Good for Malkin for including comments on both sides of the issue, or rather non-issue. There's nothing wrong with that picture. I find the suggestion that the picture in and of itself indicates a security lapse to be offensive.
I'm sorry to say that the first thing that struck me about that photo is that, while I'd heard or read in several news reports that Nichols had gotten his weapon from a "female deputy," I hadn't the least idea until clicking this link that Nichols is black, and in fact I'd been assuming (I don't quite know why) that he was white.