Here are a few stories sent to me by Les.
Northern California sheriff’s officials and family members say deputies shot and killed a 13-year-old boy who was carrying a replica assault weapon.
Two Sonoma County deputies saw the boy walking with the replica weapon around 3 p.m. Tuesday in Santa Rosa. Lt. Dennis O’Leary says they repeatedly ordered him to drop what appeared to be a rifle before firing several rounds.
The gun is a Replica AK. Its realistically colored, sized, and has no orange tip on the muzzle. The kid was ordered at REAL gunpoint to put down his toy and he refused, and got shot. Everybody loses in this one.
Frankly I’m most upset at the family for not telling the dangers of these toys in public. I have no issue with realistic toys…but there are risks to everything, and those risks were NOT mitigated.
Now more negligent safety on behalf of officers.
A child pulled the trigger of a police rifle at a Southern California elementary school Wednesday, firing a bullet that shattered and created shrapnel that injured three youngsters, authorities said.
The AR-15 was locked to the side of a motorcycle that was on display at Newman Elementary School during an anti-drug program when a student managed to fire it, Chino police spokeswoman Tamrin Olden said.
“The bullet disintegrated when discharged by striking a metal plate where the barrel rests against the weapons mount,” and metal debris apparently struck some children and caused minor injuries, she said in a statement.
“It is likely that metal debris struck two children resulting in extremely minor injuries,” Olden said, adding that the children were treated at a hospital and released.
Now I have no idea what kind of mount was used, but something was VERY wrong if access to the safety selector and trigger were allowed by children on a loaded rifle. (Of course even if it was unloaded that’s a rule #1 violation)
I did a quick search of “Motorcycle AR-15 Mount” and found this page. Now some of those mounts completely enclose the receiver and fire-control group, and such a mount is perfectly safe. The one towards the top of the page looks a lot like what may have been the mount used. A Clam shell like mount that encloses the receiver and fire-control group, but also conceals much of the rifle. I can see police wanting to show-off by opening the mount, leaving the fire control group wide open for curious fingers.
Of course in the end the only safety worth a damn in the one between your ears, and these rifles needed to be in direct control of the officers…doubly since they were loaded.
Saw another report on the AR-15 school not-quite-a-shooting that said one of the boys underwent surgery to remove a metal fragment from his eye. Their definition of “minor injuries” must be different from mine.
This story appears to show the actual rifle mount in greater detail than most. It does NOT show the left side of the rifle, but the trigger is clearly accessible, and the style of mount doesn’t give me warm fuzzies about the fire control switch being covered. Also, serious KUDOS to the reporter for explaining that there are four steps to having that rifle go bang: bullets loaded (via magazine), gun charged to chamber a round, turn safety off, pull trigger.
“Magazine cartridge”
Reporters will yet be the death of my sanity.
There is a part of me that wonders what the delay was between them yelling for him to drop the rifle and opening, the article seemed a bit murkey on that.
http://ktla.com/2013/10/23/3-students-hurt-when-cops-gun-discharges-at-school-safety-demo/#axzz2ifFk5i2N
The pictures shown at this link within the first article show that the airsoft gun was a very convincing replica of an actual AK so I don’t blame the officers for treating it as such.
I would also like to know how the boy was carrying the rifle and if he pointed it at anybody, but this is a tragedy to be sure.
Also I do wonder that if this had happened in a more gun friendly state if things would have ended differently.