Be safe with that or I'm going to......

From the Cop and Soldier side:
No Negligent Discharges on MY TEAM! If you’ve been reading this site for awhile, you know I’m a cop and a part time soldier…in both jobs I teach people how to shoot and handle weapons better. We just went through some advanced officer training this week. We learned some new & improved tactics for going after bad guys with guns who are in a building. This was some of the best training I’ve ever been to, but what a lot of new shooters don’t understand is we wouldn’t have gotten 10 feet into the building without knowing how to be safe with our weapons. Even though we were only using Simunitions (very expensive paint ball guns) we have to train as we'll fight...in both jobs.

In Bosnia, I had a knucklehead on my team for a short time. After he demonstrated his lack of skills with his pistol, I wouldn’t let him ever load it again when we went out….and as a matter of fact I told him to give me his ammo if we got into a gun fight. Tough crap if he didn’t like it, but his own team mates were more likely to get shot than any bad guy.

In Iraq there was a Sergeant Major from a National Guard unit…I won’t name names…but he said “If anyone in this unit has a negligent discharge, I’m giving them an Article 15” (which is a fine and possible reduction in rank) This Sergeant Major was there to get medals…so for a few convoys, he decided that he was going to man the .50 cal M2 machine gun. There was only one problem…he was not qualified on that weapon and as it turned out, he didn’t understand how it worked.

The first thing you do with any weapon is always keep it pointed in a safe direction…always treat a weapons as if it is loaded…keep your finger off the trigger until or unless you have to fire. There are no exceptions to the rules. If you violate them on my team, I will kick your ass. The Sergeant Major was in the turret of a Humvee one day…they drove out of the camp, and everyone charged their weapons. The Sergeant Major opened the feed tray, laid the belt in the feed pawl, closed the tray. Pulled the charging handle to the rear- twice, then pressed the trigger..Now why he pressed the trigger I have no idea.......and BANG.

He followed rule #1, but failed to keep his finger off the trigger…On the .50 cal, the trigger is at the rear of the weapon…it looks like a butterfly, there is no safety on the standard Army vehicle mounted model. OK, he did it once, then a few days later, he did it again. He was lucky that the weapon was pointed at the Hesco barrier and not another soldier or vehicle...or he would have killed someone. I would have tossed his ass into the Palace Lake the first time, but I guess none of the NCOs on those trips had the spheres to do it….and he never got an Article 15. What a knucklehead.
So, are you going to be SAFE, or a get your ass kicked by your team leader?