Not how this works
Christmas afternoon 1979: my grandfather, a combat veteran of several real-life shooting wars, taught me how to shoot straight when I was just five years old when he handed me my first Red Ryder BB gun.
However, first came the basics of firearm safety.
Thus:
Fast forward 40 years and I have shot literally hundreds of different guns ranging from that .177 to 155mm howitzers across five continents and the basics of safety have all remained the same.
I’ve also trained thousands, both in LE/Security courses and “civilian” CCW classes and the first thing that happens is a check of all guns, pockets, boxes, tables, and floors to ensure that nothing resembling brass or ammo is removed– not only from the chamber and magazines but from the area altogether– before the class commences. Chambers then get inspected by at least two other sets of eyeballs and fingers beside the class member’s to build confidence that no one is going to get zapped by a negligent discharge.
Even then, said muzzle remains clear of people and fingers remain off the trigger/out of the trigger well until in a safe and cleared direction/environment. You could almost say that we treated the guns as if they were loaded, even when we believed they were not.
The number of casualties seen at my courses over the years (not caused by staplers) = zero.
This is why stuff like this burns me up.
From the Palm Springs Desert Sun
A Riverside man attending a firearms training class to get his concealed weapons permit was accidentally shot by a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department trainer, the department told The Desert Sun.
On Aug. 10, the man, identified only as a civilian, was participating in a course at the Ben Clark Training Center’s gun range in Riverside.
According to a department news release issued in response to questions from The Desert Sun, gun range staff inspect students’ firearms during the course and students are instructed to unload their guns.
During the inspection, the range staff member — a civilian instructor the department did not identify — administered a “trigger pull test” and shot the student in the leg. Range staff initially treated the injured man.
Let’s get a little refresher on firearms safety here, please. Just 17 words:
Be safe out there, kids.
