I'm not judging one way or the otheer if a person should leave their ML loaded - that really isn't the question by the OP. I am going to relate a little story that I witnessed myself.
While standing on the firing line at the Nationals at Friendship a number of years ago, about three spots down from me was a kid (I guess in his twenties which to me, is a kid). The range officer gave the word to snap caps and as I had my muzzle pointed down and was snapping a cap, there was a extremely loud explosion where the kid was standing. It seems that he had loaded his rifle during the previous deer season and put it away that way. After the range officer got done chewing him a second one and the rest of us got done swearing at him - he meekly said "I guess I forgot to unload it when I got done deer hunting".
Draw your own safety conclusions but for those of you that do keep 'em loaded, I hope you tag them as such. In my own mind, what happened on the firing line was not an "accident" - it was "negligence" and fortunately, the kid's gun was pointed down. We all "forget" things -it only takes a few seconds to tag it so whoever (it might not be you) has access to that gun will know that it is loaded.
Just my 2 cents for safety . . . .
