The safety sin

[ghbucky]

An interesting article, that I think ties into the previous accidental discharge thread, but I also think this is worth a discussion of its own:

https://pistol-training.com/archives/1241


I think this is very true:

The reality is that none of us is perfect. We have safety rules to minimize the chance of someone getting hurt, but if you are around guns often enough and long enough you are going to see mistakes happen. Eventually, you are going to make one yourself. The most dangerous gun handlers are the ones who think they’re too safe to worry about making a mistake.

[HiBC]

I'd agree.
We are all fallible.
All the more reason to stack multiple layers of safety. Redundancy,so a single failure has back up,and nobody gets killed.

I'm 69. When I was in high school,I got home from a successful antelope hunt .
Animal was in the trunk. Rifle sideways on the back seat. Was about to hang up the pronghorn when I handed my younger brother my rifle and asked him to take it in the house. He made about three steps and I said "Wait a second"
I knew it was wrong to give it to him without clearing it first. I listened to the little voice ,and then I DID the RIGHT THING. That was over 50 years ago,I can still see it in my mind. I pulled that bolt back,and watched that shiny brass 7mm Rem mag round loaded with a 160 gr Sierra Boattail,70 gr of surplus H-4831 and a CCI Magnum primer spin an arc through the air and land point down in the snow. I had set my brother up for something terrible.

Of course,I should have checked it clear in the field . I did screw up. More times than one. If we ever hear that little voice say " I really ought to check......" Do! Check! I'm grateful I did.

[BobCat45]

Agreed, complacency can be deadly. I think the prospect of everyone knowing that I got careless is almost as frightening as the prospect of getting hurt - but not as scary as the prospect of hurting someone else.

A few years ago a good friend at work called me out to the parking lot to show me his new pickup. Odd, he'd shown it to me a week or so before, but we are getting old and maybe he forgot. Anyway I went to look, and he showed me a fresh bullet hole in the passenger footwell flloorboard, through the mat and through the steel too.

Turns out his hunting buddy had failed to clear his rifle and put it, muzzle down on the floor (I know...) on the seat - and somehow managed to fire it.

Nobody hurt, no "real" damage to the truck, and maybe his buddy learned something.

What *I* learned is that nobody is perfect and people who have hunted every year for 40 - 50 years, can have brain fade. So I've taken to using a yellow plastic ECI, like at the match, in my rifle - and anyone who wants to scoff is welcome to ridicule me.

[Rob228]

Turns out his hunting buddy had failed to clear his rifle and put it, muzzle down on the floor (I know...) on the seat - and somehow managed to fire it.

Muzzle up in a vehicle, muzzle down in a helicopter so if you ND it doesn't it anything important

[stinkeypete]

These are good reminders. Hunting we’re cold, tired, excited, hopped up on adrenaline, distracted, and must concentrate to make good decisions. Safety becomes routine, and we need constant reminders not to let it lose focus.

I like the idea of the range flag. But me, action open will work.

[BobCat45]

Agreed on action open; but the bolts on both the Garand and AR-15 are more "stable" if eased closed on a chamber flag than just locked open.

[HiBC]

Manufactured chamber flags are inexpensive and work great IF you happen to have them on hand.
If you don't have any on hand, A short (8 IN ? ) piece of weed whacker line will work.
Just don't let it become a bore obstruction. Heating the middle portion so you can set a bend should cure that.

[adamBomb]

And yet the trend is lighter triggers with no hammer or safety...

Personally refuse to carry a gun without one of them and prefer guns with both. I follow gun rules, I train. I've yet to make a mistake but man I know they could happen, especially if I were tired one day, sick with a cold, ate something bad at lunch, stressed from the day, etc. Got a good friend who is making a name for himself in 3 gun and other comps, uses a Px4 so that he can feel the hammer on holster.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by adamBomb

And yet the trend is lighter triggers with no hammer or safety...

Personally refuse to carry a gun without one of them and prefer guns with both. I follow gun rules, I train. I've yet to make a mistake but man I know they could happen, especially if I were tired one day, sick with a cold, ate something bad at lunch, stressed from the day, etc. Got a good friend who is making a name for himself in 3 gun and other comps, uses a Px4 so that he can feel the hammer on holster.

The negligent discharge I had was with a S&W 5903, a pistol with a DA first pull, a safety, and a magazine disconnect, pretty much all the safeties I could think of. None of them could stop me from pressing a trigger when I made the deliberate decision to do so.

In my own experience and many if not most of the other experiences I’ve read, the person who had the negligent discharge pressed the trigger deliberately. I think there is an argument that heavier triggers and/or manual safeties can reduce the chance of a discharge while holstering a pistol. However, I think that frankly there needs to be more of an emphasis on clearing the cover garment and not rushing to reholster. In my case and many of the others I read whether it had been a Glock or similar wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome. As was mentioned in the OP, what prevented personal injury was the layered nature of the safety rules and the fact that I was at least being mindful of where my muzzle was pointed. While muzzle discipline and heavier triggers are by no means mutually exclusive, to me the former is more critical.

In my case I was dry firing and had not removed all live ammunition from my vicinity. It was an unfortunate lesson for which I take full responsibility.


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[ghbucky]

TY TunnelRat for sharing that. As the article points out, in a lot of the shooting community it seems that an ND is treated as a sin and everyone clamors for a hide.

I had a very close call where I was retrieving a Springfield XDS (all stock, no mods) from a car holster and realized I had my finger on the trigger as I went to pull the gun from the holster.

Beyond that, I did have an ND, but my saving grace was that I was at an indoor range, I had a SW .22LR DA revolver cocked and brought it up to target, but I put my finger on the trigger before I was lined on the target and put just that much too much pressure on it and it shot the floor a few feet in front of the target.

That was many years ago, but I've never forgotten that moment where I realized I had no intention of firing and I fired. I can agree that a heavier trigger could have helped there, but I had deliberately cocked a double action, so I bypassed the safety and heavy trigger.

Recently I've become fascinated with Youtube breakdowns of aviation accidents or near accidents. There is a guy that goes by MentourPilot that does excellent deep dives into incidents. He refers to a 'swiss cheese' model where actions or incidents align to drive through a perfect set of holes to find a way to an incident. If at any time a different decision or safety system acted differently, the entire chain of events would have been halted.

I realized that the famous 4 laws of safe gun handling provide that layered protection. All 4 laws have to be bypassed for there to be an injury or worse. If any single rule of the 3 is followed, the chain is stopped.

There can still be an ND and a lot of embarrassment, but as your experience reinforces that is where it ends. Unfortunately as the recent movie set death shows, if someone disregards all 4 rules, the results can be tragic.

[FireForged]

I support the idea of safety rules and I practice them myself. That said, rules are going to get broken, especially during times of stress or other pressing matters of urgency.

[chadio]

ghbucky - thanks for the link.

Unpleasant topic, but very important food for thought!!!

I think we all share the love for shooting sports and don't want any surprises..... or injuries... or worse. There is a video somewhere of a fellow who had a similar situation, "I've just shot myself" rings out to this day.

[44 AMP]

Muzzle up in a vehicle, muzzle down in a helicopter so if you ND it doesn't it anything important

I must, most emphatically DISAGREE with this. Muzzle down in any vehicle (if it is loaded - you are in a combat zone), and UNLOADED if you are not.

My father taught NRA Hunter Safety courses every year. From the tine my brother and I were big enough to help pack course material and guns to the car, we helped set up for him, and of course we sat through every class until it was over and then helped pack everything up. SO, I got very well acquainted with the course material over a dozen years.

One of the (many) things I still remember very clearly were the sheets with pictures (all B&W) of real people who were really shot an killed by a muzzle up rifle or shotgun in the vehicle with them. These were not censored or edited to hide anything. Wounds and blood, on a dead body, and not something done in a studio they were actual accident scene photos.

A Helicopter engine/transmisson isn't the only "important" thing above the muzzle in a vehicle, it can be YOU or someone else, as well.

[Rob228]

I must, most emphatically DISAGREE with this. Muzzle down in any vehicle (if it is loaded - you are in a combat zone), and UNLOADED if you are not.

The points you bring up are quite valid and I can't disagree with them. The transition to armored vehicles has made a few differences in where the muzzle goes and when, the theory behind the up/down vehicle vs helicopter had to due with damage to the "important" parts of your mode of transportation. Muzzle awareness is still all important.

Interesting that you mention the NRA course after an incident I had in the woods yesterday. A friend and I were in state gamelands on foot and a gentleman saw us walking and drove right up on us with several dogs in the back of his truck and one in the cab. He had a Marlin guide gun muzzle up in the cab sitting next to him and the dog in the cab was all over the place. After asking us if we had seen any bears (well no, and I'm pretty certain your truck and dogs have scared off anything within a quarter mile) he drove away and we walked in a different direction. Not long after we heard a shot that HAD to have come from where he was going, and both of our immediate reactions was "that dog must have stepped on the trigger". We saw him driving shortly after so if that was the case he escaped unharmed.

I still prefer muzzle up in a vehicle but I very much see your point.

[SIGSHR]

Safety must be practiced 24/7. In BCT in the Summer of 1967 after a range session one one of the cadre would check our M-14s-bolt locked back-with a cleaning rod and it was "No brass or ammo, Sergeant!"
Not a hunter, a practice I have started to insert a snap cap after a range session.
For dry firing semiautomatic pistols I use a snap cap and a magazine of contrasting color.
Stainless or nickel for a blued handgun, blue for a nickel or stainless handgun.

[kenny53]

Have I ever had a "bad attack of the stupid's" while handling a firearm? Maybe, I have seen mistakes others have made and I have seen mistakes when I was all alone. I was at a Gun Show when a gun went off, nobody seriously injured. One of the two involved was hit by a piece of the floor when the bullet hit. Hunting jackrabbits in the west desert many years ago a buddy was blasting away at a rabbit and bullets struck the ground around me. I yelled and he saw what he had done and hung his head low. Seen some others but I can save those stories for another day . We have to be safe for ourselves and our loved ones. We have to be safe for the survival of our sport/hobby/God given right.

[Lima Oscar 7]

Everyone comes from a different background. On my father’s side, hunting is a part of our ethnicity (Cherokee Indian). So don’t be shocked when I tell you I started hunting at age 5. At age 7, I was sitting in a ground blind by myself. I guided for 7 years. A firearm safety is not foolproof. They malfunction. I have been around firearms for 52 years and I still fear them.

Muzzle control and muscle memory are critical. When I say muscle memory, I mean it’s a frequent, involuntary action like breathing to check the action of a firearm any time it is handed to someone else, any time you cross a fence, climb into a stand or safely lean the long gun into a corner, case it, put it in the vehicle etc. Muscle memory also means you never point a firearm at anything you do not intend to destroy even when you are absolutely certain it is unloaded.

There are a lot of moving parts when guiding Duck Hunters, you are serving multiple hunters, the Labrador is working, people fall in, Ducks come in out of nowhere. I almost had my brains blown out one time. The muzzle blast had me deaf in my left ear for a day or two and I felt the heat of the steal shot charge on the left side of my face. Other than that, no incidents but I did have to get confrontational with one customer who would not keep the safety on his shotgun engaged.

Manual safety or not on a handgun, you must practice muzzle control and muscle memory must become involuntary. It starts with every time you handle a firearm for any reason. I carry a Glock 27 Gen. 5 daily. It demands even closer scrutiny as there is no manual safety. Safety never takes a day off.

[Prof Young]

Many years ago, while squirrel hunting, I transferred my Buckmark to my left hand and managed to shoot a hole in the ground right next to my left foot. My brain knew what to do when the gun was in my "shooting" hand, but not the other. Have worked on changing that ever since.

Prof Young

[Erno86]

At our private outdoor gun range...rules state:

With guns that have a lockable/unlockable action during a ceasefire (line is "cold"): Actions open and locked back, with an empty chamber indicator (ECI) inserted into the chamber and magazines removed from firearm, including tubular magazine rods.

When carrying around a naked firearm (uncased firearm) on our range, with no intention of firing...while the line is "hot":

Firearm unloaded, muzzle must be pointed vertical and ECI inserted into the chamber of the locked open action (lockable or not).

During a ceasefire: All muzzleloaders must have the muzzle pointed vertical.

No handling of uncased firearms during a ceasefire.

For firearms placed on the gun rack: Muzzles must be pointed vertical, actions open, locked back (for firearms with a lockable action), magazines removed (including tubular magazine rods) and ECI inserted.

For a cased firearm (or putting a firearm into the case), while the line is hot: Firing arm must be removed or placed into the case, from just behind the firing line and muzzles pointed downrange or vertical.

[langenc]

I didnt read all but the first guy and brother should have never passed the gun without
opening he bolt and checking.. All gun shops around here never hand a gun to someone w/out opening the action.

AND just above it says "no handling a gun during a cease fire" is so poorly understood it is amazing.
When I point that out at a public range the answer has been "he gun is not loaded"... at which I sahy "Yes and 63% of those shot are shot w/ UNloaded gun."

Go to Ben Avery rifle range N of Phoenix just step between the red and yellow lines and listen to what happens.

[SIGSHR]

In Civil War and RevWar reenacting safety checks are performed before and after battles.
No live ammunition permitted. At one reenactment in NJ in the 90s a Union drummer boy's drum was punctured by a tompion.

[HiBC]

I didnt read all but the first guy and brother should have never passed the gun without
opening he bolt and checking..

That would be me,langec. I agree. That I was fallible was the point of posting it.
I saw what that load did to that pronghorn. It never should have been put in the car loaded,either.

The "save" was I listened to my own warning in my head and acted on it.

I own it. I posted it.

Now,langec, do you just come on to be a critic,or have you never made a gun handling mistake,or do you just lack the "parts" to tell the story of YOUR fallibility?

In the same way its the unloaded gun that kills people,its the guy who cannot honestly look at HIMSELF ,the guy who will never own up to being imperfect that will not double check. Like a certain movie crew.

So,you never make mistakes? Or you just don't admit it?

[ghbucky]

punctured by a tompion.

Today I learned what a tompion is.

[ghbucky]

Allow me to bring this back on topic:

I think we all share the love for shooting sports and don't want any surprises..... or injuries... or worse. There is a video somewhere of a fellow who had a similar situation, "I've just shot myself" rings out to this day.

That video has very much seared itself on me. And I will admit I laughed 'at that idjit' at the time, reflection has made me very careful of my draw.

It really is very easy to yank a gun clear of the holster and close that trigger resulting in exactly what he had the courage to show to us all. In the end, I have to respect the man for putting that out there.

[HiBC]

It was an important lesson on the Blackhawk SERPA retentiom holster.
I own them,use them,like them.

You MUST develop a muscle memory/habit to keep your trigger finger straight,outside the guard as you draw.Point the finger toward the anticipated target as you depress the retention release,

If you hook your trigger finger to press the release button,you are in trouble.

As you clear the holster,with pressure on that hooked finger tip, the finger will fall into the trigger guard and engage the trigger.

Thats how the above mentioned Gentleman shot himself.

I like the SERPA holster,but its not for everyone. Its one of those "Informed Choice" things.