Our good friend knirirr has been kind enough to pass along this news article. It seems that police in the United Kingdom have seen 110 “accidental discharges” in the past 3 years.
Regular visitors to this site know that there is no such thing as an “accidental discharge“. There are only four simple rules required to safely handle a firearm, and someone has to be stupid enough to have ignored at least one of them in order for the gun to go off unexpectedly.
What is really amazing is that the police were called upon to use their guns in the line of duty only 29 times during the same time period! So the police in the UK let loose an unaimed round in a random direction about four times more often than they shoot to save innocent lives. Absolutely amazing.
The article also mentions that Police Constable Ian Terry was killed during a training exercise. Pc Terry was sitting in an unmoving car, playing the part of a fleeing robbery suspect. A fellow officer was supposed to shoot out a tire with a “gas round” but instead shot Pc Terry at extremely close range, resulting in his death.
In the United States, such a news story about such poorly trained police officers would generate national outrage. There would be protests, the situation would be discussed at all levels of government, and the news media would be desperately digging up past shooting incidents in order to generate outrage and ratings. I can’t seem to find anything similar in the UK. I suppose they find these conditions to be tolerable.
There are two reasons why I don’t expect to get a job in the UK to train their police officers.
Firstly, although I have some experience in training military personnel in the use of handguns, I have never had any police officers as students. There are plenty of people in the US who have such experience, however, and it would make sense to hire someone with a proven track record.
Secondly, it would be political suicide for any politician in the United Kingdom to even suggest that the country needed to hire someone from America to train their police. The media in the UK is full of news stories and editorials that condemn the culture in the United States as being savage and violent, so it would be seen as a confession of complete incompetence if they hired someone from here in such a delicate position.
I don’t see this as being an acceptable state of affairs, but I don’t see it changing any time soon.
Considering the example picture is an officer with his finger on the trigger the problem may be even deeper than it appears.
“In the United States, such a news story about such poorly trained police officers would generate national outrage.”
Really? A sound-man from Cops just died in a hail of random gunfire from police shooting at a man with a fake gun. Our cops ignore rules 2 and 4 while their cops have problems with 1 and 3. Nothing to brag about.
There was also a case in NYC where cops were shooting at a perp and managed to hit nine innocent civilians. Fortunately, none of them died but a couple of the wounds were pretty severe. They were ignoring the “…and what’s beyond it” part of rule 4.
The Rod & Gun Club I used to shoot at stopped letting the local police use their range for practice. The cops were such poor shots that they were hitting range structures rather than the targets and causing a lot of damage. One of the guys at the range told me that if you ever saw a cop with his gun out, hide, because he’s as big a danger as any perpetrator.
Back in the good old days in the UK, when we were allowed to own proper firearms, I remember two policeman being invited to our Club’s range. Both were qualified firearms officers. At that time they tended to arm police as required and they were not a designated unit as such. They shot a Police Pistol course with the firearms they brought. As this was well over 20 years ago I can’t quite remember the models they used – possibly S&W model 10’s. Their gun handling was sloppy and the accuracy they displayed (or lack of it) didn’t inspire me with confidence. I was a way better shot (as were a lot of my clubmates) back then. However they weren’t encouraged to have an interest in firearms and I think once they qualified practice was pretty minimal. We on the other hand shot forthe love of it and probably put a lot more lead down range than they did, over time. Even with our bright and brisk new firearms teams it doesn’t seem like a lot has changed.