ND blamed on Surefire X200, training issue?

[usmcvet]

I was horrified to see a write up in a magazine of an officer stop and make a save from a burning house. He used his weapon mounted light to search the house. He was on his way to or from work and off duty so may have only had his weapon mounted light. Shit happens but doing a write up and having cartoon images depicting his heroism with his weapon mounted flash light turned my stomach. He did a great thing but the images are not helpful.

[John_Wayne777]

His booger hook was on the bang button when it shouldn't have been.

Actually that may not have been the case. A lot of people are taught or at least are allowed to get away with a finger-off-the-trigger position that too easily turns into a finger on the trigger position when stressed, startled, when they fall, etc. I see lots of folks who put their finger on or along the trigger guard of the pistol rather than bringing their finger up as high on the pistol as possible. The higher you can make your finger go, the less likely you are to end up with it in the trigger guard. It's best if you can hook the last joint of your finger in the ejection port of the pistol.

Exactly where on the gun your trigger finger ends up is a discussion that seems silly to those who don't know any better. They figure off is off...and they generally only learn the wisdom of it the hard way.

The officer here may have had his finger on the trigger, but it's also possible that he had his finger off the trigger but had habituated his off-trigger position to a location that was not much help in preventing an accidental discharge under real life stress.

[Don Robison]

Actually that may not have been the case. A lot of people are taught or at least are allowed to get away with a finger-off-the-trigger position that too easily turns into a finger on the trigger position when stressed, startled, when they fall, etc. I see lots of folks who put their finger on or along the trigger guard of the pistol rather than bringing their finger up as high on the pistol as possible. The higher you can make your finger go, the less likely you are to end up with it in the trigger guard. It's best if you can hook the last joint of your finger in the ejection port of the pistol.

Exactly where on the gun your trigger finger ends up is a discussion that seems silly to those who don't know any better. They figure off is off...and they generally only learn the wisdom of it the hard way.

The officer here may have had his finger on the trigger, but it's also possible that he had his finger off the trigger but had habituated his off-trigger position to a location that was not much help in preventing an accidental discharge under real life stress.

Good post JW; the finger index you describe is what we teach as well. A lot of people shooting Glocks want to use the take down lever as an index point, while falling, when a person thinks they are going to drop their gun, when they are startled, they instinctively get a "convulsive" grip on the gun which leads to the finger ending up on the trigger when they didn't intend it.

[FFK]

JW, is right I have seen it happen in force on force training with our department. Officers with shorter fingers that rest it straight on the trigger guard especially. You have someone startle them as they go through a door, etc, and they can apply enough force to cause their finger to "pop" off the side of the guard and press the trigger. Or sympathetically they can do the same. We teach finger on the ejection port. Then the worst that will happen is they pull the slide partially out of battery.

Of course, at the same time, some people just wont listen and he may have been one of them and had his finger on the trigger.

[StrikerFired]

Lots of good ideas here and there seems to be one thing that is being stressed a lot. No matter if you use a WML or whatever Train, Train, TRAIN with it. After having taken a couple of low light / no light classes I can say that I'll be in these classes at least once a year if not more if I can afford it.

[Cruncher Block]

Sad. I just took a brief nighttime course in which the instructor discussed the potential for this exact scenario. He said his department stopped using the SureFire DG switches out of concern for it.

Reading and thinking about it, I kept coming back to wondering how the finger found its way to the trigger. What John_Wayne and donr describe makes sense. I'm thankful to have had instructors make it clear I need to at least feel the metal of Glock slide under my finger (if not the ejection port).

It continues to make more and more sense to me to have more than one light available. There's no rule that says I can't use a handheld to light up an area and transition to a weapon-mounted light if I see something that needs a gun pointed at it. If the handheld is on a lanyard, let it hang. Of course, it doesn't sound like this was a case of pointing a gun in order to use the light.

[Vlobb]

This is an accident that should have NEVER happened. It seems irrational to blame the placement of the switch. He should have clearly changed the way he operated/handle the weapon after switching from the X200 to the X300. It the officers fault for lack of training not the placement of the switch.

It does put into perspective something that happened in my hometown PD a few years ago. A rookie PO shot himself in the hand while looking over another PO's pistol with a weapon mounted light/laser. He was waiving his hand infront of the muzzle while trying to activate the weapon light/laser and boom... he shot himself. He got in no trouble whatsoever and that is unacceptable. If I ND'ed in my own home I would be thrown in jail and my guns would be taken away forever.

[Appalachian]

Training for sure. I like the reinforcement of the point that not all LE are "gun guys". While I have no experience with demonstations of this by LE, I can assure you that not all .mil are "gun guys" either. Even in the combat arms community I have seen some stupid shit. Mostly involved officers and pistolas. If ya aren't trained and sure of what you are doing...leave it alone.

[usmcvet]

Training for sure. I like the reinforcement of the point that not all LE are "gun guys". While I have no experience with demonstations of this by LE, I can assure you that not all .mil are "gun guys" either. Even in the combat arms community I have seen some stupid shit. Mostly involved officers and pistolas. If ya aren't trained and sure of what you are doing...leave it alone.

As a Pfc. I tried to tell my company commander, a Captain, not to shoot the M60 from the left handed position. Of course be chose not to listen to the eighteen year old non rate and he got a face full of hot freaking brass. It was Priceless! He was a tanker on active duty and my CO in the Gulf.

[wesprt]

This is another case that reinforces why, for me personally, I will never use a weapon mounted light on my handguns. It just breaks too many of my personal safety rules. For military and LEO it is a different situation altogether and I have no problem with that. For me having a light at the end of my pistol instead of being used independently by my other hand is a terrible disadvantage, as well as a liability. But that's just for me, I'm not recommending it for anyone else.

It shouldn't break any safety rules that I can think of if it is being used properly.

For me using an independent flashlight has many more disadvantages which mostly become apparent during shooting. No one has yet invented a method of using a flashlight and handgun which allows for as secure a firing grip as your normal grip would be. Malfunction clearances suck when you've got a light in your other hand. Reloading sucks with a light in your other hand. Performing any task with your other hand while it is holding a light sucks. A light acts like a muzzle weight and allows for faster, more accurate shooting while leaving your NFH available for other tasks. But like you said, YMMV