Probably most everyone’s familiar with all this, and I know most everything’s been said, but I thought I’d put in my two cents given my limited experience as a gun nut. As I’m sure everyone knows, police officer Johannes Mehserle’s defense in shooting Oscar Grant is that he thought he was pulling a Taser and instead pulled his handgun, something which, according to the defense, has happened six other times (and more on this later). So how easy would it be to pull a Taser instead of a handgun?

Let’s start with the obvious. According to the same article I linked to above, Mehserle’s firearm was on the right side of his belt — usually known as the strong side hip position, given that he’s right handed — while his taser was on the left side, in what is known as the cross draw position. To illustrate the difference between the two positions, here’s pretty good video of a strong side draw holster and a cross draw holster. They are in as different positions as it is possible to be on a gun belt.

I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I shoot a fair amount, I do presentation and dry-fire exercise a couple of times a week, and I carry every day. And one of the first things I learned about carrying was that my gun had to stay in the same place. That’s the only way I can draw and get a quick sight picture with any kind of consistency. As such, I always know where my carry gun is, and it’s always right where it’s supposed to be, unlike, say, my cell phone, keys, and whatever else I have on me.

And, this should probably go without saying, but I never draw my handgun instead of something else. Not to be flip, but I’ve never accidentally drawn my gun instead of my car keys. Likewise, I’ve never gone to make a phone call and accidentally stuck my gun in my ear. Frankly, I find the idea of accidentally reaching to the wrong side of my gun belt ridiculous.

Which brings us to the difference between Mehserle’s Taser and his handgun.  I don’t know a whole lot about law enforcement Tasers, but according to Wikipedia it was a Taser X26, which in bright yellow — the color of his — would look like this:

You can watch a video promo of the X26 here. It’s ergonomically a hell of a lot different than a handgun, as you can probably tell. It’s also a hell of a lot lighter. Different accounts put it at weighing between one half and one third of his sidearm, which was a Sig Sauer P226.

When I first heard about this incident, I assumed Mehserle was carrying a Glock for a sidearm. It seemed the most likely scenario, Glocks being known for being sometimes a little too quick to fire for two reasons:

1. The Glock has no thumb safety. Meaning, that when you pull it out of your holster the only thing you need to do to fire it is pull the trigger. That’s it. And, as such, Glocks are notorious amongst police firearms instructors for being involved in police shooting accidents.

2. Glocks are often considered double-action only handguns, but they’re not really. With a round in the chamber, the trigger breaks at about 5 pounds on most Glocks. That’s pretty typical for a carry gun — my 1911 is set up at 4.5 pounds. It’s not too light, but it’s sure not very heavy (generally speaking, heavier trigger pulls make it harder to be accurate, and it’s a fine balance). And unlike a true double action gun, like a revolver, the Glock takes a fairly short pull to fire — meaning, the trigger doesn’t have to move backward much.

(Neither of those is a knock on Glocks, by the way. I have a Glock that I sometimes carry, and I love it. But I’ve spent a lot of time working with it in dry-fire exercises to make sure I, as the saying goes, keep my booger hook off the bang switch until I’m ready to fire. I don’t think anyone would disagree that it’s more unforgiving than a double action handgun with a manual safety.)

The Sig Sauer P226, however, is noticeably different. Though it also does not have a thumb safety (thanks for correcting me, Tam), when it is carried with a round in the chamber, it is typically carried with the hammer down in true double action mode so that the trigger pull that fires the first round has to raise the hammer before it can drop it. It’s not unlike a revolver’s trigger pull, meaning that it’s a longer motion that runs about 10 pounds. That’s pretty hard to mistake for anything else besides what it is.

And then there’s the difference between the holsters. Now most of this is speculative, because I can’t tell exactly what holsters Mehserle is using, but I do know that Denver cops, like most cops in the nation, use a simple thumb-break holster for their firearm. There’s an example here from Midway USA. To draw the weapon, you first have to hit that leather tab at the top of the holster, popping open the snap. Taser holsters, on the other hand, are usually setup fairly differently. This is a video demonstration of a US Cavalry Taser X26 holster from BLACKHAWK!, one of the biggest police accessory OEMs on the planet:

Interestingly, in this video from the local news channel, at about 1:10, you can see Mehserle struggling with his holster:

There’s a couple of things that can account for the problems Mehserle had with his holster. I’m a bit of a geek on this stuff, and everything I’ve read from Suarez, Cooper, Ayoob, etc., all indicates a severe degradation of motor skills in perceived life threatening situations. But what I find unbelievable is that Mehserle didn’t know what he was drawing given the time it took him to draw it. See, somewhere in that process, his brain had to send the command to hit the thumb-break to release his handgun.

So, even discounting the difference between the positions on the officer’s gun belt, I’m having a hard time believing these two weapons could be mistaken. They’re just too different. If it were a scenario where he was carrying a smaller black Taser and a Glock in similar holsters, I could almost see it — though I’d still be amazed. But in this case, everything is different, from the holster and controls, to the color and weight.

And so, back to that claim that this type of Taser confusion has happened six other times. Well, it hasn’t. Not really. See, according to the San Jose Mercury News:

In the previous incidents, (Taser expert) Meyer said, the officers had black Tasers that were mounted on the same side of the body as the officers’ guns. Mehserle’s Taser was yellow and mounted on the opposite side of his body from his gun.

In other words, this specific kind of accident, with all the particulars listed above, has never happened. Not once. (And, though I can’t find the kind of gun used in the above accidents, I would bet that most, if not all, of them are Glocks.) And that’s precisely why Mehserle was carrying a big, yellow Taser in a crossdraw position:

In fact, Meyer admitted, his analysis of the other cases prompted him to advise Taser International, the company that manufactures the stun gun, to warn police agencies Tasers should always be mounted on the opposite of a police officer’s gun.

Moreover, there’s the discrepancy between Mehserle’s reaction and the reaction of all the rest of those cops involved in Taser confusion:

Most of the officers in those previous incidents also immediately told those they shot and fellow officers that they had made a mistake, began to cry immediately after the shooting, and continually asked about the suspects’ conditions as paramedics worked on those shot.

Mehserle’s only reaction, according to witnesses, was to put his hands to his head and say, “Oh (expletive), oh God, I shot him.” Mehserle did not tell other officers he had made a mistake and did not ask about Grant’s condition during the 10 minutes he stayed on Oakland’s Fruitvale BART platform after the shooting.

Maybe I’m missing something, but it doesn’t look to me like there’s any way Mehserle didn’t mean to shoot Oscar Grant. I don’t know what was going through his head. Maybe he’s just got a real short fuse, maybe he has a few skeletons rattling around in his cranium, maybe he’s just very bad under pressure, or maybe something about Grant drove him nuts.

It’s also possible that he got spooked, thought Grant was moving for a handgun in his pocket, and just panicked. That’s what he claims — that he thought Grant might have a gun. And, interestingly, I’ve never read or seen anything from a single police firearms trainer that would tell you to meet a gun with a Taser: you would always use deadly force in that case.

If you think about it, that’s something that really reeks about this case: Mehserle’s stated reason for pulling his Taser would require him to pull his handgun and fire. In fact, Mehserle never told anyone on the night of the shooting that it was an accident. What he told them, time and time again, was that Oscar Grant was digging in his pocket and might have a gun. I don’t think anything’s quite as damning as that.

That doesn’t mean Mehserle wasn’t stunned afterwards when he realized what he’d done (it doesn’t look premeditated to me). It also doesn’t mean that he doesn’t really, really wish he hadn’t shot Grant — he’d be an idiot not to regret it, given what it’s done to his life. It doesn’t even mean that he’s not genuinely remorseful.

But, at the end of the day, it was murder. The argument that he mistook his handgun for his Taser is just laughable. And I think the only reason the defense got away with that line of shit is because so many people are unconscionably ignorant about firearms and firearms training. I will hazard a guess that there wasn’t a single concealed carry permit holder on the jury. (Something which, given that the trial took place in Los Angeles, is probably a good guess.) I’m betting if the trial had take place in, say, Utah, the outcome would have been very different.

Also, to be honest, I’m a little irritated that Mehserle’s intent has to be argued at all. As a concealed carry permit holder, I’m pretty sure that if I were to shoot somebody, my intent to shoot them would be proven by my, well, having shot them. Any attempt I made to say that I meant to pull pepper spray — which I do sometimes also carry, given the situation — would be laughed out of court. The only question would be whether there was a credible threat which warranted deadly force. As responsibilities go when carrying a gun, this is the most very basic: that you only draw your weapon when you mean to. I don’t think that’s an unfair assumption, either for a CCW permit holder, or a cop.

And I think it’s pretty obvious that Mehserle meant to.

Update: Tamara K. of View From The Porch (and knoxnews.com and Concealed Carry Magazine) left a comment letting me know that I was mistaken about the Sig Sauer P226: it does not have a thumb safety. The post has been updated accordingly. Also, as I keep saying, I’m a novice at all this stuff, so I welcome correction from gun types. If I’ve made mistakes, or if you think I’m just dead wrong, please let me know. I’m getting more and more interested in this, and would like to see opinions from folks who know guns.

Update II: I think I’m gonna troll around a bit and see what some of the gun writers/bloggers have been saying. I’ll post what I find, on either side, in the updates.

Update III: From David Codrea, of The War on Guns, one of my favorite gun blogs (and David is not exactly known for being a raving leftist, not that there’s anything wrong with that):

If Grant had popped a prone Mehserle in the back, what do you think the chances are he’d have gotten off with involuntary manslaughter?

That’s pretty much the question, isn’t it? You think if the roles were reversed Grant would have had any opportunity to argue about intention at the trial?