Best "Gun" Advice or Saying?

[bluejeans]

Every time a gun is picked up it is loaded until it is proven otherwise.

My mantra to my kids & grands: ALL guns are ALWAYS loaded. (no if's, and's, but's, treat, or assume) It's a placard over my safe door.

I MUCH prefer @theotherwaldo “ every gun is loaded until proven otherwise”... maybe it’s just me but I prefer my truisms to be TRUE. I understand and agree with the idea of the safety margin the falsehood provides but I think the same safety margin can be provided (and better maintained) from a truthful base.. (I.e. it safer to treat a gun as loaded even when you know it’s not ... as well as reinforcing good habits).
I remember being genuinely confused as a kid when an older friend of my dads was shooting with us and telling us kids that the guns were always loaded.. and then indignant when I saw he had lied... then resentful that he didn’t trust me with the truth (once my dad explained what he meant) ... and for a long time after, uncertain what a person meant when they said a certain gun was loaded.
My two young boys show signs of being just as stubborn as myself so I want tell them the truth and not give them reason to question my words. Words have meaning and if we start using them for anything other than they mean thenweve just ruined the word ( cs Lewis)

It's pointless to have a weapon if you have no training, practice or situational awareness.

.
I shudder to think what a liberal lawmaker would like to do based on a phrase like yours... in fact it’s very close to what I hear from anti-gunners. Once established all that’s left is to define proper “training” and they could exclude gun ownership from most people.
I can think of several reasons why a weapon could not be pointless... perhaps, yes, but by no means necessarily. If nothing else, (from your own statement) one usually needs a gun as a prerequisite to training or practicing... is that weapon pointless? What about the old guy who buys an at-15 just because he believes it’s his right as a citizen to own one and he wants to support the industry even though he never plans to shoot it? What about ... (too many more..)

 

[Balrog]

"In love and war, there is no such thing as too much penetration"

 

[GEM]

From a match today:

If someone gets accidentally shot and you call 911, don't say there is a shooting at the range. Say that there has been a firearms accident at the range.

If you say the first, SWAT will arrive and that's no fun.

 

[Labguy47]

Never shoot a large caliber man with a small caliber bullet. ~Gunny 2/2 Fox Co.

 

[medic68]

Never shoot a large caliber man with a small caliber bullet. ~Gunny 2/2 Fox Co.

I think I know Gunny's brother!

 

[GEM]

I'll make up a new one or two:

Most gun sayings came from old toots who can't figure out an Iphone or Android
Most gun sayings came from the time of dial phones

 

[Jeb Stuart]

--------

 

[alfsauve]

Most gun sayings came from the time of dial phones

Mine come from a time when you picked up the phone and the operator said, "Number please."

That was customer service. No dial it yourself.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

I'll make up a new one or two:

Most gun sayings came from old toots who can't figure out an Iphone or Android
Most gun sayings came from the time of dial phones

The proper term is "Old Coot" ya young whippersnapper...

 

[Old Dog]

Most gun sayings came from old toots who can't figure out an Iphone or Android
Most gun sayings came from the time of dial phones

Yep.

All the good stuff was said back in the day when words had meaning, when our young folks had to learn how to do math in their head or with a paper and pencil and learned English in grammar school, when our kids actually learned about the Constitution and American history in public schools, when males wore pants that actually fit and didn't expose their buttocks and knew enough to take off their hats in restaurants or during the playing of the national anthem, when music had actual melodies that could be hummed and the lyrics could be easily understood, when civility was the rule rather than the exception … oh, and when people interacted face-to-face instead of with grammatically-challenged bytes on social media or by text-messaging.

Once I thought Jeff Cooper was a curmudgeon who was woefully behind the times; now … I get it … Guess I'm an "old toot" but I at least I have finally figured out my Android. The hubris of youth: not understanding that experience is more valuable than keeping up with the latest fads and believing that a superficial knowledge of technology trumps real wisdom.

 

[MedWheeler]

You're here today because your ancestors shot straight when they needed to.

 

[Shanghai McCoy]

Yep.
Once I thought Jeff Cooper was a curmudgeon who was woefully behind the times; now … I get it … Guess I'm an "old toot" but I at least I have finally figured out my Android. The hubris of youth: not understanding that experience is more valuable than keeping up with the latest fads and believing that a superficial knowledge of technology trumps real wisdom.

Age and experience,( or treachery ), often beats youth and enthusiasm...

 

[GEM]

I am an old coot or toot. As Massad Ayoob says at our age, never trust a toot (ruder word used by him and some other funny aphorisms not for the family).

I'm afraid some when the current generation ages out, their old codger advice will be:

1. You can't shoot a Glock because of the grip angle. Is the Glock carbine released yet?
2. Five is enough
3. At least Hillary, didn't ban all the assault rifles. Donald did (ouch)
4. Is the 1911 obsolete (still discussed)?

 

[Old Dog]

Found some more (most of you have probably seen these in some incarnation or other before):

Rules for a gun fight

Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns. Bring four times the ammunition you think you could ever need.

Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammunition is cheap – life is expensive. If you shoot inside, buckshot is your friend. A new wall is cheap – funerals are expensive

Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.

If your shooting stance is good, you’re probably not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.

Move away from your attacker and go to cover. Distance is your friend. (Bulletproof cover and diagonal or lateral movement are preferred.)

If you can choose what to bring to a gunfight, bring a semi or full-automatic long gun and a friend with a long gun.

In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.

Accuracy is relative: most combat shooting standards will be more dependent on “pucker factor” than the inherent accuracy of the gun.

Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty. [My personal favorite]

Have a plan.

Have a back-up plan, because the first one won’t work. “No battle plan ever survives 10 seconds past first contact with an enemy.”

Use cover or concealment as much as possible, but remember, sheetrock walls and the like stop nothing but your pulse when bullets tear through them.

Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.

Don’t drop your guard.

Practice reloading one-handed and off-hand shooting. That’s how you live if hit in your “good” side.

Watch their hands. Hands kill. Smiles, frowns and other facial expressions don’t (In God we trust. Everyone else keep your hands where I can see them.)

Decide NOW to always be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.

The faster you finish the fight, the less shot you will get.

Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet if necessary, because they may want to kill you.

Be courteous to everyone, overly friendly to no one.

Your number one option for personal security is a lifelong commitment to avoidance, deterrence, and de-escalation. [ Cannot be said enough!]

Practice shooting in the dark, with someone shouting at you, when out of breath, etc.

Regardless of whether justified of not, you will feel sad about killing another human being. It is better to be sad than to be room temperature.

The only thing you EVER say afterwards is, “He said he was going to kill me. I believed him. I’m sorry, Officer, but I’m very upset now. I can’t say anything more. Please speak with my attorney.”

Never be unarmed.

 

[Jeb Stuart]

Become one, with the gun.

 

[.308 Norma]

Mine come from a time when you picked up the phone and the operator said, "Number please."

Well, mine aren't quite that old, but they did come from the time of a party line - "two longs and a short" was our ring, and the phone company cut us off after six and a half minutes.
Trying to keep this gun related, "six and a half minutes" goes by rather quickly when you're a 16 year-old hunting crazy kid talking to your buddies about guns. But the truth is, "six and a half minutes" went by rather quickly when I was a 16 year-old girl crazy boy talking to girls about things that didn't have anything to do with guns.

 

[theotherwaldo]

Gun (and other) advice from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
-Advice from the four thousand year old man.

 

[GEM]

Lazarus Long went back in time to ‘ahem’ his mother and also ‘partied’ with his cloned twin sisters. Not a role model.

 

[theotherwaldo]

You gain wisdom by observing the long-lived, then emulating those characteristics that come from wisdom,
No one is always wise - or moral.

 

[ATLDave]

 

[Bbear]

Thought of another

"Know the difference between Concealment and Cover"

 

[Mn Fats]

That whole booger hook off the boom switch saying pisses me off. I did get to say it the non mall ninja way this weekend.

"Finger off the trigger until your target is in sight". I said that at least 10 times this last weekend teaching my 8 year old sons best buddy how to shoot a Red Ryder. In one weekend he learned to shoot, ride a mini bike, start a fire, cook a smore. He wanted to try my 22's but I never met his parents. City people can be VERY sensitive about firearms.

 

[Milt1]

Shootum! (From our Cajun friend)

 

[medic68]

Yep.

All the good stuff was said back in the day when words had meaning, when our young folks had to learn how to do math in their head or with a paper and pencil and learned English in grammar school, when our kids actually learned about the Constitution and American history in public schools, when males wore pants that actually fit and didn't expose their buttocks and knew enough to take off their hats in restaurants or during the playing of the national anthem, when music had actual melodies that could be hummed and the lyrics could be easily understood, when civility was the rule rather than the exception … oh, and when people interacted face-to-face instead of with grammatically-challenged bytes on social media or by text-messaging.

Once I thought Jeff Cooper was a curmudgeon who was woefully behind the times; now … I get it … Guess I'm an "old toot" but I at least I have finally figured out my Android. The hubris of youth: not understanding that experience is more valuable than keeping up with the latest fads and believing that a superficial knowledge of technology trumps real wisdom.

Amen