Really sad

[steelslaver]

While this article is mostly a call for magazine disconnects I see it as a compelling reason for Gun safety education rather than a need for disconnects.Safeties and disconnects can fail and no one should ever trust any of them

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/t...Z?cvid=4147397542a94997de5a4c92da9c1c53&ei=28

I firmly believe that basic gun safety should be taught in schools starting at an early age. I don't care if you don't own guns, never plan to own one or even hate them. The facts are that in America, sooner or later, you and your children will be exposed to them and or someone handling one. You should have a clue as to the basic safety rules and operation of them. EVERYONE should at least know what not to do and recognize and unsafe situation.

The 4 Universal Gun Safety Rules,

1 Treat all guns as if they are always loaded. ALWAYS ALWAYS
2 Never let the muzzle point at anything you are not willing to destroy. ALWAYS ALWAYS
3 Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot. ALWAYS
4 Be sure of your target and what is behind it. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS
Rules like this may seem like common sense. Shockingly, not everyone intuits things like not pointing a gun at themselves or their friends, many have no idea how to properly clear a weapon .
As much as I hate regulations that restrict a right, it does bother me that even the most clueless as to gun safety and knowledge of them is able to buy them.

If just 1% of the money spend on political ads had been spent on broadcasting and posting those 4 rules it would reach almost everyone and have been far better spent.

 

[LVSteve]

It's never going to happen in schools, let's get that dealt with straight away. Not only would there be huge objections by educators, but there is also the question of lesson time and money. The US once had drivers' ed and did away with it, and car accidents kill more than gun accidents by a large margin. Drivers' ed was seen as expensive and took tuition time away from students.


I'm wondering if we now need a new designator for these incidents. To me, a negligent discharge (ND) is made by somebody who should know better. Some of the linked incidents are due to ignorance, so maybe we should call them IDs.

 

[ISCS Yoda]

The 4 Universal Gun Safety Rules,

1 Treat all guns as if they are always loaded. ALWAYS ALWAYS
2 Never let the muzzle point at anything you are not willing to destroy. ALWAYS ALWAYS
3 Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot. ALWAYS
4 Be sure of your target and what is behind it. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS

There is a sad overlap here with respect to stupidity and ignorance. The common line is we can cure ignorance. In the case of pistols, being ignorant of the fact that removing a magazine does not unload a pistol due to a chambered round is, sadly, also very stupid. If you don't know EVERYTHING about that pistol it ought not to be in your hands.

 

[Birdhunter6]

In the 6th grade ('72) our county sheriff's department sponsored the "Junior Deputy" program at school, a session each week for 3 or 4 weeks. There was a DARE like segment, a presentation about child abduction, and GUN SAFETY!

There was an evening session at an indoor range. Each of us got to shoot 2 groups with a bolt action .22. A range officer pulled in your first target, showed it to you and made suggestions as he ran your second second target out.

Everybody got a little badge and a Marksmanship Trophy. We thought it was weird that 2 families chose not to participate in the range session. Those kids were included in the classroom gun safety presentations anyway.

That makes too much sense to work these days.

 

[hkcavalier]

This reminds me of a business idea that's probably been tried and has failed before. A two week or monthlong summer course for those going into their senior year or recent grads intended to teach all the basic life skills that parents and public schools simply don't do anymore. Firearms safety and handling. Basic car maintenance including changing a tire by the roadside. Personal finance (how banks, loans, checks, mortgages, insurance, taxes, and retirement accounts work). Cooking a basic meal from raw ingredients. Et cetera.

Whenever someone posts that corporate America suppresses these topics in public education so they can profit off the ignorance, they get laughed at...but even if it's not some grand conspiracy, it's still a huge hole in most young people's knowledge base. I teach a course once a week to teens and, even in the country, most are very proficient at playing on their phones and tablets and little else. If we thought that Millennials were by-and-large unemployable and unmotivated consumers, Gen Z is far worse. But it's not their fault.

 

[AJ]

There is an old adage that applies to teaching the anti-gunners and their ilk. "You can't teach a pig to sing". If you show them the proper way to handle any firearm they will forget.

I too, believe that everyone shoot be taught the basic's of firearm safety. Sadly though it will never happen. At the least sort of like driving a car, have an operators license. Not my favorite idea, but at least some sort of competence would have to be shown to own a firearm. Let the flames begin.........

 

[jinx]

My father taught me gun safety. I taught my kids gun safety. They are teaching their kids gun safety.
This is all pretty basic stuff. Like teaching someone to drive a car. If they are taught, maybe they won’t run over someone.
Cars have brakes. Not every body knows how to use them. Car wrecks happen all the time. Cars kill a lot of people.
I compare magazine disconnects to the magic hole in the side plate of the newer S&W revolvers.
Maybe it is true that stupid can’t be fixed.

 

[cherrypointmarine]

My dad was stationed at Lowry AFB from 1968-71 . I was in the Boy Scouts there and the NRA came in and taught us gun safety and then how to shoot . If more children were taught basic respect for guns , there'd be less shootings of kids on kids . If you're taught from a young age what a gun can do and learn to respect them , it would be a safer US .

 

[LVSteve]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but many of the above comments work on the assumption that the US population accepts that we live in an armed society and are comfortable with it. Those days are gone.

 

[WardenRoss]

FWIW....

Guns are dangerous.

So are.....chainsaws...skillsaws.....miter-boxes....table-saws....radial arm saws....nail-guns.....backhoes....farm tractors....bandsaws....milling machines...lathes...hand trucks....fork lifts....floor jacks....jack stands....I could go on (I did construction and farm work for years).

In my 30 year LEO career and also a range officer at a gun club, I worked with too many cadets to count and special operations and my grandfather owned a hunting plantation. I've only seen 3 unintended weapon discharges.

But in the previous above list of equipment, I saw a lot of blood and guts. They present more danger than firearms.

,

 

[Alk8944]

The truth is that while accidental firearms deaths occur, that there are many other causes of accidental death that result in far higher numbers than firearms. Falls, auto accidents, accidental poisonings and unintentional overdoses, drownings, improperly operated machinery or heavy equipment, etc. The difference is the media and many liberals wish to demonize firearms in every way possible, and they have largely been successful. In their minds the gun is "evil" and in some way causes the accident, not the person! A good example is TV news. How often do you hear them say that someone was shot by a gun, instead of by a person using a gun. Virtually ALWAYS. Guns no more cause crimes or accidents than cars do!

One real problem with most "accidental" shootings that are supposedly a result of "I didn't know the gun was loaded" is that the only evidence that the shot was from a gun with the magazine removed is the statement of the person who was handling the gun! The same applies to any other accidental, negligent, or pick the word, whether it results in injury or not.

Somehow we as humans have created the atmosphere of "if it was an accident, it really wasn't my fault", and so many cases of outright stupidity are attempted to be glossed over by making such claims.

 

[smithman 10]

Lobby for gun safety courses for the masses of course

But I see no reason to throw out all other attempts to reduce "accidental" firearm deaths.

The sad truth is many gun buyers will simply never take a basic safety course unless required.

So I am in favor of any person who buys a firearm being required BY LAW to take a safety course. I know such a position will be anathema to many on this forum but that's my position and I am sticking to it.

Even those with firearm safety training screw up, more than we care to admit.

I will always remember my friend Jerry Keefer showing me the hole in the cinder block wall of the gun cleaning room at his police department's range, where a LEO from another agency preparing to clean their Glock failed to check for an empty chamber before pulling the trigger so they could remove the slide.

Magazine out, of course. I am quite sure that this LEO had had safety training but nevertheless...Luckily no one was hurt in that incident.

Wonder why John Browning put a magazine disconnect on the Hi-Power? And why Smith and Wesson made so many semi-autos back in the day with this feature.

That's my rant. REQUIRE gun buyers take a suitable safety class and think twice before dismissing the idea of a magazine safety.

 

[steelslaver]

Unfortunately ,many times those involved are NOT the original gun owner.

I firmly believe everyone should know basic gun safety

 

[smithman 10]

Quite true

You're absolutely correct in the observation that the original purchaser may not be the one who causes the deaths the article mentions.

In many states private sales are still allowed. So my idea for gun shop sales needing a safety class would only be a partial solution.

No perfect fix to the problem of folks not knowing the 4 rules I'm afraid.

Thanks for your original post and your emphasis on the crying need for all people who may handle weapons (and in this country that means everyone) to know basic safety practices. How to accomplish that is a tough question.

 

[Doug M.]

I know that there was no criminal intent in those types of shootings, but how would it not be criminal negligence? The actions described are truly a special type of stupid.
The position advocated by MSN is utter drivel.

 

[kbm6893]

I’ve been carrying for over 30 years and I prefer a gun with a magazine disconnect. The two guns I keep for home protection both have them, a S&W 5906 and a Ruger SR9C. I bought the SR9 used and the previous owner removed the disconnect. An order to Numrich for the parts solved that problem. My carry gun is usually a Ruger LC9S, but a Shield Plus is beginning to replace it, and the Shield doesn’t have one. I just shoot it better and it holds more rounds. If I could install a mag disconnect in every semi auto I own, I would.

I don’t see them as liabilities. There have been documented cases of them preventing an injury or death. Show me one where they caused an injury or death. The vast majority of us will never even fire a weapon in self defense, yet we all routinely handle a weapon. It’s not about education, although that’s never a bad thing. One of the cases in the article involves two former Marines. They knew how to handle a weapon. They screwed up, as people are known to do. A magazine disconnect would have prevented those deaths.

I have no fantasies of being in a gunfight and doing a tactical reload in the middle of it. I don’t have the training or experience to think I would be counting shots and know I was getting low, and then having the manual dexterity to do a mag change under fire and not fumble the process. I don’t care how many times you practice it, it’s not the same when the bullets are coming at you. Even in the extremely unlikely scenario where I could pull that off, I do not believe that in the two seconds my gun is inoperable with a round in the chamber, that I am going to need that one round. And even if I do fire that one round, that I am going to hit my target under that stress, especially in an area that stops the attack immediately, because if it doesn’t, I now have an empty gun, with the slide not locked back, and now I need two hands to get the gun running again.

Bill Jordan killed a fellow cop with a revolver. This man had been in numerous gunfights and was a professional shooter. You can just look at a revolver and see the brass in the cylinder, but this expert screwed up. To think it can’t be you is ludicrous.

 

[steelslaver]

Bill Jordan's screw up was he violated rule 1 and 4. Plus, he did it in an environment where the majority of guns would be loaded. Serious case of familiarity bred contempt. The victim should have sued him for everything he owned.

Hand me a gun and the very first thing I will do is clear it, even if I saw you clear it prior to handing it to me. I have had an accidental discharge. It was over 40 years ago. If I do what I know I should do I will not have another.

I am NOT against magazine disconnects. I am against being able to sue a gun manufacture because they made a semi without one. I am against requiring guns to have them

I am 100% behind providing ever single person in America with basic gun safety. I would even add it to the citizenship test.

Billions are spent on political, drug, cosmetic, alcohol, cosmetics and other ads. I have never seen a 30 second spot that covered gun safety. That is all it would take some 30 second spots. The excise tax on guns and ammo has collected over 17 Billion. The cost of a 30 second commercial is $30 per 1000 viewers, so 30x300 million/1000 is 9 million. Congressional candidates spent 1.7 Billion (and 1/2 of them were losers) If just 1% of that money had been spend on gun safety ads almost everyone would have seen one 20 times. The kicker is pharmaceutical companies spend over 9 BILLION per year hawking their chemicals.

 

[Denverd0n]

The problem with REQUIRING gun safety training before you can own a gun is that (and we all know this already) the anti-gun liberals out there would do everything they could to make it completely impossible for most people to "pass" the course. They would see it as another way to prohibit people from being able to buy a gun.

Now, if you could absolutely GUARANTEE me that the above would never happen, then I would be all in favor of requiring safety training. But, of course (another thing that we all know already), it is completely impossible to provide such a guarantee. Hence, I cannot support the notion of requiring safety training as a prerequisite to buying a gun.

 

[WardenRoss]

You can build a pistol that is double action only, has a thumb safety, has a grip safety and a magazine safety disconnect and a de-cocker. ,

Some fool will still unintentionally fire off a round.

I had an officer unload his model 64 Smith and practice dry firing. Apparently he could only count to 5 and he discharged the sixth round left in the cylinder.

To make the embarrassing moment worse, he was sitting on a toilet in a concrete stall. Quite a scientific study of bullet ricocheting principles.

 

[steelslaver]

Yes, they will always built a better idiot capable of by passing every safety feature. That is no excuse for a huge segment of an armed society from not knowing the basic gun safety rules. You may not be able to fix stupid, but YOU CAN inform the ignorant. Repeatedly IF everyone were informed that removing the magazine didn't unload the gun, SOME of thoses deaths wouldn't happen. Shame on us

I am NOT ADVOCATING MANDATORY TRAINING to purchase guns. I am advocating wide spread information of basic gun safety training. I would support it being a requirement to graduate the 8th grade. After all lack of gun safety knowledge is far more likely to kill you than not knowing who wrote Canterbury tails.