Finger on the Trigger?

[oldafsp]

I guess most patrol cars have a glass bubble separating the rear seat from the front now. Back in the day, our City PD cars had a section of expanded metal welded in to the side pillar separating the driver from the rear occupants. An officer I rode with a lot very often brought people in with the imprint of the expanded metal on their face and head, especially if they happened to be cussing him, which was often the case. He could truthfully say that he never laid a hand on them, he just had to make a couple of panic stops between where he picked them up and the jail.

And that my friends is what we used to call a "Screen Test"

"Y'know Cap, that car busted that stop sign and it was all I could do to keep from gettin T-Boned."

He would just look at me and say " That boy looks like he was run over by my wifes waffle iron" and just walk away shakin his head...

 

[NE450No2]

I never had a squad car with any kind of divider between the back and the front seat. In my days we did not use them.
If we had a crazy/unrully prisoner, and we had many of them, we just put them in the back seat with an officer who had "hands on".
Problems were few... And short lived...

Here is something many will not believe, early on I worked the Projects.
It was my beat for a few years.

Many times when I had to arrest some one I would just tell them to go to my Squad car, and set on the hood, and wait for me to finish taking the report...

They would always be there waiting for me.

If I put the word out I was looking for someone, or wanted to talk to some one, they would go to the Project office, and call my office, I worked 3rd watch, and wait for me to come to them. They knew eventually I would "find" them. I was "Firm", but I was always fair.

The Projects was always a 2 man beat, but we never had to call for cover. They knew we were fair, and they knew we would kill them if necessary.

Some did run from us, but when we cought them they never fought us hard.

They knew "resistance was futile"...

 

[DoubleAdobe]

Iggy
For what it's worth, in my neck of the woods, the term "gunsel", while mildly derisive, denoted a wannabe cowboy. A pretender, "Rexall ranger" type of thing. Certainly nothing of a sexual nature.
I also spent some time in your general neck of the woods and heard the term used the same way there. I never heard of this other connotation, although I don't doubt it.

 

[DeadAye]

I deer hunted with a Super Blackhawk for many years. I usually had it in my hand, finger on the trigger, thumb on the hammer. NEVER had an AD. I carry my 686 the same way.
A bit different with a 1911 though. Finger on the trigger, thumb on the safety. Same results.....

 

[Packard]

I started shooting a handgun with D/A revolvers. Nobody ever told me to keep my finger out off the trigger and to tell you the truth I never thought much about it. Good grief, you have to WANT to pull a D/A revolver trigger. Even today I find when I pick one up, my finger goes right inside the trigger guard. I have to tell myself to get it out.

But when I started with semi-autos, I made a point to hammer myself with the keep your finger off the trigger/alongside the slide. So with a semi-auto, my finger goes right alongside the slide. Funny how that muscle memory works.

I took my NRA pistol course in 1978. I just recently took the course again because my new club requires proof that I took the course (and my records from 1978 are a bit spotty).

They did not teach the "finger off the trigger" in the 1978 course. They did teach that in the new one.

I am pretty sure I always put my finger in the trigger guard when shooting DA firearms. I carried my Gold Cup "cocked and locked" and kept my finger on the trigger (but did not release the safety until I was on target). The fault with that is that it worked fine for paper targets, but less fine in the real world.