Life Lessons

Hey ICE, Here Are Some Gun Safety Tips from a Cop’s Daughter

In case you forgot your training

Image source: adobestock.com / Author’s subscription

I cringe anytime I see ICE on TV handling their weapons. I want to shout at many of them that they do not know what they are doing.

My father was a Chicago police officer. That meant he had firearms in our home with his six children. As the oldest, he taught me how to handle a gun safely. There were rules — rules for the gun in our home and for the gun in your hand.

My father kept his guns in an old-fashioned, locked gun safe in my parents’ bedroom closet on a shelf so close to the ceiling that I couldn’t reach the safe even standing on the dining room chair. I did not know the combination for the spin dial lock, even if I could reach the safe.

The 10 rules were simple.

1. Don’t touch the gun safe.

2. If the gun safe is open, do not touch the gun. If Dad was not home, immediately tell another adult, with Ma being first on the list.

3. If the gun was not in the gun safe, do not touch the gun.

4. Always, always assume the gun was loaded, even if the gun had been cleared.

5. You MUST check every gun yourself. You cannot safely handle a gun without personally checking the state of that gun.

6. If you have the gun in your hands, do not point the gun at anything you are not intending to shoot. Pointing the gun. means you intended to fire it at whatever it was pointing at.

7. If you are holding a gun, do not put your finger on the trigger. Instead, put your finger outside the trigger guard. The trigger is inside the trigger guard. Only move your finger inside the trigger guard when you intend to fire the gun.

8. Use two hands to hold and aim the gun. You are not John Wick; always use both hands to hold and aim a gun.

9. Do not point and do not shoot unless you are absolutely certain of the target.

10. Don’t tell anyone we have guns in the house, even if they knew Dad was a police officer.

11. Expect endless ass-whippings if you broke any of these rules.

ICE continually violates these rules.

Everyone can see many agents with their guns drawn, pointing at protestors.

They one-hand the guns.

They raise their guns above their heads, at eye level, pointing in the direction they are walking. People are afraid of guns that are pointing in their direction. The ICE officers know they are scaring us when they point their guns toward protestors.

The safest direction to point a gun is at the ground. In an urban area with concrete streets and sidewalks, bullets can ricochet off the ground and still hit someone. Guns being fired in urban environments remain hazardous.

It is obvious that many ICE agents watch a lot of fictional movies. They unholster their guns in front of peaceful protestors, one-hand their guns, point them everywhere, and style and profile with their weapons.

Firearms are accidently dischargered all the time. If you go to an indoor shooting range, and look up, there will be bullet holes all over the ceiling.

Guns are dangerous anytime they have not been unloaded and locked in a safe.

Whoever trained them needs to be fired. It actually makes me angry that they have allowed these agents onto the streets of the United States to collect immigrants without proper training. It is a travesty.

More from Toni

[embed]Women Are Expensive, Pick One You Can Afford If you’re broke, then date brokemedium.com

[embed]Toni Crowe — Medium Read writing from Toni Crowe on Medium. Sharing the hard lessons I’ve learned in life. Adding truth in a time of lies…tonicrowewriter.medium.com

Click the image below to buy Toni’s books.

Image by Toni Crowe ©All Rights Reserved

Image by Toni Crowe ©All Rights Reserved