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Comment by AngryData | Hacker News Reader

Lol no, guns don't just magically go off when in a holster. Yes mechanical failures do happen, but it requires very specific types of impact in very specific ways that cannot happen when in a holster and are so rare as to happen on decade timescales with tens of thousands of the gun. Also I saw zero evidence of that guys gun going off in the video, the first shot heard is the shot coming out of the ICE goon's gun that he is pointing at that guy, who then also mag dumps him while he is on the ground.

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The Sig Sauer P320, which is what Alex Pretti had, is notorious for unintentionally discharging. Various law enforcement agencies and militaries have stopped using it for that reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_P320

"the firearm may discharge when it is dropped and the back of the slide hits the ground at a 33-degree angle"

That is pretty hard to accomplish while its in a holster unless the guy was suplexed and his entire spine turned to jello giving the gun a multi-foot uncushioned drop.

"misfire was due to "a partial depression of the trigger by a foreign object combined with simultaneous movement of the slide"

Which is irrelevant when in a shielded holster like this guy has.

On top of all this, even had the gun went off, which I have found zero evidence to support, how would that guy know who's gun went off to start with? Guns don't light up with a bunch of LEDs to show you it has been fired. If you aren't staring directly at the gun, which isn't really possible in the scenario that played out, you wouldn't know whos gun went off. And even if someone was staring at the gun and saw it go off, how does a holstered gun that nobody is holding represent any sort of threat? You think the guy is controlling his gun with his mind powers?

I don't even know why im bother argueing with you because this entire thing is ludicrous. I find it hard to believe you have watched any of the video of the incident at all and came to this conclusion.

You can make it fire by grabbing it around the barrel - give me a second I can find a YouTube video if you want.

Here you go: https://youtu.be/jOMQOtOQoPk?si=73omsRIZIKDo3P8u

If it misfired it likely misfired as it was being taken, not while in his holster.

If you’re detaining someone who has a gun and a gun goes off it’s incompetent, maybe negligent, but not murder to react by shooting the guy who had the gun.

I don’t think anyone can draw definitive conclusions from the videos.

How is that not murder? In your scenario the guy is still innocent and he was shot to death because of ICE being scared by their own incompetence. If someone claps their hands and I reflexively mag dump you on the street, am I not guilty of murder?

Obviously because murder requires intent. It might be negligent homicide though.

There’s a big difference between someone randomly clapping their hands and an agent seeing/hearing that a detainee has a firearm, then hearing the firearm discharge as they’re struggling to restrain him.

> If someone claps their hands and I reflexively mag dump you on the street, am I not guilty of murder?

Comparing hearing a clap to a GUNSHOT is wild.

Ninety nine percent of people including you and everyone on HN would, if involved in a scuffle with an aggressive armed man would respond to a sudden gun shot by shooting the armed guy.

We’re talking about the restrained guy who had been trying to help a woman and not once during the whole encounter had a gun in or near his hands? No, I would not murder that man, and I hope others wouldn’t either.

The guy that was trying to physically interfere with an arrest, and that was now resisting arrest, that you were fighting with, and had a gun near his left/our right hand?

Yes you would respond to sudden gunshots with gunfire.

You are surrounded by people with guns, it could be any one of them that took a shot at anything else. It is a pretty massive leap to assume the guy being manhandled on the ground is the one shooting. That close to a gunshot you would have no idea where it came from sound unless you directly saw the gun firing, and if they did they would know it wasn't the guy without a gun in his hand.

> That close to a gunshot you would have no idea where it came from sound

Yes agreed. Someone yells “gun gun” and they reacted thinking they were being shot at by the armed man that started an altercation with them.

Yes - that's what happened. I mean minus the part where Pretti "started an altercation" with them. He has back to the agents when they start pepper spraying him in the face and then tackle him to the ground.

But they heard "gun" and assumed it was the man who had been disarmed in plain view, and was being held down to the ground by 6 other agents. That's pathetic and disturbing. If he is that scared, he has no business holding a gun, let alone a job as a federal agent.

The person who starts shooting him has full visibility of the gun the entire time.

Even if he doesn't realize it is a misfire, why would he believe that it was Pretti who shot? How can you reasonably believe a dude that is dogpiled with a gun not in his control is the shooter?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46770328

None of this combats anything in my statement.

Again, the officer that begins the shooting can literally see Pretti is disarmed. He has no gun. He watches the other agent take his gun off of him.

A more reasonable take in that situation would be thinking that some other protestor has decided to start shooting at them, not that the guy dogpiled by a half dozen agents and visibly fuckin' disarmed is the one doing it.

I am not a gun control person. I think we'll never realistically get guns away from criminals, and as long as that's the case, law-abiding citizens should be allowed to have firearms to be on even footing. Full stop.

But if we can't hold out law enforcement agencies, however nominal in nature they are, to high enough standards that they don't create the entire situation that causes them to kill someone who was never a threat to them, then they shouldn't be armed. Because we can't trust them not to slaughter US citizens.

> Again, the officer that begins the shooting can literally see Pretti is disarmed. He has no gun. He watches the other agent take his gun off of him.

How do you know what the officer saw? They’re tackling an armed man who attacked them. It’s very possible they might not be noticing every detail of what their colleagues are doing.

> They’re tackling an armed man who attacked them.

The most aggressive thing Pretti does in this encounter is step in between the CBP agent and the fallen woman. Not once does he attack them.

> It’s very possible they might not be noticing every detail of what their colleagues are doing.

I'm not saying every officer that is dogpiling on him can see. I am saying the officer that is standing directly beside the one that disarms him, that is looking directly at the gun as it is removed from his possession saw it. He is looking right at it. He watches it happen.

And then he begins shooting.

> it’s incompetent but not murder

That is a conclusion

Hanlon’s Razor

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