It was a quiet night. The two MPs guarding the gate to Echterdingen Army Airfield in Stuttgart were just sitting around being bored and shooting the bull. One of them began to fool around with his pistol. We were still carrying the reliable old M-1911A1, .45 cal pistols in those days. He slyly pulled the magazine out, hiding the action so his partner wouldn't see, then jammed the muzzle deep into his partners neck. His partner was understandably upset, he yelled and swore and the fella with the pistol laughed and told him that he had unloaded it and to prove his point, he pulled the trigger. Instead of the expected "click" of the hammer striking the firing pin, he got the roar and recoil of the pistol firing. He had forgotten to pull the round out of the chamber. Unbelievable as it seems, his partner didn't die. The bullet passed through his throat and out the back of his neck without severing anything that would have been immediately fatal. Oh, he spent a long time in the hospital, and I don't think he was ever whole again. But he lived through it. What got the most attention was the shock and mental breakdown of the shooter. He spent more time in the hospital than the partner did. Then he went to jail.
An MP assigned to guard the driveway to the DCINC's quarters in Stuttgart was sitting in his booth...bored. It was dark, quiet, not a soul in sight. The door to the booth was all glass and at night acted kinda like a mirror. The MP started practicing his quick draw. He was getting pretty fast when the .45 fired. The bullet shattered the door, and sailed out over Stuttgart. The other guards at the compound came a-runnin'...
A female MP assigned to guard the entrance to the Command Building at EUCOM Headquarters was turning in her weapons at the end of her shift. In the process of clearing her shotgun, she pulled the trigger and blew a huge chunk out of the ceiling of the arms room. She had gotten the clearing sequence out of order, pulling the trigger BEFORE she cleared the chamber.
You ask,"How the heck could this happen?" The Army has arguably the strictest standards of weapons safety in the world. In basic training you learn all about your weapon before you ever actually get to touch one. All during the training phases you learn about safely carrying the weapon, safely loading the weapon, safely firing the weapon, safely clearing the weapon, safely cleaning the weapon, even safely counting the weapon. After basic, the litany continues; every encounter with your weapon is preambled with a safety lecture, and there is constant monitoring whenever weapons are out of the Arms Room. It is drilled into us from day one on. Today, more than sixteen years after I retired, if someone hands me a weapon the first thing I do is clear it (to ensure it is not loaded, which includes a check of the chamber). So how do you get a young Spec4 (think "corporal") who forgets to clear the chamber before playing a trick on his partner? Or one who forgets to ensure the safety is engaged while handling a loaded weapon (never mind the quick-draw lunacy)? Or one who gets the clearing sequence wrong, something you do several times a day?
What makes it worse is the fact that all three of these incidents happened within a week of each other; two of the MPs belonged to an elite group that were selected to guard the highest US Headquarters in Europe and its leaders. Talk about embarassing!
So how would you go about fixing this? Do you take away their weapons and issue them pickax handles instead (don't laugh, I have been in units where that solution was applied)? Should we make them wait three days...a cooling off period...before we let them draw their weapons to stand their post? Or maybe we should "Barney Fife" them, issue one bullet and make them carry it in their pocket? This may sound like silliness, but it is exactly the kind of thinking the current crop of gun control advocates' minds are soaked in. We don't need more control on guns. We need smarter and more responsible people handling guns. We need better enforcement of existing gun laws...Lord knows there is no shortage of them. The guns are out there and only a liberal fool would believe it possible to put that cat back in the bag. Not possible. Not constitutional. Not necessary. New gun laws only serve to put more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners...the bad guys have guns and don't care about the law and they aren't about to give up THEIR guns.
When the Bill of Rights was written, the term "Regulated" referred to a militia being proficient with the handling and use of firearms. We need better regulation...not in the restriction of ownership and use, but in the safe and effective understanding, care, and use of firearms.