Why Off-Duty Cops Shouldn't Be Allowed to Bring Guns Into Stadiums

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) asked Roger Goodell to reconsider the NFL's policy of banning concealed carry firearm permit holders from bringing their guns into NFL stadiums, because an off-duty cop with a gun can stop ISIS. No, seriously:

"The terrorist attacks and threats of attacks from organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are selecting targets based on the amount of death and injury they can inflict - mass murder and casualty events. Well-attended venues and areas are being deliberately targeted by the radical killers who do not intend or expect to survive the assault. Law enforcement, even when working actively with highly trained and skilled security professionals, cannot be certain that all threats will be detected and neutralized."

There are so many reasons this is a bad idea. The two most obvious ones: the circumstances around the Paris stadium attack in no way support the idea that someone with a gun could have saved the day, and no stadium in America has ever been the subject of a terrorist attack.

The NFL, for its part, has the exact right stance on this which is, in a word, no. "We concluded that public safety inside NFL stadiums on game days would be best-served by the carrying of firearms by on-duty officers specifically assigned to work the game as part of the comprehensive public safety plan for the event," an NFL spokesman wrote in a statement.

"Off-duty officers attend games as spectators and are unknown to working law enforcement officers and security personnel. They may not have the same training and do not participate in the weekly preparation meetings. They are not included in the on-site chain of command. The well-intentioned display or use of gun could have serious unintended and potentially tragic consequences."

While those are certainly salient points, there is one additional consideration the NFL didn't mention: off-duty cops commit crimes, too.

Off-duty cops, generally speaking, are just like everybody else. They are sometimes brave and courageous, but they are also sometimes criminals. A 2012 study regarding off-duty police misconduct found that, during the 36-month period from January 2005 to December 2007, 1,126 off-duty officers were arrested in the United States. The study cites two generalizing factors in off-duty misconduct: alcohol intoxication (a staple of the NFL gameday experience) and the misuse of firearms. Likewise, approximately 10 percent of all off-duty officer arrests during the 36-month period involved "off-duty police displayed a department-issued service weapon to threaten or intimidate people during the commission of a crime."

These findings are in line with previous studies done on the subject, including New York City's Committee to Combat Police Corruption statistics, that showed 131 NYPD officers were arrested in 1995 while off-duty, "which most often involved officers who used their service weapons to threaten or even fire at others during private, off-duty confrontations, as well as officers who engaged in domestic or other forms of off-duty violence." Indeed, the 1998 CCPC study showed 25 percent of that year's arrests of off-duty officers involved "the improper display or discharge of a service weapon." Some of the cases involve off-duty officers shooting motorists during minor traffic disputes, subway passengers, taxi cab drivers, and bar patrons.

The 2012 study and the CCPC's statistics repeatedly emphasize that alcohol and improper use of service weapons characterize many of the crimes committed by off-duty police officers. This, of course, is not unique to off-duty cops. It applies to every human—especially every male human—who mixes alcohol and guns.

Of course, off-duty cops do sometimes prevent crimes. This forms the logic behind of FOP's request. There are far less reliable statistics on how often this occurs, but sticking to active shooter scenarios, which is of FOP's primary concern, the available statistics are less than supportive of the idea that an off-duty cop will save the day. A 2013 FBI study on active shooter situations from 2000-2013 found that, of the 160 active shooter incidents analyzed, only two ended due to an armed, off-duty police officer engaging the shooter. Yet, one of those two incidents involved both an off-duty and on-duty officer. So, that leaves only a single case where, if not for an off-duty cop with a gun, an active shooter could have caused more damage. By comparison, 21 active shooters were restrained by unarmed citizens, which seems a far more likely scenario for a crowded setting such as a sporting event.

Expanding beyond off-duty police officers doesn't change the calculus. The FBI found five additional incidents where the active shooter was engaged by another armed citizen, which brings the total to seven active shooter incidents in 13 years ending due to off-duty cops or citizens engaging shooters with gunfire. We can extrapolate from the NYPD stats and the 2012 study to estimate there were roughly a thousand cases of off-duty police misconduct involving firearms during that 13 year period. All this is to say, all the available statistics suggest off-duty police officers harm more people with their firearms than they save.

Even if we were to put all this aside and grant the FOP and its supporters their ideal scenario of an active shooter and a trained, armed cop nearby, things can still go tragically wrong, as the NFL statement says. The "unintended consequences" here are not only an imagined scenario (like an off-duty cop stopping a terrorist at an American sporting event with a gun), but something that has actually occurred in America.

During the 2011 Tuscon shooting, a man named Joe Zamudio was across the street with his concealed carry pistol. He rushed to the scene with his gun drawn and safety off, rounded the corner, and saw a man with a gun. As he recounted to Fox and Friends shortly after the shooting, re-told by NBC News:

"And that's who I at first thought was the shooter," Zamudio recalled. "I told him to 'Drop it, drop it!'"

But the man with the gun wasn't the shooter. He had wrested the gun away from the shooter. "Had you shot that guy, it would have been a big, fat mess," the interviewer pointed out.

Zamudio agreed:

"I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky."