Our Fingers Are Stupid

Walther P22 With Safety Set For Holstering

You may have read the story about the Florida deputy with eight years of experience under his belt, including lots of range time. During a shooting exercise with his weak hand he holstered with his finger in the trigger guard and injured his leg. The newspaper article tells us that his buddies are giving him some ribbing about it, but I hope the trainers have figured out that the training regimen needs to be improved. Ask any violin teacher or student, and you will learn that no matter how well your brain knows how to do something, the fingers will not cooperate unless they practice regularly. I bet the deputy has no problem keeping his strong side trigger finger out of the guard while holstering, and his brain certainly knows it, too; but the weak side hand must practice it before it will perform properly.

Skeeter Skelton said in one of his articles that Bill Jordan told him, "Automatics will get you shot." My take on that statement is that you must know the manual of arms for any gun you are handling, and practice it well before you put the gun to use. Click over to this post on Oleg Volk's Live Journal for an illustration of how easy it is to make a mistake. Holstering a cocked semi-auto with the safety set on Fire is not a good practice, even if it is "just" a photo-shoot with an unloaded gun. The photos in Oleg's post show a violation of Rule Number One, and as the lad was holstering he probably crossed himself, violating Rule Number Two.

Know your gun, practice its operation properly and regularly, and teach your shooting students to do likewise.

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