A Different View of Gun Safety.

[fixer]

No real issue with the 4 rules here.

I've always understood the "all guns are loaded" to mean that one shouldn't treat any firearm as a toy or anything other that a weapon.

If being critical of the 4 safety rules I'd suggest they be expanded. The 4 rules cover 90-95% of all firearms and scenarios. However, to me at least, there are few others that need to be covered.


Damaged or defective weapon. Sig 320/Taurus defects can't be adequately mitigated by perfect, in human, level of consistency in 4 rules. As manufacturers continue to push things in terms of design and also in pace of development, this issue will grow in importance.


Holster/unholster. Always look at holstering process from beginning to end and ensure no objects are in way.

[fatdog]

I think the 4 rules as I think Cooper intended them to be remembered are great. He was using simple statements that he was going to expand on, explain, and teach about, he was not trying to encapsulate the entire volume of safety knowledge in the simple statements in print that stood alone in the absence of understanding their meaning and intent. I used to have his four rules video made in the 80's and that is how I interpreted it all.

I only teach beginners. I have to give them something in print as a takeaway. My simple "statement in print" is a modified version of Cooper's plus a statement on holsters that we will have spend lots of time discussing. I count on them remembering the points of emphasis we have discussed, not only about what the rule meant, but the why's for each rule. These have to be a simple reminder of what we talked about, not full text of the 30 minutes we spent on their first safety discussion.

I also use several specific real world stories about unintended consequences and accidents to try to bring home the point and make each rule more relevant in their minds. What could really happen and what I am going to do to try to avoid it ever happening.

I would agree that without all the context, explained to the student, the rules as simple statements are probably inadequate. They are only useful in helping them remember the body of knowledge about safety.

ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION

ALWAYS KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET AND YOU HAVE FORMED THE INTENT TO FIRE

ALWAYS KEEP THE GUN UNLOADED UNTIL READY TO PUT IT IN USE OR CARRY, ASSUME ALL GUNS ARE LOADED UNTIL YOU HAVE VERIFIED THEIR STATUS WHILE IN YOUR HANDS

ALWAYS BE CERTAIN OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT IS BEHIND IT

ALWAYS CARRY ANY LOADED HANDGUN IN A HOLSTER THAT BOTH SECURES THE GUN AND PROTECTS THE TRIGGER GUARD

[BehindBlueI's]

Most people I have met, including my longago self, treat a gun that they believe is unloaded completely differently from a ‘real’ gun. Getting a good latch on rule one let me stop greying out rules two and three when I believed a gun was unloaded.

That's the problem, and that was my question. What AD/ND does the first set stop but the second lets through? You were still ignoring rules in the second set, aka the 3 rules.

For some, it may cause a mindset change. I assume if someone told you "treat a gun like a gun, regardless of loaded/unloaded condition" it would have the same effect. The "all guns are loaded" in others actually engenders the "two methods of handling" in literally minded people.

[BillSWPA]

Can a 4 rules advocate explain to me a AD/ND that:


All guns are always loaded.
Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

prevents, but:

Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

doesn't?

Very easily. It provides a level of redundancy. If all 4 rules are in play, at least 2 must be violated before anything really bad happens. No human being is perfect, and anyone can make 1 mistake. Making 2 at the same time is less likely. Take away one rule, and some redundancy disappears.

The way the first rule is expressed may be debatable, but its necessity is not. Having a “safety mindset” but thinking the 4 rules don’t apply is contradictory and an accident waiting to happen.



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[Robinson]

For some, it may cause a mindset change. I assume if someone told you "treat a gun like a gun, regardless of loaded/unloaded condition" it would have the same effect. The "all guns are loaded" in others actually engenders the "two methods of handling" in literally minded people.

Cooper's goal with Rule #1 was exactly for the purpose of establishing mindset. Approaching any gun with the thought that it is loaded puts a person in the safe handling mode by default with no exceptions, before the gun is even touched. Your contention is that always following rules 2-4 means the first rule isn't needed. I get that.

If I were next to you or the OP on a firing line (and if I knew you were you) I wouldn't feel unsafe because you don't like Rule #1. I would hope you wouldn't feel unsafe next to me simply because I like Rule #1. I hope this doesn't divide PF members into two camps, that would be silly.

[Bergeron]

In modern industrial environments, the Swiss Cheese model of safety is prevalent. It states that there are layers of safety between the world we operate in and the outcomes that we are attempting to provide. These layers are composed of both equipment and procedures. Each layer can have holes in it where an accident can occur.

If we’re good at what we’re doing, we later our safety so that the holes don’t/can’t line up and cause an accident.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that the safety aspect of our gunhandling theories and practices should improve over time, becoming more subtle and complete, so I enjoy this discussion and other efforts at getting to a better place than the original 4 Rules.

I don’t know the best way to quash the unloaded vs loaded manner of handling guns. I see people park their index fingers right on the muzzle in shops and shows, and it’s bothersome. One of the pseudo-celebrities of the gun world has a video where he pulls out a Beretta, drops the mag, cycles the slide, and pronounces the gun as being “clean”, and I just hate that attitude.

I like the idea of Rule 1 being “The safe handling of guns is independent of the loaded status of any gun, and it is necessary to know the loaded status of any gun being handled.” I agree that the “all guns are always loaded” is a simpler phrase, and that it can cause some intellectual disconnect between reality and the message that the Rule is attempting to convey. I came up in a Gun Culture 1.0 kind of environment, where I was introduced to guns as a kid by my parents. The advantage that method provided was a level of discipline, enforcement, and consequences around gunhandling that really cannot be achieved around the adult friends, romantic partners, and training instructors that are typically introducing Gun Culture 2.0 to guns.

I like professional instructors best for this because they’ll have the most safety experience, best explanations, and ability to generate consequences for safety infractions. As an example, a friend who I consider a casual kind of gun owner who got himself a pistol as an adult muzzled me without any awareness of the act when I was visiting him. I had a 10 minute chat with him about safety, because I couldn’t ignore it, but as kid, around my family, such an act would have likely garnered me a literal beating.

I have a Lasergrip heading my way. While I intend to use it as supplement to my RDS on the gun, I also want to see what it’ll do to to people’s gunhandling. The mental gymnastics required to imagine the muzzle direction of a long gun are much simpler than that of the handgun, and it’s my hope that the laser will lend assistance in this task. “Don’t let that dot touch anyone”

[BehindBlueI's]

Very easily. It provides a level of redundancy. If all 4 rules are in play, at least 2 must be violated before anything really bad happens.

The same is true of the 3 rules. At least two must be violated before an AD results in injury or death. Rule 1 provides no redundancy as it is not actionable.

If I were next to you or the OP on a firing line (and if I knew you were you) I wouldn't feel unsafe because you don't like Rule #1. I would hope you wouldn't feel unsafe next to me simply because I like Rule #1. I hope this doesn't divide PF members into two camps, that would be silly.

Of course not. However, I see the results of literal minded people and the 4 rules. For newbies, I'd rather not put the notion that loaded/unloaded matters.

[SiriusBlunder]

This is what's written in Cooper's Commentaries Volume 6, #2:

RULE 1
ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
The only exception to this occurs when one has a weapon in his hands and he has personally unloaded it for checking. As soon as he puts it down, Rule 1 applies again.

https://www.scribd.com/document/7941...-Volume-6-1998

This exception makes more sense to me since there is no way I can dry-fire or disassemble a loaded Glock or check barrel/cylinder alignment on a revolver, etc, if I always treat them as loaded.

I've also heard others opine that rules 2-4 only apply to loaded guns, but that discussion will open another can of worms...

ETA: I agree with the issues others have with #1. It is literally not true and thus confusing, if you don't include the exception.

[BehindBlueI's]

I've also heard others opine that rules 2-4 only apply to loaded guns, but that discussion will open another can of worms...

Yup, that's my point. When you introduce the notion that loaded/unloaded matters, that's the result you get with folks with a literal mindset. I would hazard to guess that includes you, as you brought up the inability to dry fire if you truly pretended it was always loaded.

However, without the 1st rule, dry fire follows the same rules. You still have to point the gun at something you're willing to destroy. A stone wall, a stack of phone books taped together, whatever, something that would catch a bullet if you were to screw up and not properly clear it.

[BillSWPA]

The same is true of the 3 rules. At least two must be violated before an AD results in injury or death. Rule 1 provides no redundancy as it is not actionable.



Of course not. However, I see the results of literal minded people and the 4 rules. For newbies, I'd rather not put the notion that loaded/unloaded matters.

Every time I teach beginners, there is some point in the lesson (prior to going to the range to shoot) when the gun is pointed at me, simply because the beginner is not yet fully conditioned to keep it pointed in a safe direction. They are also not good with trigger finger discipline. I always use this as a teaching moment to emphasize how easy it is to get too complacent and make a mistake. So why have I never been shot? Because rule #1 has already been carefully followed. The gun has already been verified to be unloaded.



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