Gun Safety and Accidental Officer Shootings
Use Training and Policies to Avoid Awkward Conversations.

by Administrator

Gun safety continues to be a hot topic in our communities, with great legal and reputational ramifications for all involved parties. When a Twitter or Facebook post can greatly change the discourse around your agency, it is important to focus on facts, practice firearm safety, and support your force with knowledge, guidance, and care. These preventive measures go a long way to saving money and protecting your force from undue stress and pressure.

In particular, conversation around what constitutes Negligent Discharge (ND) or Accidental Discharge (AD) remains a topic of great debate. One side of the debate is the argument that everything is a ND. On the other side is a group that notes certain cases, outside of the officer’s control, constitute AD:

• Gun fired while cleaning
• Officer places finger on trigger before deciding to shoot, with the finger unintentionally compressing the trigger
• Modifications made to firearm
• Not enough holster retention
• Dropping a firearm
• Pulling the trigger for safety or function testing

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, one item not open to debate is the need for consistent policies on gun safety and use of force, as well as the necessary (and frequent) training to ensure policies and best practices are followed.

For example, ND can be reduced through enforcement of four basic gun safety guidelines:

• Treat all guns as if they’re always loaded.
• Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
• Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
• Identify your target, and what is behind it.

Through the use of an online, easy to use Policy and Training management platform like PM AM HCM platform, your agency can create, assign, ensure sign off (in a legally defensible way), track and report all policy signatures and training attendance.

Sourcing policy and training is also made easy with PM AM HCM. What if you’ve created a training or policy, and you’d like another agency’s input? What if you’ve attended a training on gun safety at another department, and you want to see if they can share the training, so it’s available for your department to use?  With PM AM HCM, sharing is as easy as assigning and your agency can ask for and share content with other, at a click of a button.

There’s no need to zip files, spend precious budget costs on hosting content, or worry about email and size restrictions.

In a world where tragedy is reported instantly and public opinion about your department and officers can change with just a post, it is a must to insulate yourself, your force and your department from litigation and exposure. PM AM HCM has the mechanisms to protect your agency by ensuring your policies and trainings are properly enforced.

The first step is to ensure your policies convey the belief of the agency and trainings reinforce and teach the methodology to best adhere to those policies. From there, platforms like PM AM HCM can greatly increase compliance, decrease risk, and provide confidence across your community.

To learn more about gun safety or PM AM HCM, please contact us at sales@pmamhcm.com.

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