Self-Defense Tip: Never Point a Gun at Something Unless and Until You’re Ready to Destroy It

1. I often get lasered each time I go into a gun store, usually from other customers.I have thought about making a t-shirt that says, “Don’t laser me bro!”

   “Oh and when gun handling in your home, remember that walls and floors don’t exist. If you have to aim somewhere, the corner of most buildings has iron reinforcement.”

   I live in a wood frame house, which I’m sure does not have any iron reinforcement. But, point taken.

   I dry fire in my basement towards the poured concrete foundation wall. That is the safest direction I know of in my house.

2. I chamber and clear my firearms pointed down the basement stairs. If it goes boom my hearing will suffer but the round will never leave the premises.

3. It’s rule #1 for a reason.
   At the NRA convention in Pittsburgh this year I lost count of how many times I got swept if not aimed at. It was very crowded, so it was hard to find a safe direction, but to look up and see someone pointing at you is really unnerving. I moved around a lot.
   I do practice gun handling with my handguns, particularly for dry firing or drawing from concealment. I have to check my firearm half a dozen times thoroughly before I can feel comfortable pulling the trigger and often a couple of times in between, just in case one of those magic bullets are hiding somewhere.

   • Rule #2 in my book, rule #1 & #5 is “A firearm is always loaded.”

4. He also doesn’t clear the gun immediately after picking it up, and he’s futzing around with semis with magazines in them without knowing definitively that there’s no bullet in the chamber. And he’s racking the slides, finger near the trigger… Yoda, the force is not with you.

   I think the only time I might have the muzzle pointed towards my body is when I’m using a bore snake to clean the barrel. Even then I’m cognizant of where it’s pointing, and don’t let it spend a lot of time in that orientation. I approach the problem as one of probabilities. Once I clear the gun and I’m in control of it, the odds of discharge are small. And if I keep the muzzle pointed in a low-lethality direction, the odds of hurting someone go down further. And if I keep my stinking finger off the trigger, etc. The effects of safe gun handling are cumulative. The effects of unsafe gun handling are as well.

5. Am I the only person who doesn’t point the muzzle of a gun at myself or someone else under any circumstances, ever?

   If you’re the only person who never, ever cleans his guns, then the answer is yes.

   • Don’t forget any necessary gunsmithing….

6. Given the funny looks I get, I am probably the only one who also puts the yellow and black caution tape on the side of plastic hard cases so before I open the case I know the direction of the muzzle before I open the case and I can spin it around so that it is not pointing at anyone before opening the case.

7. Gunnies’ Yoda is oh so comfortable around guns – that’s obvious.
   Nothing can go wrong with that, can it?

8. Not to be (overly) obnoxious, but Nerf guns propel a projectile…are they weapons?

   JSG

   • No.

   • I had responded earlier to Robert, that I would not paint any weapon blue (even an airsoft gun), for it still propels a projectile. Somehow it went to response heaven, or was deleted, but I gather you must have seen it briefly, for your response seemed to be based on my entry. That said, yes it is a stretch to say a airsoft gun is a weapon, but I’ll take the “better safe then sorry approach” and be called a worry wart or worse!

     • Hey, Taurus609! There you are! I don’t know what happened to your comment, but I was remarking on what you’d said. I’m all for the better safe approach, I just think there’s a line. Airsoft is a viable training tool, the color change prevents any inadvertent mix-up, in theory. I think I’d prefer orange or yellow, though.

       JSG

       And apparently nesting is dead, for the moment…

   • Um…what happened to the comment I was replying to? I was nested under it and everything…

     My comment was not directed toward the post, it was directed toward someone saying they would not paint any weapon blue, not even airsoft because they still propel projectiles.

     I’d apologize for any confusion, but I’m confused…even the time stamps are screwy.

9. 1. remove slide or open cylinder before cleaning

   2. it’s a simple rule, easy to follow

   3. dry fire with snap caps

10. Can’t practice reload drills with a airsoft or solid plastic replica. Do have to make damn sure you have nothing or snap caps in it.

    • Sure you can. It depends on which model you buy. I have a 1911 I bought a few years back. It has detachable magazines that hold the CO2 and 6MM pellets. Blowback operates the slide to chamber another pellet. The Airsoft 1911 and magazines have the same dimensions of a real 1911 so I can use my holsters and mag carriers to practice drills. Works great! Finding all the pellets can be a PITA sometimes.

11. Ralph’s right on target again, because it’s pretty tough to clean your gun without getting lasered. I always avoid covering anyone with the muzzle and I hate when people do it to me.

12. When a weapon is in an unknown state, sure, you can never be too careful about keeping the loud end away from anything you don’t want a hole in.

    However, when a weapon is in a known state, which I’m willing to bet something you’d prepared in advance to make a video about would fall under, it’s something less of an issue.

    I don’t have a huge problem being somewhat less concerned about muzzle control when I know a weapon is clear, especially given that I’m particularly fastidious about remaining aware what state a weapon is in as well as trigger discipline whenever handling one.

    The idea that someone could actually drop a hammer on a live round without full and complete knowledge of what was going to happen is entirely alien to me.

    • “The idea that someone could actually drop a hammer on a live round without full and complete knowledge of what was going to happen is entirely alien to me.”+1Safety rules are always to the observed.To me things like snap caps provide nothing more than a layer of false sense of safety.

13. I’ve internalized this rule rather well. Honestly I thought anyone even making to this site has. Never been lasered at any shop, range, or show.

14. I consider myself a very careful person, especially around firearms, but I think there’s a point where we can falsely make them out to be pure danger, thus almost playing into the hands of those who are afraid of guns because they think they’re just sentient evil or something. When clearing, checking, etc., then of course one can never be too careful. But after it’s checked and cleared…that’s that.It’s a popular sentiment that guns are in essence tools – another article of survival that should be used and respected. In that same vein, if I personally clear and check a gun and perhaps give it a dry fire or two, it shouldn’t be feared any more than a circular saw that’s been unplugged or had the blade removed. I don’t see a problem practicing draw and the like if it’s been thoroughly cleared and checked.I’m not anti-safety; quite the opposite. Safety is paramount. I just think there’s a point where a gun can be called “clear and safe” and be treated as such. As a side effect, treating a gun as perpetually dangerous only helps to reinforce the arguments of antis.

    (This is all intended for personal, private usage. In public, at shows and ranges, then yes, hyper-safety is called for and required. No one has any business lasering anyone else, no matter how sure they are, because the guy being lasered is the one who has the gun pointed at him)

    • “Safety is paramount.”

      Exactly, and Robert just channels his grandmother(s). To be perfectly clear, RF’s position in the OP seems to be a very Jewish sentiment — at least in the sense that it takes a commandment (in this case, one of the big three), and builds an inordinately large fence around it so that, as long as the fence is not breached, there is no conceivable way the commandment could be violated.

      Do I agree with the above practice? Not really, which is why I’m comfortable enjoying cheeseburgers. Does that mean I like being muzzled? Hell no.

15. I was recently reading something written by Elmer Keith in which he said he always treated all of his guns as if they were loaded because…they were. All of them, all of the time. I think he unloaded them to clean them, though.

16. The most dangerous firearm is an unloaded firearm.

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