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Small-Handed UK Officers Sue Over Failed Firearms Test

Robert Farago - comments No comments

British cops (courtesy dailymail.co.uk)

“TWO ‘petite’ women police officers [not shown] failed a firearms test because the guns they were given were too big for them to fire with their small hands,” dailyexpress.co.uk reports. And so Victoria Wheatley and Rachael Giles filed a discrimination suit against the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. And won. And why not? “They have such ‘small hands’ they could not reach the trigger of the Glock 17 pistols they were asked to fire to pass an annual check. They also complained that . . .

protective helmets and kneepads were too large and a wooden barricade they had to use for resting firearms on was unnecessarily high.

And the light was bad. But seriously, while a one-size-fits all firearm procurement process suits bureaucratic bean counters and caliber queens, all cops should have guns which fit their hands. Period. That’s not how the CNC spokesman sees it, though:

If you are responsible for defending key nuclear installations then the expectation that you can shoot with the standard issue firearms is reasonable.

Unless it isn’t.

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “Small-Handed UK Officers Sue Over Failed Firearms Test”

  1. This seems pretty simple, issue G19s. That’s why the G19 was originally designed, right? For male officers with small hands and female officers.

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  2. Please update and run another more current and informed version. You seem to be a very balanced reporter, and thank you for that, however I believe new information, much more enlightening information, has come to light and could reveal more serious political implications.

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  3. In the event of a Mumbai-style terror attack, the two female officers will sue Al-Qaeda for using killers who are too large for them to handle.

    Well, the two princesses would like to sue, but they won’t be able to because they will be dead. So will the big guys and gals in the police who try to save their silly little @sses. And a lot of civilians will also be dead because these two Tinkerbells are about as fit for police work as I am to play right wing for the US ice hockey team.

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    • I’m kind of with Ralph here.

      I hate to hear about a police officer being disarmed and the service pistol used to kill a couple of other cops–knowing that nearly every time the police officer turns out to be a police woman.

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      • I don’t giggle when I see female cops necessarily, but I do when I see obese cops. Fat cops just make me laugh. Consequently I laugh often.

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  4. While their barrier complaint is BS, they should be issued gear that fits them, especially the helmets. Helmets that are oversized for your head are a giant pain in the ass and a safety issue.

    If you have small hands, Glocks and Berettas are a poor choice. Walthers and CZs work extremely well for small hands and are both extremely reliable and accurate. Unfortunately, then you lose out on magazine compatibility with your allies.

    I’m not a fan of one sized fits all procurement, but being able to exchange magazines simplifies logistics greatly and can save lives in a bad situation.

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  5. If they aren’t carrying g17s what are they carrying? Were they just not issued weapons?

    Not sure HOW this can be an issue…

    Unless what it sounds like is actually happening, which is just that they got issued crap for this one test out of some attempt to disqualify them purposefully or even just negligently.

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  6. Snipers Hide is a great resource full of friendly knowledgeable enthusiasts of long range precision shooting. Whether this video was knit-picking or valid matters not to me. To immediately default to calling in scum…errrr…..attorneys, well I have a hard time respecting that route. I would never deal with this company on principal. That is all.

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    • ^^^ This.

      In most professions that have a ‘physical’ component there are physical requirements. Whatever those may be. Add one that says ‘Must have hands larger than a 2 year old’.

      Or, allow for alternate weapons.

      But this is Britain so I am sure ‘health and safety’ probably has issues with discrimination or something.

      Reply
  7. Are crimson trace lasers not considered customization?

    This review better be accurate or you just ruined this sites reputation.

    For what, some pissing match?

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  8. Or, you can get hold of some galvanized pipe and scrap wood, make a zip gun and save the bundle that you would have spent on the 3-D printer you’ve been eyeing.

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  9. there are already 3D gun designs, but I believe that generally speaking they require some steel parts not currently 3D printable, at least not in a garage.

    when 3D printers can use stronger materials, then maybe we will have 3D printed guns.

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    • And then KO gave up the entire personal computer industry as a result. Anyone who has hacked on RT-11 knows that it was much better than MS-DOS or CP/M back in the day. Muuuuuuch better.

      Ah, those were the days — hacking RT-11 on a PDP-11/34. Good times. That was my idea of a “personal computer” in the late 70’s.

      Reply
  10. “Outed by the animal lovers, the Ministry of Defense [sic] (MOD) did their best . . .”

    Not only is it discourteous to Americanise the spelling of a proper name like “Ministry of Defence” (like the wrong spelling of Britain’s “Labor Party” instead of “Labour Party”, or the reverse, like the wrong spelling “Australian Labour Party” instead of “Australian Labor Party”), it can interfere with searches for the groups involved.

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  11. Jeez, I’m surprised that they didn’t ask for picatinney rail accessories to include hand lotion and tampon dispensers along with a built in makeup kit.

    What about the ability to use weapons from fallen compatriots? All this does is make the situation so that an AVERAGE person would have a hard time using the midget weapons.

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  12. Holy son of a… I really thought I was beyond surprises. This is a newspaper editorial, not a letter to the editor from some whack job. I keep reading that sentence over and over and it sounds more outlandish – and infuriating – every time. Just wow.

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  13. Anybody still read this rag? I thought they went out of business. I dumped my local liberal paper because we never used the coupons, the Sunday comix sucked eggs, and most of the stories were reprints from wire services with about 9 pages of true local reporting. With liberal bias as well.

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  14. In the US a department would generally set a requirement that an issue item meet a 95% anthropometric standard. You clearly can’t fit everyone, but meeting a +/- 2 sigma representation of all people is fairly defensible from a legal/discrimination standpoint.

    The Glock 17 is a huge gun, and comes nowhere near meeting the 95% standard. The 4th gen guns with the removable backstraps are better, but even with the smallest backstrap they are pretty huge. This is one of the reasons the US military buys the M11, for OSI operatives for whom the M9 is simply too huge.

    A while back Tacoma PD allowed their officers a choice of a Glock or Kimber 1911. The vast majority of their female officers chose the 1911.

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  15. I’m not holding my breath.

    He’ll appeal, for sure. What I’m not so sure about is whether the full 11 justice panel will rule as the 9th Circuit did (in this case).

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  16. I bought two ten round metal mags that were made in Connecticut, stamped on the bottom. I have only used 5.56 ammo with no feed problems. Maybe its the 223 ammo that is not feeding. I will have to try some. what ammo are you using that are not feeding? THE BENDS SF and ROMEO. Is it all ammo you use? Still shooting on weekends waiting for feed problems.

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  17. “We sometimes think our duty is to make everyone safe. It’s to preserve liberty. It’s not to make a society that’s absolutely safe.”

    Now if we could just get Mr. Rice cloned (a few dozen times) we would be in good shape.

    Reply
  18. If you are going to make unconventional ammo, this is the domain to do it in. I don’t think I’d use them for myself, but if they aren’t too expensive I’d definitely buy some to get new people up to speed faster when I take them to shoot clay.

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  19. I’ll never understand the whole, “college students shouldn’t be allowed to carry because of the prevalence of alcohol on campuses!”. I mean, what, do the antis believe that, if students are allowed to pack heat on campus, that they will be legally obliged to do so 100% of the time, even if they are drunk or plan on drinking? I mean, they couldn’t possibly just, you know, leave their weapons at home if they go to a party….

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  20. AACs website says that the 762-SD is 30dB (doesn’t mention caliber) and the 762-SDN-6 is 25dB on 762 and 39dB on 300BO! That is a huge difference from 30dB to 39dB. Is anyone going to do a actual comparison test soon? I am hoping to buy one or the other very soon but I would like to see some solid #s from a source who isn’t selling their own product.

    Reply
  21. Isn’t one of the 4 rules to check what is behind your target in case you miss? It is a mandatory question in my state’s test for a firearms license.

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  22. . . . states should be able to place reasonable restrictions on that right in the interests of public safety. [emphasis added]

    “We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. . . . [T]he enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.” – DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER (No. 07-290) 478 F. 3d 370, affirmed.”

    PS. LA Times – Piss Off

    Reply
  23. “We sometimes think our duty is to make everyone safe. It’s to preserve liberty. It’s not to make a society that’s absolutely safe.” – Idaho state Sen. Jim Rice

    This guy for President please.

    Reply
  24. I live in Boise and have been following Masterson’s oppostion to the bill. If Masterson had his way no CCW’s would be issued or at least Boise wouldn’t allow CCW anywhere in the city limits. Either that or he would require hundreds if not thousands of hours of annual training and personal approval from him to grant a license. He is very anti-CCW rights. BTW, he is a blue stater from Madison, WI picked by a liberal democrat Boise Mayor (Dave Bieter). Unfortunately Boise is part of a small number of very blue leaning counties in an otherwise red state.

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  25. Never give an order you know wont be followed… Opening sentence of that article is so right. Legislators that sit in their chairs in their nice offices and think that just because they put it on paper that it shall be so are starting to learn that they dont have enough “Force” to enforce their will.

    One thing I always say when I hear about a new law, I ask “Are you willing to put a gun to someone’s head and kill anyone that disobeys this law?” Because that is what this is about. If its THAT important it should be a law and a felony. Would you do that to enforce Rape or Murder laws? Yes…. Would you do that to otherwise law abiding hundreds of thousands of citizens because you dont like there rifle? that is what it will come to.
    That CT paper is right that if you are going to have a law you MUST try to enforce it. If you dont enforce it, if you are not willing to put a gun to someone to enforce it, then it shouldn’t really be a law now, should it?

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  26. The state law is “may issue”. That means it is (was) up to each of the 58 counties to decide on a policy for good cause. The rural counties have interpreted this less stringently than the urban counties- as you might expect- those Sheriffs are elected officials, just like Sheriff Gore in SD, Sheriff Lee Baca in LA, and the Sheriff in San Fran- I wont comment on him other than to point out he has bragged that he has issued zero permits (except for folks like Senator Feinstein, in past).

    NOW, the 9th has ruled that self-defense is “good cause” all by itself. The Sheriffs still have the option to set various requirements- interview, background checks, fees, training classes, etc-
    and it would be likely that there will be differences- but Cal Guns Foundation has been running a Sunshine Carry guns effort, to document those different policies, and the numbers of permits, and along with a win in a lawsuit vs Sacramento County, that settled, that continues against Yolo County, for similar self defense as good cause argument, and a win over LA to take away the requirement that county residents first get an ok from their municipality, before applying to the county, Governor Brown has just vetoed another proposed law to make Oakland residents register in the city.

    http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2014/02/19/brown-another-gun-law-wont-solve-oakland-violence/

    Hopefully Sheriff Gore is reading the tea leaves.

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  27. If anyone here wants to learn how to do what this gentleman from WV does in this interview.

    Simply watch the video “How to Debate a Liberal” by Ben Shapiro (he also has a book called “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans”)

    Watch as many times as is necessary to learn the techniques then go out and practice, practice, practice. Then you too will be a Ninja Master like the man from WV here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kman-BrUPpY

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  28. This guy did a good job. I’ve seen better, but this was good. Verbal thrust and parry far more difficult than it appears, though. Faults found and missteps seen are easier from this perspective than that of the participant, I can assure you.

    If you do not yourself generate, communicate, and execute ideas as a profession, then it can be difficult to appreciate, let alone to replicate, the results of someone who does. Talent goes a long way, but observation of others and practice will take most people farther in developing this skill. This video and the “debate a liberal” video also posted are solid teaching materials.

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  29. This is a good thing. See, now they’re admitting and accepting the 2ndA means what we say it means, so now their next course of action is to change it.

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  30. What infuriates me the most in this and similar stories is the phrase “The gun went off…” like it had a mind of its own. Guns don’t just “go off” on their own, but the expression is a great way to shift responsibility away from the guilty party. Just like my other old favorite, “mistakes were made”

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  31. If I had that kind of uptime on my network, I would be fired in less than a month. Maybe I need to get a govt systems admin job, apparently you only have to produce results a few hours a day.

    Reply
  32. This begs the question: Why did they not get a similar sentence to Justin Volpe? Not to say he should have gotten less time but why did they get 16, or 4 when he got 30. When we discuss disparity in treatment between LEOs and RUS this comes to mind. I would be fine with Justin getting 50 or 60, but this should have been treated as a conspiracy and the sentences should have just about matched each other in the 30 year range.

    Reply

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