What if your “good guys with guns” turn out to be the Keystone Kops?
In news that should not surprise anyone but Americans, “sky marshals” have developed a glorious history of misbehavior and incompetence. The short form would be: “you can put cops on a plane, but they’re still cops.” I suppose we’re to be grateful that there haven’t been any incidents in which they have shot another passenger in the back and claimed they were “scary.”
CNN has a collection of some of the known incidents. I tend to believe that the “iceberg rule” probably applies: things are actually much worse; these are the screw-ups that were caught on camera.
[cnn]
The cases ranged from seemingly mundane issues, such as improper storage of weapons, to situations in which air marshals allegedly jeopardized public safety.
In 19 of the cases, air marshals allegedly fired their weapons accidentally. For example, the documents state that in 2017 an agent based in Charlotte, North Carolina, “unintentionally discharged a personally owned firearm resulting in a gunshot wound to his right foot.”
It’s the specificity of “right foot” that makes me wonder if they track left foot incidents separately: “The good news is that our left foot shooting incident-rate has dropped 50%!”
A 2013 case described an air marshal mistakenly firing his weapon inside a hotel room and damaging a television in an adjoining room.
More than 70 of the incidents relate to lost, misplaced or stolen weapons. At least three of those cases involved air marshals forgetting their firearms in airplane bathrooms. Two others involved weapons misplaced in airports.
It does not take a strategic genius to figure out that the worst way to create a “weapons free zone” is to bring weapons into it in order to enforce it. I’m a bit more baffled by the misplaced weapons: carrying a weapon safely is, literally, the one job that air marshals are supposed to be doing. Fortunately, that’s the one job – because “bad guys” don’t seem to appear on planes very often. They are probably scared of air marshals.
Jackass Cop Daryll Jouette about to fire his service pistol in an elevator. [Edit: note the way his hand covers the slide. Not only is he about to make a stupid move, it’s going to really hurt his hand.]
On one occasion, an air marshal allegedly left his gun inside a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Totowa, New Jersey. In another, an investigation was launched after police found a “range bag” containing a gun box and ammunition in a school park.
I did not realize that we had Bed Bath and Beyond marshals and school park marshals. Joking aside, this illustrates a problem with gun-carrying, namely that it is at risk the entire time it is deployed. No “bad guy” in their right or wrong mind is going to try to take a gun from an aware air marshal.
TSA has investigated 35 incidents in which air marshals were alleged to have unintentionally or inappropriately discharged or brandished weapons between 2007 and 2017. Of those, 27 incidents were substantiated and resulted in disciplinary action, while eight were cleared with no action taken.
“Cleared with no action taken” is scary to me, because I always see that as a red-flag for abuse. In my mind it translates automatically to: “we had some cases that we decided not to pursue because we like that guy.” That sort of internal process of self-regulation is designed for abuse – ask the Roman Catholic Church.
This stuff is so depressingly predictable it makes me want to just dig a hole and crawl into it and wait for everything to be over with. I feel as though the signal accomplishment of the Trump era is “oh, you really want something to complain about?!” demonstrating that demanding better is pointless because there is no bottom to how bad things can get.
I was talking to an ex-cop about six months ago, and he assured me that all these stories about cops and LE etc. mishandling guns were just made up, totally not real, and not something I should worry about.
Since I’m just that kind of jerk, after that little discussion I looked up and sent him links to all the incidents we had been talking about and more besides. He has so far failed to talk to me again. And the really depressing part was, if you look up something like “man accidentally shoots self” you will get millions of hits. (We had personally known an officer who was practicing the “quick draw” with the gun, and had successfully shot themselves in the ass, and I had brought that up with the guy. But that incident mysteriously never made it to the news, so he concluded we were making it up.) I mean, it happens all the freaking time. In one astonishing case, a man was cleaning his guns and shot himself in the foot 3 times in a row, once each with 3 different guns. It was only after the third one (he reported it was a hollow point, and kind of hurt) that he called the ambulance.
I’m not even sure some of these people can be trusted with scissors, let alone a firearm. How do they even select these guys? Do they deliberately advertise for lazy, incompetent coneheads? And once you do manage to shoot yourself in the ass, why on Earth are you allowed to stay on!
We have armed correctional officers here. Last night a prisoner who had been taken to the local hospital managed to steal an escorting officer’s gun and got off two shots inside the hospital before the officer and hospital security managed to subdue him. One bystander wounded.
Perhaps not up to air marshal standards but probably not a career-enhancing incident for the officer.
kestrel@#1:
I’m not even sure some of these people can be trusted with scissors, let alone a firearm
To stop a bad person with scissors, you need a good person with a Stryker saw.
a man was cleaning his guns and shot himself in the foot 3 times in a row, once each with 3 different guns
I knicked myself with a knife I was sharpening, once or twice. But that guy belongs in the “slow learner” program. Maybe they should give him a stapler and see if he can graduate up to a nail gun in a few years.
I admit it’s been a long time since I handled a gun of any kind, but I seem to recall that the very first step in cleaning a gun is ensuring that it is not loaded. And not just for safety… How the hell do you clean a gun while it’s in a fire-able condition, and with a round in the chamber?
Every time I read of somebody shooting themselves or somebody else whilst “cleaning” a gun, my mind automatically replaces “cleaning” with “playing with”…
kestrel @#1
I doubt your theory. People accidentally injuring themselves is normal, it happens all the time with pretty much everybody. For example, I have managed to injure myself with a chisel, a hot cooking pot on my oven, and a whole lot of other items. A cut caused by a sharp chisel isn’t going to make news headlines, because it’s not serious or life-threatening. Accidents that happen while people handle guns instead of cooking pots or chisels, on the other hand, are serious, they routinely cause death, and make news headlines. I doubt that people who handle guns are statistically more careless, lazy, or incompetent compared to, for example, cooks or carpenters. It’s just that whenever they experience some accident, it tends to be several magnitudes worse and thus gets deemed newsworthy.
Ieva Skrebele@#5:
Mistakes with explosives tend to be notable, too.
“The way to stop bad guys with explosives is good guys with explosives” in 3… 2… 1…
I’m agree with Dunc on “whilst cleaning a gun” injuries, I’ve never owned a gun, but I know enough about them to know you can’t clean one with a round in the chamber.
I’m more bemused by the marshalls that are leaving their guns places, especially the toilet of the airplane they are protecting. Where the hell are they keeping their guns that they need to take them off to go to the loo?
Seemingly mundane. This is about mishandling guns aboard an aircraft, yes? Given the security theatre in place at every airport everywhere, there can be no”mundane” issues of this nature. Were the guilty parties hauled of to secret “terrorist” jails, by any chance? A negligent discharge aboard an airplane should net you a charge of treason at the very least.
That could have turned into an awful and very convoluted way of becoming a victim of terrorism. That person probably wouldn’t have made it into the statistics. Especially not since the shooter was a “good guy”. Never track collateral damage, it’s too embarassing.
I believe you meant a SAW machinegun. Give it some time and you’ll need an entire squad – oh, right, SWAT – with air support and satellite surveillance. That’s where public security is headed, it seems. (On occasions like these I really like how the English language has nice, distinct words for security and safety…)
Marcus @#6
Well, here’s your justification for wars. After all, bad guys with explosives vs. good guys with explosives trying to drop those on each other is pretty much how wars happen. Of course, deciding which side are the “bad guys” and which side are the “good guys” is subjective and a matter of opinion. (Same as with American cops and other armed individuals—people seem to be unable to reach a consensus about whether they are “good guys with guns” or “bad guys with guns.”
I also like this post by Erin Wathen on patheos:
The Dangerous Myth of Good Guys With Guns
…
“I’m not even sure some of these people can be trusted with scissors, let alone a firearm. How do they even select these guys? Do they deliberately advertise for lazy, incompetent coneheads?”
Yes. If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the bullies in high school, they’re now cops.
… and politicians.
And the occasional CEO.
Clearly the solution is to trust untrained civilians with concealed-carry permits. I have recently been informed that they never miss their targets or shoot innocent people, no matter the conditions. They are perfect shots with perfect judgement who carry magical bullets that evaporate into the aether should they miss their targets. Which they never do, of course, because civilians always and without-fail observe the Fourth Rule of Firearms.
For those who are not familiar with the Fourth Rule of Firearms (here capitalized for appropriate reverence), it states “Only shoot the bad guys, and never miss like those loser police and soldiers with all their ‘training’ usually do.” Following this rule means that no one ever has to die in a mass shooting again. Well, except for all the people you shoot, but they’re obviously the bad guys so it doesn’t count.
I really wish I could believe the person I encountered making this argument (or the people making similar arguments in the same thread) was just trolling, but if they were they were extremely dedicated and convincing. And, unfortunately, probably heavily armed.
Darryl Jouett’s hand is fine. His abdomen? Not so much.
The Fourth Rule of Firearms sounds like the cameraman’s excuse, you know, the one that films the charging elephant, not realising that the impartiality of the camera does nothing to protect him from being trampled.
Im just a bit confused here. After reading all of this, what makes anyone think these are ‘good guys’? I am hard pressed to find the ‘good’ part of this. I do not think that word means what you think it does. Or something like that.
siwuloki @#14
I perceive this video as very disturbing. It’s horror movie material. You enter an elevator. There’s another guy in it, you two are alone. He pulls out a gun. He’s not aiming it at you just yet. The suspense is in the air. Will you get out of the elevator alive?
Is it just me or are Americans so accustomed to seeing guns everywhere that they don’t even get scared by sharing an elevator with a guy who pulls out a gun? I know I would. I’m not American, though. I have never seen a human holding a gun outside of shooting ranges and movies. I’d also be uncomfortable having a friend, boyfriend, family member who has a habit of playing with his gun in my presence. I wonder why this guy’s wife isn’t afraid; after all, that bullet could have hit her instead of her husband.
@StonedRanger: The mindset is the same one which engages in racist behavior then when called out declares they can’t be racist because they are a good person.
Like the EMT conversing with the cashier down at my local convenience store who was absolutely incensed that the county could overrule his state CCP and bar him from carrying on the job, because how else was he supposed to protect himself from all those drug addicts trying to rob the ambulance of its medication? He was super jealous that the convenience store owner provided the employees with a loaded hand gun with which to shoot at robbers. Didn’t bother to ask if the cashier had ever been robbed (she had, multiple times) and whether she’d made the decision that a couple hundred bucks was worth a human life (she hadn’t), he just really, really wanted permission from his employer to shoot people.
Yup. Someone trained in life saving emergency medical procedures who, despite all the horrors they’ve seen is absolutely *dying* to personally kill someone, that’s totally who I want coming to save my life or the lives of my loved ones, that’s just who I want coming to help someone in a mental health crisis. But he’s a good person, see, so can totally tell other good people from bad people.
Police: Man shot, killed at Riverchase Galleria likely did not fire rounds, gunman remains at large
“Good guy with a gun” present in mall where shooting took place. Police arrive, see he has a gun (and is black) and shoot him dead, fully believing that he was the original shooter.
Reginald Selkirk@#19:
“Good guy with a gun” present in mall where shooting took place. Police arrive, see he has a gun (and is black) and shoot him dead, fully believing that he was the original shooter.
Thoughts and prayers.