Today is going to be a serious topic. This one was supposed to follow the April Fools podcast but you know, stuff got in the way. Today we are going to talk about firearm safety.

I the firearm circles, anytime a firearm accident occurs, the term usually used is ‘negligent discharge’. The reason it is negligent is because one of the primary rules of gun safety has to be violated in order for it to occur in the first place.

Various organizations have three to ten rules that essentially represent the same principals. I will write the version that I use below.

  1. Treat every firearm as it is loaded all the time
  2. Never point the barrel at something you are not willing to shoot
  3. Know what is behind your target
  4. Keep your finger off of the trigger until ready to shoot

https://www.military.com/video/guns/gunfire/firearm-negligence/1676955087001 I tried to get this to work as an embed, clearly I need to spend some more time trying to figure out the actual code to do it as it wouldn’t natively convert. But this is a short video on some examples of stuff that can happen.

I once had a negligent discharge and fortunately there was no serious consequences. It was definitely a life altering experience and made me completely re-evaluate safety and my approach. So what happened?

I once owned a pistol and periodically the trigger did not reset when I was shooting. The first time it occurred, I pulled the trigger back for a second shot and no action. I was messing around with the firearm trying to figure out what was wrong while it was still loaded and cocked and the gun fired in the air. In that case, I violated rules one, three and four and arguably all of them.

If you are around gun culture long enough, most people have a similar story. I know for me, it made me take safety much more seriously. If that were to happen now I would stop, unload and then try to figure out the problem. Most accidents occur because of carelessness or ignorance. In my case, I would say both were true.

I am so thankful that I was lucky the pistol was pointed in a safe direction for me. I cant say that I know what was behind my target but I was in the woods so the probability was extremely small. That could have easily been deadly because I was seriously not paying attention to the risks. It is one of the reasons that I advocate for a ‘Range Safety Officer’ with even informal settings because they can intervene when not everyone is paying attention.

In case you are wondering, I don’t own that pistol anymore because I couldn’t trust it to fire reliably.