azrocks
Member
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2016
- Messages
- 659
Thanks to being in quarantine, I have some time on my hands. So maybe I can help some of the new shooters out there who may not have the benefit of experience to realize that the rules of firearm safety involve more than meets the eye.
We all should know Jeff Cooper's 4 rules of firearm safety. Here's a link to them in case you don't: http://www.donath.org/Rants/TheFourRules/
What may stand out to you is the fact these rules are redundant, which may lead shooters inexperienced (in negligent discharges) to conclude following them all to not be important. "If I never point a firearm at anything I'm not willing to destroy, who cares if my finger's on the trigger?". Or "If I never have my finger on the trigger, what does it matter where my muzzle is pointed?". Or "Maybe that firearm is loaded, but I just checked mine, so it can't hurt anyone".
I never had the pleasure to meet Mr. Cooper, so I can't speak to his motivation, but I'd be amazed if this redundancy wasn't intentional. Why is redundancy necessary? Why can't we just pick & choose one or two rules to follow? Because we're human, imperfect, and make mistakes.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an experience of mine I'm not particularly proud of. A couple decades back a friend and I were together, while I casually dry-fired in the direction of a nearby T.V. (Sorry, Mork from Ork. Nothing personal). The first thing I had done was empty the handgun, placing the live rounds in a designated location. So I knew the handgun wasn't loaded, because I had just unloaded it. I knew my target, it was Mork. My finger was never placed on the trigger until aligned with the target. And the television set was a 10-year-old 20"; I may not necessarily have been willing to destroy it, but it wouldn't hurt if I did.
As it just so happens, I did.
Click, click, click, pause, jabber, jabber, BAAAAAMMM!
It wasn't until our ears stopped ringing that I figured out what had happened. In the midst of our conversation, I had set the handgun down, while my friend picked it up to examine it. Unfortunately, he knew me too well, and - knowing I always kept my handgun loaded & chambered - he replaced the live rounds I had removed before setting it back down. I then picked it back up, assuming it to be as I left it, only to assassinate the most comical extraterrestrial visitor the world has ever known.
Out of all 4 rules, I had obeyed 3. Yet a round had been discharged and a television had been destroyed. Did the 4 rules of firearm safety work for me that day? YES.
Why? Redundancy. Redundancy is what prevented that CRT tube from being my friend or someone in the next room. Redundancy is what prevented it from being myself. Redundancy is what allowed me to make a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake that I'm quite ashamed to admit to anyone - as I should be - without loss of life as a result.
Now ask yourself what might have happened had I discarded one or two rules as unnecessary. What if I had decided that the rule requiring me to only let my muzzle cover something I was willing to destroy was pointless, since I knew I'd never point a loaded gun at my buddy? What if I had picked it up fingering the trigger in my lap since I knew it was empty? What if I never checked if someone in the next room over was in my line of (unintentional) fire?
But you'll never make a similar mistake, right? YOU pay attention. YOU are never distracted. YOU always check your firearm for clear each and every time you pick it up, right? Wrong. The only character in this tale who isn't human is Mork, and as much as it pains me to say it, he's not real. You are real, you are human, and the very fact you've made other mistakes in your life (right?) is proof that given enough time, one day, some way, you'll make a mistake with a firearm. The question is: what will the consequences of that mistake be?
That's the beauty of the 4 rules of firearm safety. So long as you endeavor to follow each and every one of them, at all times, without fail - then when you DO FAIL, the results will likely not be loss-of-life tragic. When you do fail in one rule, the others will be there to have your back. When you do fail, you may be ashamed, you may be ridiculed, and you may be replacing inanimate objects of value. But with any luck you won't ruin your life and/or someone else's.
We all should know Jeff Cooper's 4 rules of firearm safety. Here's a link to them in case you don't: http://www.donath.org/Rants/TheFourRules/
What may stand out to you is the fact these rules are redundant, which may lead shooters inexperienced (in negligent discharges) to conclude following them all to not be important. "If I never point a firearm at anything I'm not willing to destroy, who cares if my finger's on the trigger?". Or "If I never have my finger on the trigger, what does it matter where my muzzle is pointed?". Or "Maybe that firearm is loaded, but I just checked mine, so it can't hurt anyone".
I never had the pleasure to meet Mr. Cooper, so I can't speak to his motivation, but I'd be amazed if this redundancy wasn't intentional. Why is redundancy necessary? Why can't we just pick & choose one or two rules to follow? Because we're human, imperfect, and make mistakes.
Allow me to illustrate this point with an experience of mine I'm not particularly proud of. A couple decades back a friend and I were together, while I casually dry-fired in the direction of a nearby T.V. (Sorry, Mork from Ork. Nothing personal). The first thing I had done was empty the handgun, placing the live rounds in a designated location. So I knew the handgun wasn't loaded, because I had just unloaded it. I knew my target, it was Mork. My finger was never placed on the trigger until aligned with the target. And the television set was a 10-year-old 20"; I may not necessarily have been willing to destroy it, but it wouldn't hurt if I did.
As it just so happens, I did.
Click, click, click, pause, jabber, jabber, BAAAAAMMM!
It wasn't until our ears stopped ringing that I figured out what had happened. In the midst of our conversation, I had set the handgun down, while my friend picked it up to examine it. Unfortunately, he knew me too well, and - knowing I always kept my handgun loaded & chambered - he replaced the live rounds I had removed before setting it back down. I then picked it back up, assuming it to be as I left it, only to assassinate the most comical extraterrestrial visitor the world has ever known.
Out of all 4 rules, I had obeyed 3. Yet a round had been discharged and a television had been destroyed. Did the 4 rules of firearm safety work for me that day? YES.
Why? Redundancy. Redundancy is what prevented that CRT tube from being my friend or someone in the next room. Redundancy is what prevented it from being myself. Redundancy is what allowed me to make a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake that I'm quite ashamed to admit to anyone - as I should be - without loss of life as a result.
Now ask yourself what might have happened had I discarded one or two rules as unnecessary. What if I had decided that the rule requiring me to only let my muzzle cover something I was willing to destroy was pointless, since I knew I'd never point a loaded gun at my buddy? What if I had picked it up fingering the trigger in my lap since I knew it was empty? What if I never checked if someone in the next room over was in my line of (unintentional) fire?
But you'll never make a similar mistake, right? YOU pay attention. YOU are never distracted. YOU always check your firearm for clear each and every time you pick it up, right? Wrong. The only character in this tale who isn't human is Mork, and as much as it pains me to say it, he's not real. You are real, you are human, and the very fact you've made other mistakes in your life (right?) is proof that given enough time, one day, some way, you'll make a mistake with a firearm. The question is: what will the consequences of that mistake be?
That's the beauty of the 4 rules of firearm safety. So long as you endeavor to follow each and every one of them, at all times, without fail - then when you DO FAIL, the results will likely not be loss-of-life tragic. When you do fail in one rule, the others will be there to have your back. When you do fail, you may be ashamed, you may be ridiculed, and you may be replacing inanimate objects of value. But with any luck you won't ruin your life and/or someone else's.
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