[Jed Eckert]

What can I say: Stuck on stupid? Dumb and dumber?

Meanwhile, the other people in shop were extremely lucky.

[jsanders2001]

Some people should never had been issued badges...

[V_TWIN]

Who pulls the trigger on any weapon with your hand in front of the barrel?

[ryan71]

When I took my concealed class the instructor also trained the local PD. He said about half the cops can’t shoot and don’t care to learn.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE!!

[camle]

enough stupidity to go around, but imho the gun store had no business hand over a gun that hadn’t been personally checked and cleared.

that said, mr policeman should have checked the gun himself before doing anything else

[BCW]

I’m thinking that the dept. wanted an excuse to lay him off...and he gave it to them...

The gun shops I go in...when physically holding a weapon...the guy behind the counter clears the chamber...inspects it...hands it to me...I inspect it...chamber it forward...then clear it again...all the while the weapon is pointed at the floor...that procedure has never been different...

but the second part of the “clear the weapon” is the officer’s responsibility...and since he didn’t do it...one cannot blame “stupid” on someone else!

[Malsua]

This was a fail on many levels.

-It should have never been loaded
-The salesman should have checked the chamber before he handed it to the cop
-The salesman should have locked the action open before he handed it to the cop
-The cop should have inspected the chamber upon getting gun
-Neither His hand nor anything living should have been in front of the barrel when he pulled the trigger.

Had any of the prior been handled properly, nothing would have happened.

That said, why can’t he work with a missing finger? I have a family member that lost his middle finger when he was 25, he worked 35 more years before he retired and working in the Oil Field is more demanding on your hands than a cop.

I also worked in the logging and wood working industry for some time and people were always cutting on their fingers....they still work.

[trebb]

Gun shop screwed up, but he did even worse. 52 years ago, when I was 10, my Dad showed me how to field strip a 1911. he put it back together and handed it to me and told me to try. I squatted down (he had put newspaper on the floor and did it under "field conditions") and started pushing on the spring-loaded button when my butt experienced a bump, followed by my front end hitting the floor. I was a bit upset and asked what was going on with the kick - he told me I didn't check it to see if it was loaded. I mentioned I had just watched him working with it and he told me it didn't matter - until I verified it was empty and safe, it was loaded and dangerous.

52 years later and I have never made that mistake again - any cop (or other gun handler) who isn't just as careful has no business handling weapons.

[Pollster1]

On rare occasions, I’ve seen unsafe firearms handling in stores. I leave if it’s not immediately corrected.

Everyone working in a gun store should have a loaded personal firearm within reach, but the items for sale should be unloaded when stored on the shelf, checked unloaded every time a clerk picks them up, and checked unloaded again every time a customer takes possession of a firearm from the clerk. Even after checking that a firearm is unloaded, it takes carelessness to point one at your own hand. It takes a special kind of stupid to point one at your hand without checking.

[Robert DeLong]

The stupidity applies to both the store and the policeman, however, the store clearly bears the burden of responsibility. The police officer will bear the reality of shooting off his own finger due to his stupidity of assuming the gun was unloaded. Always always assume a gun is loaded and handle it accordingly.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

I would say that one of the other customers could sue the ex-LEO.

[Vaquero]

Cluster F*** Sir

Two major errors. The cop and the shop.

A shooting acquaintance and safety officer for a cowboy action club I belonged to, working part time at a gun shop.....he showed a customer his own gun after racking the slide back and removing the mag. The customer looked then handed it back. The clerk re-inserted the mag and let the slide go forward. After that it gets sketchy as to what happened . He was using the counter as a safety blockade and somehow the round in the chamber fires. And of course the wood and glass counter was not bulletproof and the round winds up in the potential customers leg.

No such thing as being too safe. This accident put the store out of business... Back to the original thread..as wrong as the cop was, the store should not have handed him a loaded weapon. I assume in a fair world any monies given to the cop will be half of what he would have gotten if he had checked the gun himself first and still got shot somehow

[nuconvert]

Everything the cop did was stupid. But it's still negligence on the part of the shop worker

[P-Marlowe]

Leaving a round in the chamber before handing it to a customer was a wreckless act. Certainly anyone hurt by the incident has a good lawsuit. They are lucky no one was killed. Just because the injured party was a cop does not diminish the negligence of the store.

[G Larry]

I’ve never been in a shop that would allow a live round NEAR a weapon in the store.

Unless there’s an attached range where you can test certain weapons????

But, then, there’s a pretty serious process for that too.

[thefactor]

Idiots all around. Who loads a gun with live rounds in a gun shop??? And doesn't check it before putting back into a case?

I won't even take a gun from a clerk without an open slide. And I don't think I've ever had one try to give me one without an open slide.

But that officer made too many assumptions He racked the slide in the correct manner but wasn't paying attention at all. The responsibility lies with the one handling the weapon, but he'll get some money out of this.

[RJS1950]

I was always taught that regardless of the assurance that the weapon is cleared, YOU SAFELY CLEAR THE WEAPON YOURSELF before handling it.

[Skepolitic]

My training — given by my father when I was about ten — was that there is simply no such thing as an unloaded gun, and that the safety should always be presumed to be non-functional. Even if metaphysically and apodictically certain that the gun was unloaded by having checked and re-checked for a chambered round, it was never to be pointed — much less dry-fired — at any object whose destruction would cause grief.

Cop was dumb, and trained less well than I was in 4th Grade.

However, the gun shop is liable. They have a responsibility to all customers — regardless of how stupid they are — to handle their firearms with reasonable care.

The only way I think the shop should escape liability would be if the cop put the round in himself.

[umgud]

380? Likely a subcompact. He should have checked a buntline.

[jurroppi1]

"This is the most basic of all gun safety rules: Always point a gun in a safe direction, especially when it’s cocked or being cocked! Period. End of story"

No, the most basic rule of gun safety is simply... Never point a gun at anything you don't want/intend to shoot!