
I am not an advocate of banning all guns. I’ve been hunting, and enjoyed it. I’ve been target shooting with .22s, and enjoyed it. But we have to require any gun owners to register their gun, register any sale, maintain insurance, be tested on its use, and be limited in how it is stored and where it can be carried.
This incident – highly trained people in a highly controlled situation that still results in a gun death – is the proof that more guns does not equal more safety. And should be for anyone with an ounce of intellect and integrity.
It’s just a shame there wasn’t a good guy with a gun there to protect her.
Lawyers representing the heirs of Ms. Knowlton are deciding how much of the city of Punta Gorda will be awarded to the family in settlement.
Having someone point a gun at you? Voluntarily?
I won’t stay anywhere-- where I know someone has a gun.
Not where my safety is reliant on someone else’s level of stupidity.
jw1
Why on earth was there a live round in that gun?
Punta Gorda is a fairly wealthy retirement community on the Gulf Coast.
Have an aunt and uncle who live there.
jw1
Sean Hannity will have to do an exposé detailing the many ways Ms. Knowlton was a despicable person and deserved this. She was probably a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
She was “mistakenly struck with a live round.” ? Why/How ???
Condolences to her family .
I suppose if you drag the word police into this enough folks will fail to see this killing is no different than any other in which reckless conduct was at fault. You do it and you’re already in jail. You bring a loaded gun into a scenario like that and you’ll stay in that jail for a long time. There would be no delay in that while folks “figure things out”.
As in all these cases the difference between what you’d get under these circumstances form what the Cop gets is the Cops exemption from the law. There is nothing in Cop" that excuses this. But he’ll walk. That woman ever will again.
Perhaps you haven’t been following the apparently-endless stream of reports about “accidental” shootings where there’s a long investigation of (usually white, gun-nut) types and a decision that they’ve “suffered enough”.
Although the officer in this case was criminally reckless, I blame even more the people who set up the exercise. Should have been multiple checklist items to make sure no live round weapons were available and that all weapons in anyone’s hands contained blanks. And verification that those steps were followed.
Beautifully said. What a needless tragedy.
At this point, you almost have to stay home in many states not to get shot, like in the Wal-mart and on campus, and everywhere when its legal to carry a loaded gun, whether hidden or not. Makes you afraid to go to college in Texas, etc. I wouldn’t. So many idiots out there looking for a chance to use their gun to “protect” someone, anyone, from anything any more, by shooting them, and usually mistaken as to the actual situation, and shoot anyhow wounding and killing innocent bystanders or themselves. The ridiculously outlandish dangerous laws this country has anymore with gun ownership and use is frightening.
"…this unimaginable event…"
OK, it was ostensibly an “accident”, but seriously,not in his wildest imagination could this happen?
That shows the gun-safety fallacy.You have to be able to conceive of the idea that guns pose a safety hazard in order to avoid a situation like this one.
A live round in a training exercise!
The settlement should come out of the police’s pension fund and not from the tax payers then maybe the police will stop being so cavalier with their weapons.
Why on earth were they using real guns? They make replica weapons just for this purpose. When you do something like this, you have a safety officer with a clipboard who issues the fake gun and ensures that the cop doesn’t have a real one on him.
The paramount rules of gun safety are about preventing this situation right here, developed through long, bitter, and mostly military, experience. Always treat every gun as loaded at all times. Don’t point it at anything you don’t intend (i.e. aren’t prepared) to shoot and kill. They’re rules based on the assumption that when hundreds of thousands, or millions, of guns are in circulation, it is statistically inevitable that sometime someone is going to be wrong about whether the goddamn thing is loaded.
And it’s the experts who can be the most dangerous, the ones whose very familiarity and expertise makes them think they don’t need to follow rules designed for stupid amateurs. This is precisely why sergeants in the military go batshit insane if someone accidentally points a weapon anywhere but downrange and why they don’t let soldiers in combat zones keep live ammunition when they return to base.
And, when you get right down to it, it’s why a constitutional right to gun ownership was a stupid, stupid idea.
Once again, Steve, you nailed it. WTF are these people thinking?! Strike that. Clearly they’re not.