The Dirty-Shirt Draw

A friend sent a blurb from John Farnham's recent issue of DQ Quips, describing a problem that we should all recognize: although we may not all be familiar with it.   Here is an edited version of Farnham's description of the issue:

The mishap occurred during the presentation of the pistol as part of a live-fire exercise.  Drawing from concealment, from a strong-side, IWB,  belt holster, the shooter’s light-weight shirt got between his strong-side hand and the grip of the pistol.  As the pistol cleared the holster, the fabric of the entangled shirt started pulling on the pistol, retarding the draw sequence. Manual safety was pushed into the “off” position, and a finger obviously made contact with the trigger well before it should have. ----------- Here is what I think we can all learn from this: 1) Thin, filmy, flimsy concealment garments are a bad idea!  Whatever  you use to conceal your pistol needs to be substantial enough so that is unlikely to snag the gun itself. 2) Going too fast is a bad idea!  We all need to train well, so that  we can both draw, and reholster, our concealed-carry pistols smoothly and correctly.  Smoothness is the key!  “Pushing the speed envelope” needs  to be done with great caution!  Concentrate on smoothness and correct  sequence.  Speed will come naturally, and in its own good time! 

MY TAKE ON THIS:

This is something which I see quite often teaching the Intro to USPSA class.  Shooters have either an un-tucked t-shirt, or a light jacket, or some other item of upper-body apparel which they allow to flap in the breeze.   

This garment interferes with their safe gun-handling in a couple of ways:
(1) it gets between the gun and the holster when they are holstering, and interferes with their draw because the grab for the gun and the shirt acts as a 'wedge' so they don't have a smoothe draw;
(2) they holster after completing a stage with the shirt in the way, and when they raise their arms (as if to stretch to get more ammunition when reloading magazines) the shirt-tail actually pulls their pistol out of the holster and drops the gun on the concrete.

However, the above narrative is the first time I've heard that it actually caused a negligent discharge.

I categorize this among the Draw-String Deputy kind of story; you can't believe it, but it really happens.

S,C deputy: "It Just Went Off! I don't know how it happened!"

Was this another "Blame it on the Buckle" Incident?

Upstate deputy transported to hospital after accidentally shooting self, sheriff says:

Anderson County Sheriff's Office officials said that one of their own was taken to AnMed Hospital after accidentally shooting himself in the leg. Anderson County Sheriff John Skipper said that the deputy was coming home from an extra duty assignment at NewSpring Church. As he removed his gun from its holster, it went off and the bullet struck his leg, Skipper said. Skipper said the deputy is regularly assigned to Westside High School as their resource officer.

Somebody ought to shoot his Training Officer, too, for not teaching the deputy to keep his finger off the trigger until he's ready to shoot somebody.   (Preferably, somebody else!)

Considering that the deputy is a high school "resource officer", it might be a good idea to reassign him before he shoots a kid.

Either that, or fire him

PS:  The headline line quote I added wasn't in the article, but you can bet that's what he said to shis sheriff.