If that were the case, it'd be a contact shot to the floor, on impact.
I expect that will be very easy to discern vs. one that was put through the floor from a couple of feet away...
That's the best post I have seen in this thread. That is going to be the proof.
I just don't buy the idea that a hanger or bush or something else could generate 11 pounds of pressure. While some protrusions might actually be able to withstand 11 pounds of pressure - thereby exerting an equal but opposite force of 11 pounds, no handgun is capable of exerting the 11 pounds of force during the fall in order to cause that equal but opposite force to come in to play.
Additionally, the trigger of a falling gun is protected by a trigger guard. In order to penetrate the trigger guard and cause the weapon to fire, you would have to fall onto the protrusion, the protruding object would have to flex under the weight of the falling gun. The gun would slide along the protrusion to the end of the object before the end of the object could snap back into the trigger guard as the gun slid off. Now, we are only talking about the very tip of the protrusion penetrating the gun at all. While at the fixed connection point of the protrusion might have been pushed enough to exert a force equal to the falling weight of the weapon, at the tip of any flexible object the kinetic energy in that flexing motion would be significantly less than the energy at the fixed connection point.
If you argue that the object is potentially stiff rather than flexible - the only possible way to exert enough force to pull even a lightweight trigger - then the gun slides off the protrusion without the protrusion entering the trigger guard.
If the gun falls at such angle that it falls directly onto a fixed solid protrusion, hitting the protrusion directly with the trigger - a highly unlikely scenario in this case - the fact still remains that the falling weapon weighs less than the required trigger pull for firing - unless the trigger is modified to require less pull weight than the falling weapon. [added by edit:]Plus, to hit the trigger directly means that the protrusion entered the trigger guard area at an angle. The indirect angle of the strike reduces the possible pressure on the trigger even more; the trigger slides along the protrusion harmlessly. [ end of edit.]
This guy - or perhaps his brother who lived with him - was playing with the gun. It went off. He lied to cover his tail because playing with the gun proved that he is not responsible enough to be a cop and he does not want to lose his job.
Lying in a police investigation, though, is a felony punishable in many states or federally by up to 20 years in prison - along with the automatic lifetime ban on owning firearms. While I don't agree that felons should automatically not be allowed to defend their families or themselves, I do agree that felons whose crimes involved firearms should absolutely be banned from owning or possessing firearms for life - this guy included.
