I think it was GigAg04 that posted that, but I am not sure so I will post my embarrassing story of something similar also. "How I shot a training officer" or "How I learned to make sure my finger was not on the trigger".The Annoyed Man wrote:Ask gigag04 (I think it was him) if he ever accidentally "shot" a training partner in the back of the head with simunitions during the stress of a training drill when he inadvertently squeezed the trigger without meaning to. (Am I remembering that correctly?)
I was going through the SAPD academy and we were learning to search buildings for burglars. At the time, we carried S&W model 65 revolvers for duty weapons. The academy did a very thorough and careful search for safety reasons before starting the exercise, and I turned out to be one of the reasons why. The revolvers were empty, not even blanks allowed for this exercise. We used an old storage building at the police union complex for practice and other officers for role players. We got the call for burglars in action and had to search the building for the suspects. We were not told for sure if anyone was in the building or how many, and the witness just gave a very vague description of "I saw men trying to break in this door."
The academy taught us to use the revolver in double action mode only, which gave it a pretty stiff trigger pull. We used the "third eye" position for searching, where the revolver was held tight in the center of the stomach with both hands and was kept pointing at whatever you looked at (after all, you won't see a threat from any direction but where you are looking, right?). I started the search and was about halfway through one of the large rooms, walking along the wall on my right side. As I got to the pillar that stuck out, the suspect (Det. Dan Pierdolla) suddenly stepped out at me, threw his hands in the air, and yelled "Don't Shoot, I give up." I don't think he had gotten all the way through the word "shoot" before he, I, and the instructor evaluating my performance heard the loudest click I had ever heard. Yep, the hammer falling on an empty cylinder can be as loud as a magnum round going off when you hear it at the wrong time.
I had not even realized my finger was on the trigger, and I thought I had known better. Of course, back then, SAPD ran an academy very much along the lines of military basic training and I was being yelled at by several academy staff members very quickly. I certainly was embarrassed at the time and learned a lot in that incident. The only thing that made me feel any better was when Dan came over afterward and said not to worry too much. Almost every officer he had done that too had the same reaction. It was his way of ensuring we knew not to put the finger on the trigger at the wrong time. And it worked for me.
But, to help bring this around to the question of lightening a trigger, think about the weapon I was using. I pulled the trigger all the way through the double action trigger pull and never realized it under stress. I would never lighten the trigger on a carry or defensive use gun. I am not concerned with the possible lawsuit (they can't take much from me, I don't have it) but I would never want to shoot someone accidentally or negligently.
