USMC Off-Duty Firearms Safety Lessons Learned 2018

[GardoneVT]

The CG of a post (don't remember which one) in Alaska forbade off-duty carry a few years back. I don't know whether that rule is still in force or if it was ignored.

I do remember coming into Doha from Tikrit and getting dirty looks because a) I still had my rifle and b) I was grungy (because Iraq).

As I remember ,the order was in response to an off-post shooting by soldiers who held CCW permits. The Army regional commanding officer then forbade any permanent member stationed under their command to carry off post, CCW be damned.

The order was eventually rescinded. It was a memorable case as a squadron mate came back from TDY up there and relayed the fact visitors to that regional command weren’t bound by the rule; so ironically any military member who was just visiting could carry as they wished off post.

[JTQ]

I used to work at the USAF Operations Center, one of the regular traffic items that came through was the USN Safety Newsletter (or whatever they called it). At the time, the USN top safety guy was Rear Admiral Frank M. "Skip" Dirren. That guy must have been a hoot in person, because his safety write-ups were hilarious. They were terrible, tragic events, but as only people that work with injury and death on a regular basis do, they put humor into it to keep us sane.

[Jim Watson]

I think one contributor to off duty inadvertent discharges is the attitude that training with issue weapons assures knowledge of all firearms.

[Trooper224]

I used to work at the USAF Operations Center, one of the regular traffic items that came through was the USN Safety Newsletter (or whatever they called it). At the time, the USN top safety guy was Rear Admiral Frank M. "Skip" Dirren. That guy must have been a hoot in person, because his safety write-ups were hilarious. They were terrible, tragic events, but as only people that work with injury and death on a regular basis do, they put humor into it to keep us sane.

Back in my day in the USN, the Plan of the Day was read every morning at quarters. The final section always included accidents or tragic events incurred by local sailors, on the order of traffic crashes, DUI's, arrests, etc. The attitude was always completely lacking in sympathy and always in the vein of "Seaman Stupid was a dumbass. Don't be Stupid." It's nice to see some things haven't changed.

[JRB]

I've noted a profound difference between Soldiers that were raised around weapons, and Soldiers that saw a rifle for the first time in BCT/OSUT.

Some of the former have a few bad habits, but generally obey all the rules ALL THE TIME and treat weapons with respect.

The latter tend toward the 'but it's unloaded' sorts of complacent behavior. Once the mags are out and they're rodded off the range, muzzle awareness goes right out the window. Culturally the military is profoundly bad at correcting those sorts of personnel, too. E4's look at me and roll their eyes when I chew on them about muzzle awareness while they're cleaning weapons.

I'd love to see data on these sorts of 'lessons learned' by military personnel and whether or not they had firearms experience prior to military service.
I suspect we'd see the really stupid accidents trending toward folks who first touched a firearm in basic.

[GardoneVT]

I've noted a profound difference between Soldiers that were raised around weapons, and Soldiers that saw a rifle for the first time in BCT/OSUT.

Some of the former have a few bad habits, but generally obey all the rules ALL THE TIME and treat weapons with respect.

The latter tend toward the 'but it's unloaded' sorts of complacent behavior. Once the mags are out and they're rodded off the range, muzzle awareness goes right out the window. Culturally the military is profoundly bad at correcting those sorts of personnel, too. E4's look at me and roll their eyes when I chew on them about muzzle awareness while they're cleaning weapons.

I'd love to see data on these sorts of 'lessons learned' by military personnel and whether or not they had firearms experience prior to military service.
I suspect we'd see the really stupid accidents trending toward folks who first touched a firearm in basic.

The best shooters I knew were people who’d never fired a gun before Basic. The people who’d been raised around guns (or at least claimed so) tended to be complacent about gun safety, which unfortunately dovetails with what I’ve seen on ranges and gun shops too.

[JRB]

The best shooters I knew were people who’d never fired a gun before Basic. The people who’d been raised around guns (or at least claimed so) tended to be complacent about gun safety, which unfortunately dovetails with what I’ve seen on ranges and gun shops too.

Cleetus and Fudd are absolutely unlimited in their ability to say, do, or demonstrate dumb shit. That goes without saying.

What I'm saying is that prior experience tends to respect the basic safe handling rules ALL THE TIME whereas the mil-only types tend to treat getting rodded off the range as a free pass to ignore safe weapons handling.

The sad sacks that talk about their own guns and talk a big game about shooting expert, only to perform poorly and blame everything else are usually the same shitbirds in all other aspects of their performance as well.
The opposite is also true of folks who take their job seriously and they tend to perform well regardless of prior experience, because they listen to the instruction instead of letting their ego get in the way.