The Dan Lee Report

We’ve all heard the horror stories. The worst & most embarrassing one I’ve ever seen was this DEA agent doing a Gun safety class in front of adolescent School Children. He makes a HORRIFIC misjudgment in handling a weapon that has a full clip in it, & especially in the presence of children.

The Result? He was lucky. He only shoots himself in the thigh, & the bullet stays there & thank God does not further injure him or the children & other adults in the class.

Watch the video below, & how the children unfortunately used better judgment than the officer who partially tried to save face in the situation. He misguidedly tries to keep from alarming the kids further by picking up a rifle, & trying to foolishly go on with the presentation. The kids tell him to put it down! Good call kids!

Do I feel bad for him? Yes of course I do. However he broke several important rules that are absolutely not to be broken in regard to gun safety. I think unfortunately he got a little too caught up in his dramatic approach to gun safety, & forgot about the gun safety part in the process.

1. On the video, he stated himself that “This is an unloaded weapon. This is an empty weapon.”
he then goes & gets gets a “nothing in my hat, nothing up my sleeve” type confirmation from an assistant asking if it’s an empty weapon, the assistant concurs, but probably only looks in the chamber. The officer does NOT clear the weapon himself by ejecting the magazine, as well as looking into the chamber. As a result, when he locks the slide back, & then releases it, he unwittingly cycles a live round from the magazine into the chamber. Again, He did not treat the gun as loaded, & check both the magazine & chamber himself before handling it.

2. He’s handling a Glock 40 cal, (likely a model 22 or 23 with no thumb safety lever) & not the best weapon to bring into a classroom or demonstration.

3. There should have been no ammunition present in any weapon on his person, or he planned to un-holster for any demonstration. Any weapon he planned to demonstrate with, should have been void of a magazine & had the slide locked back at all times, or disabled with the firing pin completely removed, & devoid of a magazine or ammunition. It would also have been handled very minimally, & placed on a table with the muzzle in the most currently safe direction.

4. Though he eventually points the gun down to possibly put it away (not sure), somehow he gets his finger on the trigger, or gets the trigger hung on something. The gun discharges, & he’s hit in the thigh with what is mostly likely a very damaging hollow point bullet. Hollow point bullets are designed to inflict the maximum damage, without exiting the intended target & possibly injuring an innocent bystander. Also notice that in the commotion, his female assistant hands him the rifle at one point, & has the muzzle pointed at the man standing against the wall!

Now, I believe this officer in his heart of hearts truly wanted to teach Gun safety to these children this day, & had nothing but good intentions for being there. Unfortunately he ended up giving an even better example than was necessary, or safe, by forgetting some of his own training.

I recently took my Handgun Safety course with The Academy for Self Protection in Joelton Tennessee. My instructor was Rob Corcoran. Rob is a former USAF Combat Arms Instructor and Security Police Officer. Rob currently teaches all Handgun Carry classes for A.S.P. He is an NRA certified Pistol Instructor and a Tennessee State certified Pistol Instructor.

Rob’s training skills were very clearly & well defined throughout the 8 hour course. During the training, He always got us to the point of the matters at hand, while at the same time keeping things light enough with a perfect balance of humor, gun trivia, & mechanical composition, without being too distracting from the serious nature of gun safety as a whole. He warned us ahead of time, that if he repeated something several times, it was probably going to be both highly important, & also on the written exam, or part of our firing range test. He covered everything from good/bad gun handling practices, to good/bad guns & ammunition by themselves, & the types that we may encounter in the real world.

Rob’s approach was not only to make sure that we knew how to fire a gun safely, but also that once the bullet left the barrel, there are potentially serious consequences, both legally & morally. His course also covered tips on being a more controlled shooter, which is also important to safety, & limiting your targets to only intended ones.

While my impression on his feelings about handguns was that he’s clearly an enthusiast, I felt that he made it glaringly obvious that a gun is not like a golf club or ball. When you go to the range with a gun & make a mistake, it could mean more than someone getting a concussion from a golf club that’s slipped out of your hand, or a wayward ball. It could mean instant death for you or an innocent bystander, or lives changed forever, & he made that responsibility very clear in his course, by covering Tennessee law on the use of firearms for self defense.

After having completed this course, I can tell you that as soon as he saw someone holding a weapon up with the magazine still in it like in the video above? He would have said: ” Clear that weapon immediately by removing the magazine, & I don’t want any ammunition in this classroom. Period”

He has signs in the classroom to remind everyone.

If you’re thinking about taking a handgun safety course in the middle Tennessee area, I highly recommend Rob & his Academy of Self Protection. I don’t see how the course could have been any better to be honest. After taking it, I’m only reasonably confident that I’ll never have an accident. I say “reasonably”, because one of the sentiments Rob was able to get across was to “never get cocky or overconfident handling a firearm.” The gun is always loaded, period. No exceptions.

~Dan Lee