Citations for local ordinance violations don't particularly worry me, if that answers your question. Bullet holes in things I can't afford to pay for, like the neighbors for instance, do.Originally Posted by Bill Riehl
Citations for local ordinance violations don't particularly worry me, if that answers your question. Bullet holes in things I can't afford to pay for, like the neighbors for instance, do.
I don't have a suitable backstop handy. I solved that problem by not dry-firing.
Sort of kidding. I've found that Airsoft is a better option for me in my garage in any event, not that I do that anywhere near enough either.
The following are commonly referred to as the "cardinal" and/or "universal" "rules" of safe gun handling:
All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
Question #1: Are they truly Rules?
Question #2: Are they, in fact, universal?
Question #3: Are they serving us well?
Would these three serve the largest community better?
1. Finger off trigger until on target
2. Immediately confirm the loaded or unloaded status of every gun you touch, every time you touch it.
3. Never point a gun at anything you cannot afford to destroy
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
Basements are great but extremely uncommon here in TX. I dry fire handguns at old soft armor panels and recommend body armor as a dry- fire backstop to our officers. Replacing a vest is super cheap compared to the alternatives. You can find old expired armor cheap at gun shows or pawn shops. Those little Kevlar "trauma" pads/plates from expired vests are great to this application, similar to the commercially available "safe direction" pads.This is something I'm pretty leery about, perhaps to an irrational degree, having been in the room when a .30-'06 got loud. I like the basement here. Basements are really good for dry-fire.
Re: the four rules, someone here recently said the four rules were Col. Coopers greatest contribution to the the shooting world and I whole heartedly agee. The overlapping / complimentary nature of the four rules is their genius.
Yeesh. "Damn you tinnitus! You’re a cruel mistress."This is something I'm pretty leery about, perhaps to an irrational degree, having been in the room when a .30-'06 got loud. I like the basement here. Basements are really good for dry-fire.
When I dry fire, I usually do it in the hallway (because it's like 10 yards long) and pointed towards a target taped on the door. There's no ammo in the hallway, and I do a lot of press-checking. I also take the target down before I reload my gun, just to resist the "one more draw" AD.
For range applications, I think they would be fine but for practical / field applications I believe rule 4 is essential.
Using a reduced sized target and dry-firing into a piece of soft body armor will keep a boo-boo from becoming a life changing event.
The path of least resistance will seldom get you where you need to be.
1) yep, those are rules.
2) nothing is that universal; there are exceptions to almost anything (see recent discussion about muzzling innocents during high speed transitions from active threat to active threat)
3) the above said, all I know is that the Col's contribution has served *me* well so far.
Re: dry fire: no ammo in same room (same with cleaning, btw, a practice adopted at onset of first Glock ownership in the early 90s, given the mechanics of field stripping same) and either the safe door, as above, or a big rock fireplace (or the floor: if someone is in my foundation crawl space without me knowing, and they get hit by lightening, then that really is an "act of God"...).
Regarding dry firing, I am so anal about that stuff; I check semi autos by both sight and feel, twice through the clearing process. I have the habit of checking the cylinders of revolvers by sight and feel, and working the ejector rod... Twice. Each time they're handed to me in a shop, at home, at a friends, etc.
One of the first serious firearms classes that I took (in the early 90s with that early 90s G19) was from an LFI affiliate instructor. He told this story of some police chief who got complacent cleaning his .45 and had an ND. Embarrassed, he goes out to the kitchen to tell his wife what happened, and finds her on the floor with the errant slug between her shoulder blades. I guess she says his name once and died in his arms. I'm like, 24 at the time, and just married, and I'm sitting there going "F************k..." :shock:
Made a lasting impression on me.
Last edited by Totem Polar; 03-25-2014 at 04:00 PM.
I appreciate the effort, but I can't imagine better phrasing for any of the rules (though I'm comfortable with 'and what is behind it' for 4), particularly rule 1. I tend to think people who are troubled by rule 1 have kind of a different take on things than I do.
I don't really have trouble with it. The philosophy major in me that gets prickly about precise language raises an eyebrow, but I try not to pay too much attention to that guy.
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