Should California Police Have Lethal Weapons?

If Californians can't trust their police to handle weapons, they're in bad shape...but Erica Ritz shares the News-of-the-Weird details:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/calif-police-respond-to-womans-911-call-and-then-accidentally-shoot-her/

Not only did Clown Cop accidentally shoot the innocent, unarmed homeowner; he also failed to realize where the bullet had gone, and gave her first-aid advice that happened to be dead wrong.

Does this story really prove that police officers shouldn't carry guns? No, although it may prove that Clown Cop shouldn't be a police officer.

Neither do stories about fatal accidents prove that citizens shouldn't carry guns. Neither do stories about mistakes made by members of our armed forces, e.g. Lieutenant Calley, prove that our armed forces shouldn't carry guns.

Or use computers...about one-quarter of U.S. fatalities during the Gulf War were actual combat injuries, and three-quarters resulted from a single mistake made by a U.S. computer.

People make mistakes. People have "accidents," most of which are the results of negligence and/or incompetence. In the United States the word "accident" tends to bring the image of a car crash to our minds. While twits in the United Nations allegedly twist their knickers about the idea that U.S. citizens can legally own and carry firearms, and there's always a demand for stories about fatal firearms accidents, reality is that far more fatal accidents involve cars. Stories about car crashes that kill people rarely even rate full-length news stories, because they're so commonplace.

Objects don't kill people. Groups, such as a whole city police department, don't kill people. People kill people. Sometimes they do it by accident, and no one even blames them.

But after reading Erica Ritz's story, I would have more respect for the San Diego police if they'd encouraged Clown Cop to stand up, identify himself, and ask the lady and her family to forgive him.