My dad bought a reloading press and reloaded 30.06, .44, and .38 and saved boatloads of money. This was a while ago, so maaaaybe it’s not quite as economically attractive as it used to be, but it probably is.

Police with less trigger discipline than a civilian who’s only handled guns a handful of times in his life. Sadly, this fails to surprise me.

OTOH SWAT often carry single action guns (1911s, MP5s, AR15s) which have short, light triggers. You just cannot get away with mistakes esp with guns like those.

BTW why the hell does a cop need a submachine gun??

Thank God that Officer McCormack had nothing to do with the shooting!

And why does the article devote more ink to his father being shot than, you know, the actual news.

Yes it is dangerous to have the cops bust in guns drawn. It is also dangerous to deal heroin out of your home (let alone the cops busting in, other drug dealers might come and steal from you).

So you’re saying it’s justified? Or, “no harm, no foul”, since other dealers would be worse than cops?

Even if I accept the math that you’re more likely to be killed by a non-officer than an officer (I refuse to use the term “civilian” for non-officers), the glaring difference is that if I’m shot by a non-officer, they’re going to jail. If I’m shot by a police officer, they’re getting a week’s paid vacation, a commendation and a raise.

…actually, from the media’s POV, these ARE isolated incidents, because the media consistantly lives inside such a bubble that they cannot see wider patterns.

Bubble? I believe the proper excuse is that they have cop balls blocking their view.

So if a policeman wants to become familiar with his weapon, he must do so at his own expense.

Yep, that deck chair is ever so slightly askew on the Titanic.

Good points.

Make it home safe, bud.

I can certainly come up with a number of scenarios in which that’s possible, but it seems like it needs explanation.

Fingers should only ever be on triggers when they are pulling that trigger in an effort to shoot and destroy the thing that is in front of the gun.

Heck, there was an episode of “Build it Bigger” where the scrawny little host was talking about M1 tanks. Part of the show was him participating in a training CQB exercise. And he was repeatedly harangued for having his finger on the trigger while moving and standing, while participating in this exercise with no ammo and training weapons.

Maybe these SWAT cops want to play soldier. But the soldiers think they give them a bad name, and they certainly don’t follow soldier procedure.

Yes it is dangerous to have the cops bust in guns drawn. It is also dangerous to deal heroin out of your home (let alone the cops busting in, other drug dealers might come and steal from you).

Bob is right. You are far more likely to be killed by a civilian than a cop. We need to stop police tyranny and question their procedures–they work for us and should have to answer to us. But we also need to recognize that drug dealers in neighborhoods are tyrants too. Perhaps the answer is legalization or decriminalization. But recognize that until that happens, the cops doing nothing will not make people in those neighborhoods safer. Hell, the cops abandoning neighborhoods is what resulted in the South Bronx, Bed Sty, and Harlem becoming hell holes in the 70s.