Before you personalize that pistol

I’ve battled with this topic for the past 2 years. Frankly, I try to avoid being too controversial on this site and my fear has been that this could be a hot button with some readers. But the more I have thought about it, the more I believe this is something we need to talk about. So here we go…. 

There has been a trend lately over the past few years to personalized the appearance of firearms. As technologies and materials improved, the price has come down a lot. It’s not expensive to replace the slide cover plate of your Glock with one that has an American flag or a magazine floorplate that reads “Semper Fi”. Cerakote and other materials can transform your pistol or rifle into a mini-mural.  There are many, many options and that is where the potential problem lies. 

Can the choices you make about personalizing your firearm come back to bite you if you have to use that firearm to defend yourself or someone else? The simple answer is: Possibly. 

In 2015, a Mesa, AZ police officer fired his personally owned- department approved (PODA) AR-15 in the line of duty. One of the things that became an issue at trial, and in the media, was the fact that the officer had engraved the words “you’re f*#%ed” on the rear sight of the rifle. In a similar type of case, a Washington DC judge dismissed a firearms arrest because the arresting officer’s shift had a t-shirt incorporating the Grim Reaper and an allegedly racist symbol on it. 

I’m making no judgment about what is right or wrong; what “should be” or “shouldn’t matter”. What we think shouldn’t matter will be unimportant if the prosecutor, opposing attorney or jury decide it matters. 

Imagine if you were using the firearm pictured above and shot an African-American man or if you replaced your slide cover plate with one that reads “Infidel” in Arabic before you shot a Muslim? You may be super-proud of your great, great, great grandfather’s service to the Confederacy, but do we really need to hand the other side something they can use to obfuscate the actual issue and make you look like a racist? 

And what about the ubiquitous “Punisher” skulls that I see on firearms, holsters and bumper stickers? This is kind of the thing that got me started on this issue. I can tell you how it will go in the civil trial when the family sues you:  “I see you have the Punisher logo on your rifle. Is that how you view yourself? Are you out there to punish bad people? Did you perhaps seek out this confrontation? Have you been waiting for a chance to punish someone?”  

Think I’m making it up? Last year when a police department in eastern Kentucky put Punisher logos on their cars, the creator of the Marvel character weighed in: “He’s a complex morally compromised anti-hero, not to be emulated by cops.” “It says a lot about the problem some cops have knowing what side they’re on that they would choose a Punisher logo for their cars.” (I mean come on, couldn’t they have picked Captain America instead?) 

Again, I’m not making judgments and I won’t argue about what should or should not matter. All I’m asking is to think it through. Putting an American flag or engraving Matthew 5:9 on your Glock probably won’t cause us any issues down the road, but some things might. Do we really need to give some attorney a little more rope? 

Feel free to tell me how right or wrong I am in the comment section below.