The big brush-off

"County brushes off gun misfire at Schererville center".

That's the actual title of an article about the following situation:

Jermaine Bell, an Illinois man who is employed as a correctional officer with Cook County, the fabulous anti-gun paradise of King Emperor Mayor Richard Daley, has apparently been given a free pass by other "authorities", namely the local prosecutor in Lake County, Illinois.

Mr. Bell was at a "Golf and Fun Center" in the town of Schererville with his son last Sunday when he removed his handgun from its holster for no apparent reason and then "accidentally fired it into the ground." When local police responded, Mr. Bell flashed his badge and said that he had been trying to "put the safety on" on his gun, which he described as a "Glock 7", when it discharged.

Now, for those that aren't particularly well versed in handguns, there's some problems with Mr. Bell's story, in addition to the fact that he can't articulate a good reason for removing his weapon from its holster and monkeying around with it in public in the first place. For one thing, as the story correctly points out, there is no such weapon as a "Glock 7", except for a fictitious one in Bruce Willis's "Die Hard" movies. For another, Glocks don't come with external safeties that can be activated. All of the safeties are in the trigger assembly, which means that the trigger must be pulled before a normally working pistol will fire. Ergo, we must conclude that Mr. Bell removed his gun from its holster for some unknown reason, placed his finger on the trigger and fired it for some other unknown reason, and then invented a cockamamie story for local police in order to explain away his moronic behavior.

To their credit, the Schererville Police Department worked up a case against this idiot for criminal recklessness, and submitted it to the Lake County Prosecutor's Office for charges. The prosecutor, however, decided that the case was an accident, and that there wasn't sufficient evidence to charge Mr. Bell with a crime. Instead, he was given a ticket for "discharging a firearm within Schererville limits, a violation of a town ordinance."

Whoopee.

Let me make sure I've got this straight:

Ordinary citizen of Cook County, Illinois - not allowed to carry a firearm for self-defense at all, but if they could, does the above stupid act in a place with lots of children around (remember, it's always "about the children") = BIG trouble, most likely arrested and locked up, prosecutor probably goes all out to make an example out of one citizen's dumb behavior in order to point out that lawful carry by all individuals will only result in lots of events such as this. Citizen definitely does not get the kind of treatment that leads a newspaper to title an article about the situation a "brush off".

Correctional officer employed by Cook County, Illinois, supposedly a "highly trained law enforcement officer", allowed to carry a firearm off duty anywhere in Illinois, does the above dumb act = given the equivalent of a traffic ticket. Even the local news organ calls shenanigans in its reporting of the incident.

Do I have it straight?

To be fair, Cook County is also investigating the case internally. I'm not holding my breath. Mayor Daley protects his own.