[Riposte1]

Adam;

Perhaps I wasn't too clear but the *and* was meant to imply that both conditions must be met before moving the finger toward the trigger.

While I am personally not to big on covering subjects with my muzzle unless I have already made the desicion to shoot, a bunch of LEOs seem to do this regularly as a deterrent (since I don't like it I will leave it to the advocates to explain their rationale).

One of situations I described was big city SWAT officer who shot the lead man in the door - the gun was a S&W 4043 DAO. He tripped on the threshold of the door and experienced that reflex.

To this day, no one knows if his finger was on the trigger or beside it, but we advocate placing on the frame, not the guard so that it cannot inadvertently slide into the trigger well and touch the trigger.

Last Spring my life was spared when a soldier in training lost his footing and fell while doing a move and shoot exercise. When he fell, he twisted and I looked right down the muzzle. A quick thinking assistant instructor pushed the muzzle away but he said before he could reach the man he could see the soldier's finger tip flex on the receiver of the M4 (since he had been shooting on the move the safety was off but he remebered to get his finger to the frame when he was not actually on target).

Our CSM was missed by mere inches and got a hole through his vehicle door when a soldier not trained in Rule three was moving near him in Afghanistan.

That said, I can sympathise with the folks who cannot find the trigger (I had a soldier press the trigger instead of the magazine release when told to unload so I guess the reverse could be true). But, in all honesty, I dont feel the answer is to ignore "Rule 3". SWAT cops kill more SWAT cops than any other group :-(

The circumstances I mentioned are just ones I have run across where we know that the muzzle was pointed in the wrong direction. Our states largest PD had 15 reported negligent discharges the first year after adopting Glocks, no telling how many went unreported as disiplanary action of some sort is required.

Good topic, thank you for the discussion.

Riposte