http://www.officer.com/web/online/POSA/Muzzle-Up-or-Depressed-Pt-3/30$47145

Muzzle Up or Depressed? Pt 3
Concluding The Discussion


Posted: Monday, July 13, 2009
Updated: July 10th, 2009 07:35 AM EDT


RALPH MROZ
Courtesy of the Police Officers Safety Association



Editor's Note: To fully appreciate and understand where author Ralph Mroz is in this series, be sure to have read both of the previous two parts, linked in below for your convenience.

---

Interlimb interaction
If you are OK with pointing guns at suspects that we aren't shooting, or if we aren't in one of the other situations described below where muzzling someone may be appropriate, then are you OK with an officer pointing his or her gun at a suspect while doing something else with the off hand, such as grabbing the suspect? I trust that everyone will say no, because of the well-known phenomenon of interlimb interaction. Well, 1) you've just admitted that "keeping your finger off the trigger" is not enough to be safe in principle, and 2) because falling or getting bumped will often involve an interlimb interaction as the officer uses his or her off hand to regain balance, you've just admitted the possibility of an unintentional discharge in those circumstances.

Further, it certainly seems like a short leap from intuitively understanding interlimb interaction to intuitively understanding involuntary hand convulsion under the effects of being startled, bumped or falling.

Single-action safeties
If all you had to do was keep your finger off the trigger and there would be no problem, then there would be no need for the safeties on single-action guns (such as 1911-pattern pistols and AR-15-type rifles) to remain engaged until we actually wanted the gun to fire. Yet keeping the safety engaged until that moment is exactly what is taught. Even Paul Howe, a man who has seen more action involving military rules of engagement than any law enforcement officer in this country has seen action on the job, recognizes that simply "keeping your finger off the trigger" is insufficient even with the looser military ROE. (See article linked in below.)

Is this really a problem?
I refer you to refer to a study of the shooting incidents in FYs 2000-2003 by the DEA, FBI, ATF and USMS. Thirteen percent of the shots fired during enforcement operations (not including training, animal control and so on) were unintentional. That's an astounding number. Another example: The New York Police Department's SOP-9 indicates 27, 71, 63, 42, 55, 37, 27 and 24 unintentional discharges for 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2005 respectively. You can see the tragic potential if those muzzles were pointed at people who didn't need to be shot at that instant, particularly if you extrapolate from these agencies' populations to all United States police officers.

Finally, let me refer you to the tragic SWAT shooting of an unarmed, non-resisting man in Fairfax, Va., because that agency's SOP was that guns are always pointed at suspects. Just run a Google search "Fairfax SWAT shooting" and you'll return lots of stories about this poster-boy case for muzzle depression when a threat isn't imminent. This is a 1,500-officer department, with a well-trained cadre on its team. If it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

There are exceptions
I'm not saying that pointing muzzles at people (or into areas) that you aren't in the act of shooting is always wrong.

We are always justified in pointing our guns at people who present an imminent threat, because an imminent threat justifies our shooting them. Further, the impulse to muzzle someone from whom we feel an imminent threat or a high-potential for imminent threat is probably hard-wired. It probably can't be trained out of us, but we can train to transition to a muzzle depressed position when the immediacy of the threat diminishes.
During times of no imminent threat that nonetheless warrant an unholstered gun, a muzzle depressed position is usually appropriate.
In a dynamically evolving situation, flowing from muzzle on a suspect or threat area to the muzzle-depressed position is probably usually the right thing to do in response to our changing threat perception.
There are times when your decision to shoot is not the result of reacting to a suspect's movement, such as when entering a high-threat area with a shooter lying in wait for you, that the time difference between muzzle up and muzzle down can make the difference in who gets the first shot off.

Examples

There is no one in our sight that is an imminent threat to us; therefore we are not justified in shooting, and our muzzles should be depressed. Examples: searching a school hallway for an active shooter with no shooter in sight (we don't want muzzles pointed at the innocent students), entering on a drug raid with no threat in sight (there are often innocents and children in these places), challenging a suspect who we believe is not armed and we can see his hands, challenging a suspect who isn't armed and there's a gun on a table six feet away.
There is someone in our sight that is an imminent threat to us; therefore we are justified in shooting, and our muzzles can be on the suspect. We are only muzzling them because we have decided not to shoot them at this instant, even though we are justified in doing so. (There are good reasons for not shooting someone every time we're justified.) Examples: a person with a gun in his waistband and his hand near it, or someone threatening us with a knife at a short distance. Our reasons not to shoot in these instances are based on the totality of the circumstances, our feelings about the suspect's intent and a host of other real-world factors. Hopefully our decision not to shoot is also influenced because we are challenging the suspect from behind cover or are otherwise mitigating the risk.
The in-between place. What about those times where there is no imminent threat, thus arguing for muzzle depression, but we believe it entirely possible that one could appear in an instant? These are the hard calls, and I believe we have to resort to common sense and the totality of the circumstances in making a decision. For example, raiding the headquarters of your regional MS-13 chapter probably warrants a muzzle forward entry more than serving an arrest warrant on a check kiter. That's why many of the very high-end teams, such as the FBI's HRT (last I knew), train in the muzzle-forward approach - the kind of calls they are likely to get may warrant it. On the other hand, one high-profile anti-terrorist national-asset organization that I'm aware of embraces the muzzle-depressed doctrine until you are justified in shooting. These are tough calls, to be sure.

Conclusion
What the military calls collateral damage is known in the civilian world as negligence or murder, and there are consequences. There are some times where an innocent life is taken by a law enforcement officer and there is no fault - it's just a tragic alignment of the stars. But as professionals, we need to do all we can, within the boundaries of prudent and responsible risk management for all parties involved, to avoid an accidental shooting. If our guns are out, I believe that the general rule should be that we keep our muzzles depressed unless:

There is an imminent threat (we are justified in shooting)
We are startled or come upon by a potentially deadly threat (we probably can't help doing this)
The likelihood of a truly deadly threat instantly appearing at any moment is high and there are no innocents endangered by our muzzles up.

P.S. In this article, I have referred to a muzzle depressed position as the safe position for an unholstered gun to be in when there is no imminent threat. The high muzzle position (or high ready position) is favored by some very highly experienced people, but for the purposes of this article it is probably not as safe, particularly if the officer falls. The undoubtedly hot debate over which position - depressed or high ready - is tactically better in what circumstances and why, we leave to another day.







Web Links:

Muzzle Up or Depressed? Pt 1
Muzzle Up or Depressed? Pt 2
Paul Howe on keeping your finger off the trigger
Police Officers Safety Association