Rookie SF police officer shoots himself to death while fooling with "unloaded" gun!

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If it's a gun, it's loaded. If you can't see all the way through all hollow parts of it at the moment, it's a gun. Don't point it at yer neck unless you intend to destroy said neck.

Oh, and have yer wits about you when in the presence of the opposite sex, most 'specially when firearms are also present.
 
i get the willies every time something like this happens. just awful.

IIRC, I heard that folks who accidentally shoot themselves in the head number in the 700 (+/-) annually. The victims are referred to as members of the "700 Club."
 
I just want to say.. I don't know if he was drunk, I don't know if he was showing off but those of you who think that he wasn't properly trained or stupid are missing the reality that even the best trained folks can have a lapse of focus and concentration. You never know what the trigger(no pun intended) will be but there will be something that distracts or causes you to loose focus and a mistake will happen. Stuff happens and there's no reason to pick on this guy, his training or his police force. RIP and may the rest of us take this as a lesson.:cool:
 
That's both tragic and idiotic.

What kind of handgun is issued to those officers? Did he think it had a magazine disconnect? He broke the rules regardless, but what the heck was he thinking???
I have a feeling his female friend wasn't impressed by his weapon retention techniques.
 
There's always someone special who believes that rules don't apply to them - the very same rules demonstrated over and over by those who have died. Makes me mad at the stupid waste of life.
 
hapuna, a very common way for a man to die has always been doing something stupid to try to impress a woman.
Women also do stupid things to impress men, but I think they are not so violent,nor are the reactions upon them so quick
 
hapuna, a very common way for a man to die has always been doing something stupid to try to impress a woman.
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While that is true it is not completely clear that he was trying to do that or that he shot himself because of it. Very experienced folks get taken down by very simple things that they should have known better. As a pilot I see this kind of thing often and the folks that succumb are well trained experienced pilots. Stuff happens and you need to keep up the vigilance.
 
I guess that I don't see it as either sad or tragic - just stupid. At least he didn't (physically) hurt anyone else.

Life is tough. It's tougher (and often shorter) if you're stupid.
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+1
 
This is truly tragic.

But, I just have to wonder if the push for things like magazine disconnect safeties plays a role. I believe it conditions people to think the gun is now safe - then they do something stupid and ignore the four rules....

Don't know, but I suspect he may have been trained to drop the magazine to disable the gun but this one didn't have that particular feature. :banghead:
.
 
I suspect he may have been trained to drop the magazine to disable the gun but this one didn't have that particular feature.
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It's highly doubtful that standard training teaches officers to drop a magazine in order to disable firing. Magazine disconnect safeties are not that common among the models that police use. The guy just didn't observe the 4 rules because he was drunk and showing off.
 
I think we are all getting too quick to just call this kid stupid, a darwin candidate or just use it as another chance to slam police or california Democrats, but just take a step back for a moment.

I recall seeing a thread a little while back asking how many people on this board had ever had a negligent discharge and many of us have had at least one, it may not have been something that caused harm to another person, more often than not I believe the damage was done to a wall or floor and, in my case, just the dirt downrange a time or two.

It is an unfortunate, tragic event. Yes the kid DID SOMETHING stupid that cost him his life. That doesn't mean that this kid was stupid. We have all done something stupid before. Does that make us all stupid? No.

My sympathies go out to this kid's family and friends as well as the group of people that were standing there watching as this kid died.
 
That's a shame, and also a reason to have a red gun around for demostrating proper handling (or whatever shenanigans this was).
 
horrible.

same thing as a 23 year old getting behind the wheel of a car and driving too fast, it was a risk to do what he did and he ended up losing the bet.

I feel for his family.
 
We have all done something stupid before. Does that make us all stupid? No.
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Sure ... taking a corner a bit too fast, failing to watch your airspeed on final approach, maybe even daydreaming and running a stop sign.

But this is way different: pointing a gun at yourself/someone and pulling the trigger :rolleyes:


PS: if we're going to say "this could happen to anybody" then guns really are unsafe. To me, a gun is one of the safest things around because if you follow the basic rules then nobody is going to get unintentionally hurt. Unlike a lot of other things that can just reach out and bite you - things where a little bit is good but a little bit more is fatal. I taught my little girls to shoot, but darned if I was going to have them out running a chainsaw even though I ran one proffessionally for many years and never hurt myself on the saw.
 
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I don't consider what this guy did to himself to be the typical negligent/accidental discharge. There was alot of arrogance, ignorance, lack of fundamental knowledge involved. The gun is incapable of any of these attributes. Regardless, sorry to hear.
 
I wasn't so much saying "this could happen to anybody", though even the best of us can have a lapse in judgement from time to time. I was more just trying to say that this kid did something stupid and paid the ultimate price for the stupid action but just calling this kid stupid, darwin candidate, etc. seems unnecessary.

But this is way different: pointing a gun at yourself/someone and pulling the trigger
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Not necessarily. To use your example of daydreaming and running a stop sign, If someone did that and ended up killing someone, whether it be a pedestrian walking across the street or a vehicle crossing the intersection, a car can be just as deadly as a firearm can be when used improperly or with some level of lapse in judgement and can have the same or worse results. (1 car can kill or injure many people with one hit, one bullet can kill or injure 1 or 2 people with one shot)

as for intent: one could be pretending to punch a friend and said friend reacts unexpectedly and ends up getting punched for real. It was a stupid thing to do, but was done without the intent of causing injury. This cop had a lapse in judgement, did not realize that there was a round still chambered, and pulled the trigger expecting a click instead of a bang.

It is different in the degree of the consequences, but not that different.
 
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