Happened in Pasco county. The weapon is ID'ed as a Sig Sauer 9 mm that was holstered when it discharged. The explanation goes on to say the officer was leaning back against a wall when the gun discharged, still in the holster. Can you visualize how this could happen?

The link before is to the explanation.

10News WTSP - Gun accidentally fired at school | Facebook

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Old paratrooper in NC

As usual, not enough information it seems. I think I just read where Florida was going to start allowing teachers to train and carry at school. Might be a speed bump right from the get-go. Glad there were no apparent injuries (physical).

All I can imagine is jacket drawstring holstered in the trigger guard . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Those little knobs on a jacket drawstring have caused more than a few negligent discharges.

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God spelled backwards is dog.

Yes, you did read that. Click here to read about it. Or here.

There's also a thread about it in our Second Amendment forum here, although not too many people seem to care too much about it one way or another, not even our members from Florida.

Contentious issue I have mixed feelings about.
Care or not it's hard to offer much in the way of an opinion that would lead to any productive discussion on my part.

I agree. I think the answer is to allow teachers with CCW permits to carry firearms if they so desire, and hold them to them same self defense standard that would be expected of them at Wal-Mart. I don’t think many people want to create a teacher rapid reaction force, but I could be wrong . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Same ND in Blount County Alabama.....by an elderly substitute teacher......in my opinion> school resource officers should be trained on the same level as Navy Seals...only need 1 officer per school!

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triggers dog-pile egomaniacs

I like traditional DA/SA hammer fired pistols but I have heard of a few times where the weapon is fired and in all the excitement it gets reholstered without decocking. Those Sigs have pretty light and short single action trigger pulls and I would be pretty nervous holstering or having a cocked gun in the holster.

A completely different set of facts . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Speaking as a Floridian , I don't agree with teachers being armed . Go to a school and look at the teachers . Would you want your child in a classroom with an armed teacher ? It's bad enough when a trained police officer has an accident , how about a 50 year old nearsighted English teacher ? And how many would do it unless you paid them to ? When an active shooter comes in , where do you think they would go ? Speaking of the school resource officer , they are not usually the cream of the crop so what can you expect ? Almost as bad as letting guns on college campuses here .

Was the SIG maybe a P-320? Or worn cocked in the hoster, no safety device employed?

Usually, if I read about an AD, a Glock or a dropped derringer is at fault.

Yes, I would. If I turned on the news and saw that a gunman was in the same school my child was in, I would prefer the child be in a classroom with an armed teacher rather than an unarmed teacher. By the way, I believe the people chosen for being armed in schools will be vetted and trained.

By whom?
The majority of my school days were taught by veterans and tough, stern old gals with only the very occasional liberal flake for variety. Not sure if that's the case any longer.
I agree with Muss in that anyone qualified to carry should be allowed and focus on securing classrooms as a refuge.
My father would have wept to see campuses become prison camps yet he would have ripped the head off anyone attempting harm to his students.

Armed teachers is a ridiculous, knee jerk proposal. There is a common thread between proposals to arm teachers and the other myriad of proposals aimed at eliminating school shootings...and that is they all ignore the cause of a deteriorating society, and only address the symptoms. My generation didn't shoot up schools, my fathers didn't, and generations before him didn't. And now I'll stop before I go any farther, because listing some of the reasons we find ourselves dealing with this issue today would break to many forum rules.

More Than 30 Percent Of Texas School Districts Allow Educators To Carry Guns | KUT

Seems to work for us. Many districts in TX are over an hr from any type of police presence making it unless they happen to be close by.

Maybe the US should be 100% home school that way any school shootings would be stopped by or allowed by the parent. That way each could decide if they were comfortable with guns in the class room.



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LOL. We have schools with a single grade level ie senior class for example with over 1k students just in that grade level
3-4k total in the school.
Yeah 1 is a great idea for a one room school house.


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Amen, brother!

Most people in the teaching profession wouldn't want to go near guns, let alone carry in school. All a school needs is one or two who aren't that way. I'd bet most PE coaches would arm up in a heartbeat and go fight the bad guys.

All we really need to do is remove schools from the list of prohibited places for concealed carry. Then the criminals won't know one way or the other if a teacher, parent, or other is armed on a school campus, just like the rest of the normal world.

With all due respect, this is fine if the "criminals" were people trying to hold up the lunch lady running the cash register. But the people that are the real threat are students with severe psychological problems that back when we did have a "normal world", wouldn't even be there.

That's true, but doesn't negate what I wrote. We do need a more comprehensive approach that includes separating the real psychos from society. That is clearly not happening.

That's because there is no definitive method for identifying the "real psychos" in advance . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

I bet you will see a lot fewer school shootings in areas where people know that a teacher MIGHT be armed. The killers want an area were people can't shoot back and there are many other places they can go and find that.

That’s right. I’d say we’re at the point of minimizing the damage.
Rather than let them (the nut case) wander around shooting their classmates until police arrive, a teacher or a janitor who’s capable of defending themselves could make a big difference.
It’s a mess.
I also think most of the “crazies” do some planning, and knowing there might be an armed presence would make them take pause, although I admit there are exceptions to that, too. It’s a mess.

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Halfway and one more step

Don’t think I’ve heard anyone suggest all teachers should be armed, only a select few who are properly trained.

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Sure you did

Deterrence doesn't work with people who want to die as well as those who don't believe they will be caught.

Agreed. All these arguments to arm teachers as a deterrence are flawed in that to be deterred, one must be capable of rational thought. These student school shooters clearly lack the ability to think rationally. An armed teacher might stop one, but they wont deter anything. Responsible parenting from birth would be a better deterrence than arming teachers.

With as many people who EDC I'm surprised there aren't more ADs.

I'm sure a lot of them never get reported.

An armed teacher might stop one. That beats NOT stopping one.
We can’t go back in time to produce “good parenting” on the present situation.
There is no way of measuring deterrence. We can’t know what doesn’t happen.

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Halfway and one more step

You're not "arming teachers". You're just "abridging their Second Amendment freedoms" slightly less. To the same extent that the rest of us have our freedoms abridged, in that concealed carry is considered a privilege and not a right.

And no, you're not going to eliminate school shootings. Never. Not gonna happen. Not even with confiscation schemes--there are still mass shootings in Europe, Australia, etc.

All you're doing is making it a remote possibility that someone with a gun will be there to shoot back. That's what separates virtually unreported "incidents" from national-headline mass murders.

TL;DR don't expect the police or "school resource officers" to keep kids safe.

Obviously arming teachers and staff will not end the madness, but something is better than nothing. If your kid was in a school when a crazed kid with a gun started a rampage, would you rather your kid be in a classroom with an armed or unarmed teacher? I think the fear of the teachers / staff who eventually will be allowed to carry is unfounded - the ones who will carry will be trained and vetted volunteers. Maybe the ones who carry should be required to carry in condition 3 - my sense that would lessen the odds of negligent / accidental discharges in classrooms, and so long as the teacher/staff member himself is not targeted first (they almost never are) very little would be lost in terms of his response time if he has to rack the slide on his way to respond.

We deal with reality not wishful thinking.

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Sure you did

I love horses. Getting them well-trained and trustworthy takes days, weeks, and months of work, patience, consistency, and a little bit of skill passed along from others who know how to handle horses to get them reliable and reasonably safe.

Watch the folks without the patience, the knowledge, or the time to train and maintain their horse as they walk in a feed store, Tractor Supply, or search the web with any of the hundreds of horse paraphernalia stores as they try to find a mechanical fix for a poorly-trained horse - they spend money like it was water, and still get hurt on or quit riding their poorly trained, unmanageable horses.

There is no technical/mechanical fix for poorly trained horses; there's no technical nor mechanical fix for what is truly a behavioral problem with murderous, untrustworthy children. You have to spend the time, use discipline and skill, then rely on wise others to build/train trustworthy kids. Before I'd send my precious grandchildren to a school with armed teachers and volunteers, I'd keep them home.

So should you.

Guns in schools is fully as bad an idea as are violent online video games, unlimited pornography, and psychoactive drugs for kids that need time, positive direction, patience, discipline, and guidance.

From what the News papers reported, the Handgun was a SIG 320 that Pasco County Sheriff's deputies are carrying. If you recall, Sig had a problem if you dropped the gun and it fell at an angle (45 degrees), the gun would discharge. They had a recall and all should have been repaired last year. The sheriff had all his 320's corrected some time ago with the updated correction. However, the investigation is on going with the Armorer and a Representative from SIG looking into the AD. Also, they Sheriff does not train the Deputies with the manual safety on as he wants his deputies to be ready from the drawing stage. It is all a mater how you train and the memory takes over if you constantly train that way to undue to safety as you are withdrawing the gun. I dry fire every day with my Springfield SDE and instinctively depress the safety, with my non shooting hand as my arm is moving up to the firing stance. It just gives you a better edge with the safety in the on position and if the gun was to be taken out of your hands, the other person would try and fire the weapon at you and that gives you time to deploy your backup gun. Just food for thought and most agencies have their own system for the department.


Nick

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NRA Instructor\GCA Gunsmith

So do I, by my definition of reality. The reality is society is circling the drain thanks to those that think nothing can be done about it. I chose to run a scout troop full of troubled boys dropped off by single mothers that didn't know what to do with their sons, most profusely bullied in school. Did the school support it? Absolutely not because scouts is not PC, a Catholic Church is the only place that would let us use their facilities. The kids that came were the ones nobody wanted, shunned by classmates and arrogant jock coaches, and I was happy to get them. I think I made a difference. That's the reality, and its not wishful thinking.

I also do not support having teachers armed, but for another reason. I can envision a group of non-valedictorian type students ganging up on a teacher to take his or her gun away.

I'm all for having some civilian school employees trained for armed carry on school property. I do think those allowed to carry should have some good State mandated and paid yearly extra training.

My experience with school resource officers has been very mixed. I hope their quality is getting better and more consistent. Some are very good competent officers I'd be happy to see arriving as my back-up.

Some are there because they don't want to or are afraid to work the street, don't really have the aptitude for police work or they're just sorry. I'd hope at this point agencies are no longer filling those positions with those types. Parkland should have been a wake-up call on that.

As for the AD, I look forward to hearing the true cause. I agree that it was probably due to some item of clothing being caught and holstered with the trigger. That's an issue that isn't reinforced adequately in any training I've ever seen. I can see it happening with a light drawstring bottom type windbreaker.

It's a concern I'm fairly paranoid about with my concealed carry, which is the only carry I do now. I'll usually take the extra PITA effort to remove my IWB holster and holster the gun before re-stowing it. I guess I should change that from usually to always.

Yes, I do think more armed presence on campus would be a deterrent. Even the crazy ones usually don't want to get hurt, at least not before they can do enough to be famous. The police assisted suicide types are another matter and having more armed people available to fulfill their wish quicker is good.

Yeah, there are many very liberal nut job educators I wouldn't want to see armed. I don't really want them teaching either but there's nothing I can do about that. However, I think there are enough solid, level headed educators that could be trained and are willing to take on the task of protecting our kids in a worst case scenario.

I don't think my County is one of those signing on to the program. I find that disappointing. I didn't vote for the School Superintendent anyhow so I'm not too surprised.

Thank you!

We can but it’s going to be tough with 325,000,000 people.

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Sure you did

I don’t think you’re showing wishful thinking, and I do appreciate your work, but I am reminded of a quote:

“We’re building a better corral, but in the meantime, we still gotta go round up those horses.”

What that means is that until the outreach and guidance programs begin to be effective, some degree of protection should be in place.
Once everyone learns to behave civilly, protection against deadly threats won’t be necessary. That might take a little while.

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Halfway and one more step

IDing the reeal psycho is a great idea, unless the mentality of the society around you decides that you are the real psycho, the nut that thinks that guns are alright and not the problem.

There is no way to decide or test for who is the real psycho. The truly dangerous psychos, like Ted Bundy, appear to be perfectly normal and often seam to be great people most of the time. They sttill haven't been able to figure out what was up with the guy in Vegas, he hardly appeared to be a "real pyscho"

Actually your kids are in more danger in and around the school bus than they are from a deranged shooter.
The School Shootings That Weren't : NPR

It could not happen. The explanation is a lie to protect the guilty.

The "officer" was handling is gun inappropriately and had a negligent discharge. Whether the gun was dropped or a jacket drawstring got in the trigger guard or he just pulled the trigger when he shouldn't have, it's his fault.

The only other possible explanation is a serious mechanical flaw. This is possible, but can only be ruled out with a close examination of the pistol involved. I don't think that will happen. Even if it does, we won't hear about it.

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Freedom isn't free.

(1) You do realize we have the lowest crime rate in 30 years, right?

(2) While mass shootings are trending upwards, we have a lower per-capita death rate from them then (drumroll) Norway, France, Switzerland, Finland, and Belgium.

(3) The statistic on school shootings bandied about comes from an Everytown-funded study which counted suicide attempts, and the quarter of incidents where nobody was hurt.

Stop buying into the anti-gun narrative.

Silly me.... thinking 1 Navy Seal (or special forces) could secure a campus.....

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triggers dog-pile egomaniacs

Dude. You clearly have never been intimately involved in crime statistics. . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Of course it could happen. A drawstring caught in the trigger guard, he leans back against the wall, and Bang. It doesn’t mean he was handling his gun negligently, or lying.

Do you suppose a gun fired in the holster doesn’t leave a mark? Hell, it’s probably on film.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I have yet to see a news report that says he was handling the pistol. Every report thus far reflects the pistol fired unexpectedly while in the holster. Stop making stuff up . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

I'm not making stuff up. Just placing blame where it belongs, with the owner. If it were a jacket cord, as you suggest, it's still his responsibility.

I'm just having a hard time believing the gun fired because the grip was tapped against a wall.

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Freedom isn't free.

I’m replying specifically to “It could not happen . . . “. It did . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .