Treat all guns as loaded until you have personally ensured that the weapon is clear..

[Hambo]

If he can no longer press the trigger on WHO stage(s) of the mandated qualification he'd almost certainly be eligible for medical retirement.

Jody is right that it's probably better if he hangs it up, but where I worked the pension board and work comp hearing officers were not known to be generous with disability retirement packages. As an example, one guy I worked with had a heart attack and was resuscitated twice in the ER. The pension board refused his request for disability retirement. I can't see them feeling the love on a self-inflicted weak hand finger. In this case I think it's his lawyer trying to make the case for a larger award for stupidity.

[Artemas]

This guy is a beacon of personal responsibility...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...is-own-finger/

[TCinVA]

The store shouldn't have handed him a loaded gun, certainly...but you know what? If I'm in a store or on a range or even in a building where some sort of modern interpretative dance event is going on and someone hands me a firearm (true story) then what happens with that weapon in my hands is completely and utterly my responsibility. It doesn't matter what condition it was handed to me in...once it's in my hands what happens with that weapon is now entirely on me. It is my responsibility to see that I don't do myself or anyone else any unintentional harm with that weapon.

I don't see this as a 50/50 blame situation. The person handling that weapon was a police officer who had to receive a reasonable level of training on the proper handling of a firearm as a condition of employment. He violated all the major safety rules he had been trained on and was injured as a result. The blame is on him.

[Al T.]

watched again...what is with the obsession people have with putting their hands on the muzzle?

I work in a LGS and see it every single day and usually multiple times. I also know two guys, over 55, who have shot their fingers off in the last couple of years.

Darnedest thing.

[TCinVA]

I work in a LGS and see it every single day and usually multiple times. I also know two guys, over 55, who have shot their fingers off in the last couple of years.

Darnedest thing.

My pet peeve is the morons who deliberately point the gun at other people and then screw with it. I'm unwelcome in one gunshop in Virginia because I strongly objected to somebody sighting a Sig in on my face.

[BaiHu]

My pet peeve is the morons who deliberately point the gun at other people and then screw with it. I'm unwelcome in one gunshop in Virginia because I strongly objected to somebody sighting a Sig in on my face.

Around here, I find the counter guys are more concerned with offending the customer than they are with safety. Admittedly, they are very consistent in locking back and showing clear, but after that the whole place looks like the end of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

I've derped on muzzle discipline before even after it was locked back, checked by another party and mag free and it wasn't cool then. I'm not about to muzzle strangers just because it's "Ok" around the cool kid's table aka the LGS.

[Nephrology]

Honestly, I am surprised this doesn't happen more often. I have witnessed absolutely appalling gun safety violations at all of the brick and mortar stores I've frequented over the years, to the point that I now basically avoid them entirely. No good ones in my area, anyway.

also, I agree - the officer was 100% responsible for that accident. I do think it is completely inexcusable that they had a loaded magazine in the pistol (what on earth is a loaded mag doing in a gun store? If it's not in the mag well of a gun on somebody's hip, it shouldn't be there. Period) but at the end of the day it was up to the officer to verify an empty chamber before pulling the trigger. Not a mistake he will be making again (I hope). His lawsuit should be dismissed.

[SecondsCount]

The store shouldn't have handed him a loaded gun, certainly...but you know what? If I'm in a store or on a range or even in a building where some sort of modern interpretative dance event is going on and someone hands me a firearm (true story) then what happens with that weapon in my hands is completely and utterly my responsibility. It doesn't matter what condition it was handed to me in...once it's in my hands what happens with that weapon is now entirely on me. It is my responsibility to see that I don't do myself or anyone else any unintentional harm with that weapon.

I don't see this as a 50/50 blame situation. The person handling that weapon was a police officer who had to receive a reasonable level of training on the proper handling of a firearm as a condition of employment. He violated all the major safety rules he had been trained on and was injured as a result. The blame is on him.

100% agree, especially the part about him being a trained police officer. He had to have heard the "Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy" rule several times in his career.

There are multiple rules for a reason, redundancy. If you break the trigger on the finger rule but the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction then you will probably get away with it and vice versa. This guy broke them all at once and is paying the consequence.

[GardoneVT]

Honestly, I am surprised this doesn't happen more often. I have witnessed absolutely appalling gun safety violations at all of the brick and mortar stores I've frequented over the years, to the point that I now basically avoid them entirely. No good ones in my area, anyway.

also, I agree - the officer was 100% responsible for that accident. I do think it is completely inexcusable that they had a loaded magazine in the pistol (what on earth is a loaded mag doing in a gun store? If it's not in the mag well of a gun on somebody's hip, it shouldn't be there. Period) but at the end of the day it was up to the officer to verify an empty chamber before pulling the trigger. Not a mistake he will be making again (I hope). His lawsuit should be dismissed.

Methinks a customer traded a gun for a different one, store staff didn't clear the magazine of ammo, then the LEO decided to check it out.

[BaiHu]

Methinks a customer traded a gun for a different one, store staff didn't clear the magazine of ammo, then the LEO decided to check it out.

Agreed. My IANAL guess is that he'll get some kind of settlement for his injuries from the LGS due to their gross negligence in the matter. Then he'll be put behind a desk to grind it out until retirement due to his gross negligence of impersonating a LEO. But by the looks of it, maybe he was already riding a desk [emoji16]