A gun is always loaded

[moosedog]

I was at a small Sportsman's Club Show this evening and went to look at a nice 1944 Colt 1911A1 that was on the table of a man who just set up.
Asked if I could see it, he said "Sure" and I picked it up. Muzzle in a safe direction I racked the slide back and locked it. First thing noted was the live round on top of the magazine. I said "Your guns loaded". He was very embarrassed to say the least.
The magazine was dropped and I gave it back to him and walked away thinking what could have happened.
Always check!

 

[redlevel]

That's why we always check, ain't it? I keep some of my guns loaded in the safe, some not. I took down a M34-1 one day last week to show it to someone. I knew I had unloaded it when I put it up. I opened it up, and you guessed it, it was loaded. I dumped the cartridges and handed it to my friend. I told him I would have sworn it was empty. He grinned and said, "but me and you know they're all loaded don't we."

 

[Kelly Green]

I once shot a squirrel with an unloaded gun. My dad had just come back from hunting and I watched him unload his lever action .22 and prop it on the front porch. There was a squirrel sitting on tree limb out by the front gate so I took the rifle, sighted in and pulled the trigger. Bam! The critter fell out of the tree. I was startled. My dad came running out of the house and asked why did I do such a foolish thing and I said that I saw him unload the gun. He stated that he had unloaded it. We both learned a good lesson that day.

 

[bushmaster1313]

God gave us pinky fingers so we could check the chamber of an M16 in the dark

 

[David LaPell]

About ten years back I was in a gun shop and was looking at a PPK and dropped the mag and racked the slide and watched a live round sail through the air. It turns out that about twenty minutes before a guy was looking at that very gun. Both the shop owner and I were sure this guy probably put a round in to check how the action worked or something, but who knows really in the end. But it was a good reason why you always make sure.
A friend of mine was selling a muzzleloader to someone and he was pretty sure it was unloaded. So he put a cap on it to snap it because he was going to let the potential buyer shoot it. So when he touched the cap off he was very surprised to see a .50 caliber sabot blow a hole in his deck and into the concrete pad under it. I had a guy wanting to look at one of revolvers recently, and even though I had unloaded it, my response was "always". When they are always loaded or when we think that way, bad things dont happen.

 

[Hobie1]

I'm absolutely anal about clearing any gun I'm handling even though I know it was checked before in my "cave" or anywhere else.

I do it every time without fail and it has become such a good habit that it's reflex.

No gun is safe until you verify it so.

Hobie

 

[s&wchad]

It was good seeing you at the swap meet today. Well done.

I took off about 5 o'clock; the crowd and the open bar are a bit much for my tastes. Needless to say, someone could have been injured or killed and an ND would have been a major problem for the club.

Thanks for the pistol rugs, I'll put them to good use!

 

[Kanewpadle]

I don't care if it was Clint Smith or Mas Ayoob that I just watched unload a gun and hand it to me, I still check it again.

I worked at a local gun shop for a while part time. I could tell you some stories.

Here's one.

During a weekend a gun shop employee took in a very nice used Wilson Combat 1911 in trade. Later in the day the same employee took the gun out to the range and shot it because he was thinking of buying it. He left ONE round in the chamber and the gun was cocked and locked.

He put the gun in the original box and then in secure storage. He then called the manager and said he wanted to buy the gun. He also suggested that he check out the gun because it was a nice Wilson.

Monday morning the manager takes the gun out of the box, swipes the safety off and pulls the trigger. BOOM! The round went through the wall into the empty space under a stairwell as two people were going up the stairs. Being armed, those two came back downstairs with guns drawn looking for trouble. All they found was a red faced manager embarrassed as heck.

 

[old bear]

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.

 

[Kanewpadle]

I was at a small Sportsman's Club Show this evening and went to look at a nice 1944 Colt 1911A1 that was on the table of a man who just set up.
Asked if I could see it, he said "Sure" and I picked it up. Muzzle in a safe direction I racked the slide back and locked it. First thing noted was the live round on top of the magazine. I said "Your guns loaded". He was very embarrassed to say the least.
The magazine was dropped and I gave it back to him and walked away thinking what could have happened.
Always check!

I'm curious. Did you report the incident?

I ask because at the gun shows I go too, if you don't report such an incident, they cancel your membership.

 

[dirty gary]

My father drilled the importance of checking any gun, and there are no exceptions. I was at the range a few days ago, a stranger asked me to look at his H&K 9mm. I watched him unload it, he handed it to me, and I checked it again. He said "Don't worry, its not loaded", to which I replied, "I know, but its always the unloaded gun that gets you in trouble". We both nodded in silent agreement. Check, recheck, and check again.

 

[amazingflapjack]

Little fingers are for more than M-16's, but a very important point. The actions on some guns can "hide" a round that can later "turn up." When I got out of the army, I was very weapons aware, you could say, and went through the family arsenal, checking everything out. We had an old pump 22 short that evryone for 3 geberations had learned to shoot with. Well, it was tired, needed a complete over haul, including a new barrel, so I went ahead and had the barrel replaced, and the action modified to shoot long rifle ammo. I told my Dad, and my brother about these changes, but they never seemed to fully get the fact that the old gal shot LR's now. Over the next 20+ years, the old gun would come out ocassionaly at family gatherings, and there were a couple of incidents where there were FTF-FTC issues, and at each of these times I reitterated that the gun had LONG AGO been changed to a LR chambering. Then about 25+ years ago, here the 2 of them are sitting on my Dad's deck on a lovely Georgia day-fiddling around with the old rifle, yet again, pumping it and looking in it while feeding yet another load of 22 shorts into it. OH MY! It wouldn't fire! Or would it? There are women and kids and dogs milling all around all over the deck and... CRACK! right when these two experts weren't expecting it. One of the shorts jostled loose and finally chambered. Now, in my family, having a gun you are holding go off when you didn't intend it to is serious business. They both looked like they had soiled themselves. I told them one last time that it didn't shoot 22 shorts, just long rifles. Fortunately, there was no harm done by that round. I took the rifle with me when I left. Their assessment was the I had broken the old pump-oh well. It took me some doing to get all of the ground up brass out of the action, but it shoots great-22 long rifles that is. Flapjack.

 

[chud333]

I don't care if i watch someone unload a gun right in front of me.
If the weapon is handed to me i check it again. Who's to say he may
have overlooked the chamber or his vision is'nt so good?
Anytime and everytime i pick up a gun i check to make sure it is
either empty or loaded. Just old habit. And then the weapon "Never"
gets pointed at something other than what i want to shoot at.



chuck

 

[P&R Fan]

The "Four Rules" we all know start with "Treat every gun as if it were always loaded". I have taught these rules to many people, but I always change that one. My #1 rule, with apologies to Jeff Cooper, is, "There is NO SUCH THING as an unloaded gun!"
I don't care if I've checked, double checked and triple checked it. It's ALWAYS LOADED. (Even if it's not).
If I am handling one of mine I always check it. If I put it down in my lap to attend to something else, as soon as I pick it up again I check it again. Is that redundant? You bet. But then again, I've never had a negligent discharge. And by golly, I never intend to.
I have, in my lifetime, done some incredibly stupid things that should have kilt me dead. (And all the guys give a hearty AMEN). The only area of my life I can't say that about is my gun handling. I was trained from the time I was a sprout about gun safety, and have gotten some of the best professional training in later years. I cannot abide unsafe gun handling. It's nice to hang around with people like you who understand.
Jim

 

[accessbob]

I've been getting my kids used to this too. Even though they've watched me unload it, I have them check too when handing it to them with the action open. My brother-in-law has that same mindset and so it is quite comforting to know that we both do the same thing and when we get together and show each other our guns, the same method occurs. Better safe than an injury or death to someone.

 

[rojodiablo]

I once shot a squirrel with an unloaded gun. My dad had just come back from hunting and I watched him unload his lever action .22 and prop it on the front porch. There was a squirrel sitting on tree limb out by the front gate so I took the rifle, sighted in and pulled the trigger. Bam! The critter fell out of the tree. I was startled. My dad came running out of the house and asked why did I do such a foolish thing and I said that I saw him unload the gun. He stated that he had unloaded it. We both learned a good lesson that day.

There is no 'Unlike' feature in these posts......
Me personally? I like this post, a lot. Mr. Squirrel asked me to unlike it though!!!
It's a serious lesson we ALL learn eventually.

 

[35Rem]

"Loaded" to me is one in the chamber. The magazine of the gun in question was loaded, not the gun. That's the way I understand it.

I know we are talking semantics, and a gun is always loaded, and to ALWAYS check one when you pick it up, but loaded, to me, means ready to go, no requiring any action but to take off safe and fire.

 

[DeadAye]

A gun is ALWAYS loaded!
NEVER clean a loaded gun!

And guys ask "Don't you ever clean that?" - Go figure.

 

[caliperman]

About 30 years ago, in a gun shop here, a customer was looking at
a .45. He aimed at a window, pulled the trigger, and the "unloaded" gun, fired and sent a bullet across four lanes of traffic.
The bullet went through a window of the business across the street, killing a clerk.
ALWAYS check the chamber.

 

[Double-O-Dave]

I've been getting my kids used to this too. Even though they've watched me unload it, I have them check too when handing it to them with the action open. My brother-in-law has that same mindset and so it is quite comforting to know that we both do the same thing and when we get together and show each other our guns, the same method occurs. Better safe than an injury or death to someone.

I do the same thing with my son, and I also role play responses he may get when the person handling the weapon hands it off to him and gets mad when he checks to make sure it is unloaded and safe. Example: "What are you doing? Didn't you see I just checked it before I handed it to you? Are you trying to say I don't know what I'm doing?" I've actually had people say that to me when I was younger, and it was intimidating and embarassing. Now that I'm older, I have no problem explaining my position, and I coach my son to politely inform the other party that this is the way he was raised, and that he sees the wisdom of it.

Regards,

Dave