Recently, I read some comments on KABA.com about reports concerning people who were legally carrying a concealed firearm being stopped by the police and disarmed during the encounter.

Other than to say I oppose the practice of disarming a citizen during a traffic stop I’m not discussing that aspect of this issue.

What I am going to discuss are the inherent dangers of the practice.

First, I called my local police department to ask what their position is concerning encounters involving legally armed people. Remember that when stopped, if you have a concealed carry permit and you are armed, you must inform the police officer of same.

I was told that it is their policy, a procedure taught in the academy, is to require the permit holder to surrender the firearm; the officer will unload the firearm and the permit holder is allowed to place the firearm in the trunk of his vehicle.

After the encounter, the permit holder may then drive to another location “down the street to a parking lot” and retrieve the firearm from the trunk.

I find a couple of serious problems with this procedure.

My first concern is excessive handling of a firearm is inherently dangerous. The concept of carrying a loaded, concealed firearm is this: once placed in a holster it really shouldn’t be removed unless you are planning to use the gun or are disarming at the end of the day. I don’t even like the idea that the firearm may have to be removed periodically during the day but there are instances when it must be done.

Next, many people are a bit nervous when stopped by the police. After all, the cops stopped you because you committed a traffic violation (otherwise you wouldn’t have been stopped, correct?) and you are probably going to receive a traffic citation, which is going to result in a fine and increased insurance rate.

So, now a police officer is going to request a possibly nervous person to hand over his loaded firearm. This is an accident just waiting to happen.

Further, I don't like the idea of handing someone a loaded firearm. This goes against firearm safety rules. Now when I go to the gun show at Cashman there are cops inside the door who check guns being brought into the building. When I check mine I carefully raise my shirttail, carefully remove the already unloaded firearm from the holster, carefully lock the slide back and then hand it the officers. They've never commented on this procedure.

Another scenario is that the officer will remove the firearm from the holster himself. This is even worse. The officer is at an awkward angle in relation to the firearm, he is removing an unfamiliar firearm from an unfamiliar holster.

Further, from an officer safety standpoint, the officer is in extremely close and dangerous proximity to the person he is disarming. I don’t have any idea how often this may occur but the concept is frightening.

In my opinion the best policy is to ascertain if the CCW holder is armed; find out where the gun is; tell the CCW holder to leave it there and don’t reach for it then proceed with the ticket.

Consider this: The permit holder is obviously a law-abiding individual. That is apparent due to the fact that he has already undergone a background check was issued the permit to carry a concealed firearm. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that the permit holder will take this opportunity to use the firearm illegally by shooting a cop?

At this point the officer is in possession of another person’s firearm.

I now have more concerns. It has been my experience that far too many police officers simply are not familiar with all the types of firearms available.

As an example this story was told to my academy class: A police officer was arresting a subject and during a search found a High Standard derringer concealed on the subject. The officer removed said firearm and placed the derringer in his waistband. The High Standard derringer does not have a trigger guard, however, it generally has a stiff trigger, meaning that you really have to pull the trigger hard and you really want to fire it before it will discharge.

This was not the case in this instance. As the officer was placing the derringer in his waist band, pushing the trigger against his duty belt, the gun discharged. The officer was wounded and lost a body part as a result.

Contrary to popular belief cops are not firearms experts.

The police officer now has possession of your firearm and he is going to attempt to unload it and then return it to you.

In the case of a 1911 style firearm, this is the process: Ensure that the safety is engaged; extract the magazine by depressing the magazine release button and remove the magazine from the magazine well of the firearm; with the magazine in one had or in a pocket, disengage the safety and retract the slide thereby ejecting a live round from the chamber, lock the slide back in the open position while attempting not to drop the live round. All of this should be done without pointing it at anyone. We are also assuming that the officer leaves the slide in the locked back position. We aren’t even considering that he didn’t release the slide into the in-battery position and lowering the hammer, which in itself is easy to do if you are an experienced firearms handler, but a dangerous thing to do.

This takes ten times longer (or more) to describe than it takes to accomplish. All this is done without a negligent discharge. Whew! No one was injured this time.

Now, according to my local police department the firearm will then be placed in the trunk of the traffic violator’s car (we’re assuming a sedan or coupe).

Business is completed; the grateful, nervous citation recipient is allowed to go on his way. He then pulls into a parking lot of a grocery store, gets out of the car, opens the trunk, reloads his firearm and places it in his holster.

Shoppers now see a man loading a gun in a parking lot and call the cops. Cops respond and surround the car, with firearms drawn and pointed at our poor losing contestant.

Does this sound like a safe thing? In my opinion, based on years of handling firearms, this is an extremely unsafe procedure.

If you think I am mistaken about cop’s firearms handling experience consider the following:

When I attended the police academy I was required to ride along with an experienced officer during my training. It didn’t matter that I had been on patrol for several months prior to attending the academy I still had to experience a ride along as part of the academy curriculum.

Prior to the ride-a-long, the officer ran me for warrants. The printout showed that I owned several firearms. One of the firearms I owned was a Smith & Wesson model 66.

During the ride-a-long the officer asked if I owned all those guns (I only owned thirty-five guns at the time). I stated that I did. The officer then stopped the car (we were in a residential area) and stated that he carried an S&W M-66. He then withdrew the revolver from his holster to show it to me.

Holding the revolver across his lap, he cocked the gun. Then, instead of placing his thumb on the hammer to lower it, he simply pulled the trigger. The impact of the bullet into the door shattered the driver side window.

Oops.

The officer’s left hand was on the steering wheel so the bullet traveled just under his elbow into the door.

Needles to say, the blast startled both of us. Later the officer stated to me that he thought that he had placed his thumb on the hammer prior to squeezing the trigger. I told him that I was watching as he squeezed the trigger and that his thumb was not on the hammer.

This was a case of unnecessarily handling a firearm which resulted in a negligent discharge.

The officer received a day off without pay for having damaged the vehicle. I had to write a report for my academy CO. Everyone had heard about the incident. My classmates razzed me as if I had been the one who negligently discharged a firearm.

The point again is that cops aren’t firearms experts and accidents happen, even with cops.

Accidental and negligent discharges occur often enough that there is a product available that is designed to stop a bullet when a gun is being handled during the unloading process and an unintended discharge occurs.

When I remove my firearm from the holster at the end of the day I place it in another holster for overnight storage. I only unload the gun once a week during the weekend for cleaning and inspection (this does not include range practice). I do not go through the process of unloading every evening and reloading in the morning in order to avoid unnecessary or excessive handling of a loaded firearm.