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Originally Posted by ghbucky
We pulled into the driveway and I was looking up some nonsense or other on my phone and went to retrieve my striker fired handgun while still looking at my phone.
Thankfully, for whatever the reason my focus suddenly switched COMPLETELY to the fact that my trigger finger was ON the trigger. No pressure applied, but there I was doing a very stupid thing.
No handling a gun while distracted <-- lesson received!
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There may be another lesson in there, too.
WHY did your finger automatically go on the trigger? In general, I submit that this falls under the category of muscle memory. If the body performs certain functions or operations in the same way repeatedly, eventually the body (muscle memory) learns the action and the action becomes automatic, or instinctive. In other words, habit.
Any other time when you draw or pick up a firearm, when does your finger go on the trigger? Is it possible that you have an ingrained habit of putting your finger on the trigger before you have the sights on the intended target?
I grew up in the days of the 1950s television westerns, and cop shows like Dragnet. Gun handling on television and in the movies when I was a youth was pretty terrible, so I "learned" from watching all those shows and movies that when you pick up a gun you put your finger on the trigger.
It took me a long time to train myself out of that when I was old enough to have my own firearms, and I recognized that what I had been doing was dangerous.