March 13, 2005

• That's the funniest thing I've seen all day. I wonder if it was staged - if so, well done. Heh.
• I'm afraid I didn't find it funny - I was just worried, first that someone was hurt, second that the kids would not even listen to him about gun safety after he showed himself to be incompetent. Why was it loaded? I wouldn't have even brought bullets!
• He struck me as kind of a blowhard and I was mildly amused, but I gotta give him chops for playing it out to the end.
• Doesn't he say though that he has the safety on, or that it isn't loaded? It's pure incompetence. Sure, if one of the kids was hurt it wouldn't be funny but I'd hope that the kids took a valuable lesson away: don't take anything for granted when it comes to firearms. I mean really, a trained professional who is obviously overconfident with his weapon is a good lesson to the observer.
• tracicle, The Glock doesn't have a typical safety, per se, but rather it has an integrated safety built into the trigger mechanism. Not to excuse the agent's handling methods. He violated 2 of the 3 fundamentals of proper firearm safety protocol: Keeping your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot, and keeping the firearm unloaded until you are ready to shoot. Obviously, he did not. :) In addition, properly preparing the gun for presentation would have entailed removing the magazine, and racking the slide to clear any round which may have already been chambered. Then again, he was dealing with a Glock. Known in certain circles, for accidental discharge... even in the hands of trained professionals. :)
  
• I call fake. No one in the audience screamed or jumped out of their seat?? Also, I think his biggest misjudgement was not firing the gun, but trying to be hip with the kids by referring to Too $hort.
• Precisely why they should have external safeties. Not that you should rely on a safety to protect you, but there should be one that locks the trigger so it cannot be pulled.
• I think this clip shows the #1 fault so many educators have -- not rolling with the blunder. Like all teachers, I make mistakes on a regular basis; and the biggest help I've ever found to deal with them is to laugh at myself. If I were that guy, I'd say something like "Well, so much for my being the only one professional enough to hold the gun".. And then hand it off to someone else. (This would have the added benefit of indicating that anyone who recognizes that s/he can't be trusted with the gun for the time being should give it up.) Young people, especially, are very willing to sympathize with those adults who can laugh at their own human fragility. Those adults which cannot -- we all know what happens to them.
• You dunga's! it was part of the show. Wait a second, three star restaurant? You guys are hustlers. Shave n' a hair cut two bits....
• Young people, especially, are very willing to sympathize with those adults who can laugh at their own human fragility. Those adults which cannot -- we all know what happens to them. I don't. Tell me.
• HW, I think it's because those teachers may end up internet wide laughingstocks.
• Firearms are always loaded. Even when you think they aren't. *That's* where he went wrong.
• mary: aha.
• Precisely why they should have external safeties. Not that you should rely on a safety to protect you, but there should be one that locks the trigger so it cannot be pulled. That's not really true, the gun is supposed to go off when you pull the trigger - what you're supposed to do is keep your finger AWAY from the trigger and NOT PRESS IT until you actually mean to fire the gun. The purpose of a safety catch is to prevent the gun from going off under other circumstances, for example, if you drop it. Revolvers don't have safety catches, ever thought why?
• There have been four revolvers manufactured that have had safety catches. Admittedly, these are all rather old designs.
• That was fake, but still great. That build-up of dramatic tension, the clumsy handling of the gun, the lack of safe operating procedure and finally: "I am the only one professional...". I guess the kids took the point though.
• That was fake, but still great. then why did he have to leave at the end since he shot himself in the foot?