Police officers handles firearms on a daily basis. Their own personal weapons, other weapons found on search warrants and in a series of other applicable events. Accidental discharges happen, one might presume that accidental discharges have been around as long as firearms themselves.
The first phase of the the study was to compare accidental discharges between service pistols and the sub-machinegun MP5, also a widely used weapon in the Swedish police force and the total amount of accidental discharges. The second part of the study was to compare data in which events/what effected the police officer that the accidental discharge (involuntarily) was achieved by. With this data then compare null hypothesis and an alternative hypothesis and investigate if there were any events that showed probability or if any events where due to chance.
There were discovered a number of accidental discharges. None of the variables neither could discarded the null or the alternative hypothesis. The extent of the data was considered rather small, therefore shall the result be considered with caution.
Because of the severity, even potentially lethal applications and also the small number of studies on the subject of accidental discharges, there are strong reasons for continued research. The study shows that accidental discharges are dangerous and occurring in the Swedish police force and should be addressed thereby.