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As an experienced firearms owner have recently been advocating a change in police procedure. Police current policy is "shoot to kill". In today's "law enforcement officer" "swat force mentality" the number of innocent citizens who will be killed by police will continue to increase.

Today's police policy is to draw first, it used to be called a traffic stop, today it is called a felony stop. A felony stop allows the officers to draw weapons point the firearm at the victim with his finger on the trigger. Cops with their light specially build firearms with very light trigger pulls is a death just waiting to happen.

In the old days, peace officers kept the peace. Today's uniformed officer has a loaded gun, with a bullet in the pipe, and a finger on the trigger. In the old days peace officers would shoot to wound. This is not allowed today by today’s police policy.

I am fully aware of wound ballistics, perps on acid, reaction time, etc. But to kill 300 citizens annual who are innocent is not acceptable. This is 3000 citizens every ten years.

I am always taking self-defense classes just for experience and training. It is not uncommon to find a young lady waiting for a basic training handgun class. I strike up a conversation only to find she has just been accepted by the Chicago police department and has never fired a gun. I would not want to be on the wrong end of the firearm during her rookie training. If she does not continue to practice, she would be even more dangerous on the street later in her career. This is not a sexist issue.

This policy by police departments to always have a bullet in the pipe if you are in law enforcement is WRONG. Why? I have served on various city boards of directors and have made friends with police officers. As we chew the fat our conversation gets around to loaded firearms. I have had more than one officer tell of a scary moment in his career where he has looked down at his holstered firearm while sitting at his desk and see it cocked. We continue to see police officers shot themselves unloading their firearm, or cleaning their firearm.

If a police officer draws his service revolver 1000 times in his career, perhaps once in his entire career he will have to fire. In the old days a revolver was carried with the hammer on a blank chamber. Today's semi automatic can be racked in milli seconds if the scene goes wrong, perhaps once in his lifetime. John Lott says that if a firearm is drawn 2000 times only once will it need to be fired for a citizen. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

I am of the opinion that the policy should be changed from carrying a firearm with a bullet in the pipe to an empty pipe, or a hammer resting on an empty chamber.

Remember 300 innocent citizens are killed every year in firearm accidents when only the police officer has the gun.

What is your opinion?

Remember 300 innocent citizens are killed every year in firearm accidents when only the police officer has the gun.

Geeeze, SPARE ME! There were 14,000,000 crimes committed in 2001 of which there were, 1,1439,000 violent arrests. That was for a single year in 2001, and police encountered millions of whacked out, crazed, drug infested, lifelong felons, with little regard for their lives let alone the police.. The fact that only 300 were killed is a testament to the restraint that we show the guilty and innocent alike.. All of this hand wringing is folly, get on your knees and thank the Lord, that you live in a land that trains their police force to show such courage in the face of such danger.

I am not in law enforcement however I have forty-nine years of firearms experience both civilian and military and I cannot agree with a no bullet in the chamber (simi-auto or auto) or no bullet in the chamber under the hammer(revolver).Why, modern semi-autos used by police have many safety devices that will prevent a true accidental discharge(I will get back to this)and if a weapon is chosen by a department that does not have these devises,safety slide,decocker,grip safety or in the case of the Glock a safety trigger(sorry there are always mechanical failures)they must be held liable. Revolvers of recent design(at least the past fifteen years) have a safety transfer bar to prevent an accidental firing.The real problem is that many police training facilities behave as if they are training soldiers (paramilitary)not civilian law enforcement personnel,Two to the torso and one to the head is a common theme,after all no witness no explanations and probably no law suit.An accidental shooting is one in which a firearm is dropped,malfunctions unexpectedly or someone is trying to wrest it from an officer.When a LEO points his weapon at a suspect finger on trigger and the weapon discharges and injures or kills someone it is not an accident,or tragedy,it is a homicide.March 1992 a police SWAT team in Everett,Washington killed Robin Pratt,she was shot while on her knees begging "Please don't hurt my children" deputy Anthony Aston shot her in the neck, she was alive for two or three minutes but could not talk as her throat had been destroyed,she was then handcuffed lying face down.This was a no-knock raid and the allegations on which the warrant was based turned out to be false.www.powernet.net/~eich1/noknock.html.While I agree that LAO's shoot to kill all to often and for the wrong reasons the time needed to rack a slide or the diminished firepower of one less round could cost a LEO or innocent civilian their life.If Law Enforcement Officers (LEO's) were no longer trained to believe that civilians are the enemy and can be shot for any real or imagined provocation and with statutory immunity to prevent their prosecution for wrongful injury or death we all would be better off.

Part of the problem lies in the lack of training in defensive tactics and nonlethal artillery. Officers often reach for their holsters because training goes out the door during challenging confrontations.

The real problem is hiring small cops with a large attitude. Alligator mouths with canary assholes. Not a single diplomatic bone in their scrawny bodies. Constantly have to prove how tough they are. When people they confront take exception to being called names and screamed at their only recourse is to pull a gun or get their ass kicked.

We need to go back to height and weight requirements. A big cop is an intimidation factor and a little diplomacy will diffuse a lot of situations. It never used to be this way until BS liberal PC started. PC kills.

Sometime around 1960, several cops -- including a cousin of mine -- quit the police force in the small midwestern town I lived in because the police chief there instituted a new policy for the use of deadly force: No police officer shall fire at a perp unless the perp first shoots at the police or at some other innocent person. Period, no exceptions. Good policy. I thought so then. I think so now.

How times have changed. Can you imagine any police department having such a policy today? I can't, but if you happen to know of a town that still has such a rule, let me know because that's where I want to live.

There is no doubt: More than a few cops today are trigger happy killers who are sanctioned to kill people on barely more than a whim. That cell phone in your hand doesn't look like a gun, right? Wrong! Any baby-faced Nelson in blue can drop you in your tracks any time he wants and get away with it scott free. All he has to say is that it "looked like" you had a gun in your hand and that you were pointing it at him. It happens all the time and it has to stop.

This policy by police departments to always have a bullet in the pipe if you are in law enforcement is WRONG. Hmm...on the one hand we have chuck taylor, massaad ayoob, john farnam, clint smith, Col. cooper, Ken Hackathorn, and Lous Auerbach.(sp?) on the other we have; CHICAGOARMER.

The above trainers, without exception, recomend Condition One Think I'll go with their judgement, particularly when I read:

In the old days a revolver was carried with the hammer on a blank chamber.

you are aware, of course that the reason behind that was to avoid accidental discharges if the hammer was struck, aren't you? And you certainly must be aware that the overwhelming majority of modern duty DA revolvers incorporate a transfer bar to preclude such a thing happening, right?

And finally, if your concern is that the officer will inadvertently cock and fire his weapon, the hammer would NOT come down on the empty chamber it had been resting on, but rather on the LOADED chamber that had rotated into line when the trigger/hammer was operated? In other words carrying on an empty chamber has ZERO bearing on the likelihood or prevention of an ND?

You may or may not be right about the current caliber of LEOs- I don't have enough knowledge to make a comment. But given what appears to me to be an abysmal lack of understanding re: firearms...I do not take your analysis very seriously.

It all comes down to training. I was a deputy sheriff in New Mexico back in the late seventies. While it is true that back in the 1880's most individuals carrying a single action revolver had the hammer on an empty chamber(thereby making their 6 shooter a five shooter),in the late 20th Century, most cops carrying a double-action 6 shot revolver had 6 rounds in it. I was taught keep your finger off the trigger until your ready to shoot. Sometimes in plainclothes I carried a Colt .45 Auto or a Browning P35 9mm. They were carried in condition one (round in the chamber,cocked and locked). That was the way they were designed to be carried.
You DO NOT give the trigger a light pull on a duty gun. The Glock which is a standard gun throughout the U.S. comes with a standard 5 lb pull. NYPD got them to increase the tension on theirs to 8 lbs, known as the New York trigger. Then Glock also offered the option of a New York plus trigger of 12 lbs.
Probably 75%+ of negligent discharges are due to individuals with no background in firearms. 100% of them are due to negligence. My daughter was a GM/G (Gunner's Mate/Guns) in the Navy. When I went to her graduation at Great Lakes, the First Class that was her instructor could not say enough good things about her. He recognised she had been around weapons a good deal before her first weapons class at Great Lakes. Her marksmanship was noted by the seal team assigned to her ship. She has never had a ND because she is paranoid about safety.
Guns fire for a reason, someone pulled the trigger.
I see the problem as a training problem. Better more intense training and a chnge in the mindset of the majority of cops would make a difference. By the way you don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stop. That Lone Ranger bullsh#t of shooting to wound looked great at the movies and on TV, but as myself, Squantos, and a few other ex Peace Officers can tell you, it's bogus.
I recognise one other thing, the unloaded auto pistol chamber you are describing is advocated by the Israelis. Believe me them chambers is loaded when they are expecting trouble, Massad aint stupid. Good post by the way it should generate a lot of comments.