The Price of
Carelessness
June 29, 2009
A safety reminder from Massad
Ayoob
From Backwoods Home Magazine
May 25th, 2009 by Massad Ayoob
Think of your gun as a power
tool. A remote control drill, if
you will. You wouldn’t rest your
chain saw with its blade in your
lap even if you were sure it
wasn’t turned on. What possesses
people to treat more cavalierly
the power tool we call a
firearm?
One of my pet peeves has always
been the practice common among
sporting clay bird shooters to
rest the shotgun with its muzzle
on their shoe, with the
“business end” of that power
tool literally at muzzle contact
with their foot. They’ll tell
you, “Don’t worry, it isn’t
loaded.” What’s that old saying
again, about so many people
being accidentally shot with
empty guns?
Below, courtesy of a friend who
is one of the top small arms
experts living in my opinion,
are some pictures of what can
happen when such a practice goes
wrong. I’m told the shooter was
resting the shotgun’s muzzle on
his foot when something (most
likely an errant trigger finger)
pressed the shotgun’s trigger to
the rear.
This guy was lucky. The muzzle
was resting in the space between
the great toe and the next one.
He may or may not keep the big
toe. Had the gun been a couple
of inches back, he might have
lost the whole foot. I’m told
that it was a light clay bird
load of small #8 birdshot
pellets.
The late, great Colonel Jeff
Cooper postulated four cardinal
rules of gun safety. 1) All guns
are always loaded, and treated
as such. 2) Never allow the
muzzle to point at anything you
are not prepared to see
destroyed. 3) Do not let your
finger enter the trigger guard
unless and until you are in the
very act of intentionally firing
the weapon. 4) Be certain of
your target.
This case is a clear violation
of Rule 2 and probably Rule 3.
Public schools should teach
certain basic safety rules to
our children at a very early
age. Right up there with “Don’t
urinate on the electric fence or
the third rail”; “Don’t eat the
yellow snow”; and “Don’t stand
in the doorway of a Harley bar
and scream ‘Kawasaki rules!’;
should be…
DO NOT POINT GUN MUZZLES AT YOUR
OWN BODY PARTS!
Readers are invited to share
anecdotes of their own in this
vein
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