A gun is always loaded

[feralmerril]

Over 40 years ago I and my friend went into a gun shop and I bought a set of grips for my model 60. His house was nearby so we went there to put the grips on and bs. Thank God his wife wasnt home. We were sitting faceing each other and I unloaded the gun. Bill picked it up and dry fired it at a picture rug nailed to the wall with a moose on it. I then put the grips on, bill again picked it up and dry fired it at the rug again. Now looking him in the eye I reloaded the smith while we were BSing and again set it down on the coffee table. Bill reached over and again picked it up and as I said, HEY! Bill shot the moose rug nailed to the wall! He said, "Well ya rotten ------! He was sure I had pulled a joke on him and said he never seen me load the revolver while we were sitting directly across the coffee table looking at each other! Bill was a gun nut, and a cop!

 

[moosedog]

Kanewpadle, I did pass the info on and several others saw it too. I myself am not a member but a friend is. I suggested that they have a saftey officer check guns at the entry point.
I went back and talked to the guy after about a half hour and he really appoligized and was embarrassed as all heck. He wasn't a bad guy, just human.

 

[ladder13]

With all do respect to each and every one of you. You want to show me a gun and I'm going to ask you to check it first, then I'm going to check it myself.

Preferably with the muzzle pointed away from me.

 

[sideways]

My pap use to say its them empty ones that will kill ya.

 

[kennyb]

hey sideways...do you know a guy down your way named turtleman?

 

[pineappleshooter]

My uncle was cleaning his unloaded Luger and it went off and skipped a bullet of his concrete porch and hit my aunt in the calf. He never lived that one down!

 

[sideways]

hey sideways...do you know a guy down your way named turtleman?

I wish I did, I'd give him a one eyed chicken and a piece apple pie to get rid of that groundhog under my shed.

 

[Kavinsky]

you guys are also forgetting something else.

use your pinky finger to check to make sure there isnt a blackend by burnt powder round sitting down in the chamber if the caliber isnt big enough so that you can easily see that theres nothing in there.

that was something a marine who was teaching one my classes told me as some guy he knew had checked a .22 rifle. thought it was empty but found out it wasnt the hard way thankfully without hurting anyone because of a round just like that.

 

[2152hq]

The tube feed 22cal rifles are the most prone to fire when they are 'unloaded' I would say.
Maybe it's because there are just so many of them around,,but a round can hang up in the tube for any number of reasons and give the impression of the rifle being empty.

Aside from stupidity and carelessness,,I think those particular actions have caused more empty guns to go bang than any other.

The red or orange plastic mag tube follower is helpfull if the user bothers to look for it. Earlier guns don't have them.

Handling thousands of them at Marlin in the Repair Dept, we had one safety rule on those that demanded you put dummy round through the tube and action and eject it back out into your hand before you did anything with the rifle. Every so often Mr Dummy Round never came back out of the rifle.

A 4" thick laminated oak block mounted at the end of each work bench in line with your vise was meant to snare any live round that went off while working on a gun.
I doubt it would contain the 30-30 at that distance,,but it'd do Ok for the .22's. Any check & clear was done pointed at the ceiling anyway.

We weren't allowed any live ammo inside the dept,,so it was just for the stuff that made it in by being stuck in the action and not being cleared. It happens. Lots of loaded guns got recieved in shipping.

The 444 shipped in with the round in the chamber and the hammer @ full cock looked a little too much like a pistol at a gunshow placed back on the table with a round purposely put in the chamber though.
The PO Police looked that guy up.

Can't be carefull enough,,and we can get too comfortable.
Safety has to be a habit to be effective I believe. You do it w/o even thinking twice about it.
Otherwise it's viewed as a nuisance and people stop doing the things they need to do.

 

[wundudnee]

I was in a gunshop one time and asked if I could look at an 1890 Winchester. I was told yes so I took it off the rack and checked it first thing. Upon the pump slide being operated I saw that is was about to chamber a live round. I asked the owner if he knew that the little rifle was fully loaded he just about went white. He told me that two of his employees had shot it the night before in the shops basement and they were about to get a real chewing out.

Another thing is I have a friend that had a pawnshop. He had one of those paper paint buckets that was about half full of ammunition that he had removed from guns that were brought into his shop to pawn or sell.

I've been to two gunshows that had NDs.

 

[bushmaster1313]

Very hard to shoot someone when the muzzle is pointed in a safe direction

Even harder when you have cleared the action yourself;