Over the years, we’ve hit on weapon safety at the beginning or end of several blogs, but we’ve never actually dedicated a blog to it. Well, today, we’re changing that. Due to the increased number of people carrying firearms, we thought it would be good to put something together that covers the basics of firearm safety and why they’re so important, and what happens when we don’t adopt these safe practices.

Note: While this blog is aimed at new shooters, new gun owners, and those new to carrying, gun safety applies to everyone. If you’ve been at it a while, feel free to drop some advice in the comment section below or share a story/experience you had where safety wasn’t applied.

Rules of Weapon Safety

Let’s start with the basic principles of weapon safety and what it looks like when we don’t follow these rules.

Don’t point at anything you don’t intend to shoot.

It all comes down to one thing; your gun isn’t a toy. It can’t shoot people without the trigger being pulled. But, if you’re playing around and pretending and accidentally or intentionally point at others, if you somehow manage to pull the trigger, you could shoot someone or something you shouldn’t have.

Yes, we all think it’ll never be me. I’ll never accidentally shoot someone. You might think, I’m always safe, even when I point in the direction of something I don’t intend to shoot at. But, let me tell you about a guy who shot his buddy accidentally, pointing at someone he had no intention of shooting. Luckily the guy survived. But, what if he hadn’t?

Before you go around pointing at people or animals you don’t want to shoot, ask yourself if they died from your stupidity, would you be okay with it? Would you be able to sleep at night? Could you live with the consequences of your actions?

If you answer no to any of those, then don’t point at it. Even those that intentionally shoot others out of self-defense can struggle to live with themselves or struggle to sleep and live at peace. Not because their actions weren’t justified, but because taking another human life is a huge deal; we’re not wired to do this without some type of consequence to our psyche. Just look at all the research from the effects of war, where a soldier must shoot in self-defense.

In short, if you’re pointing at something, it needs to be a target you’re planning to shoot, whether a paper target or an adversary. Don’t take a chance at shooting someone you really care about or even a stranger unintentionally. The best way to make sure this doesn’t happen is not to point your gun at them in the first place.

Keep your finger off the trigger (out of the trigger guard) unless you’re aiming to shoot

If you can’t figure out how NOT to point at anything you don’t intend to shoot, then not placing your finger on the trigger or in the trigger guard will keep you from firing the weapon.

The media likes to portray guns just shooting themselves, but here’s the thing, they don’t. It takes a human being stupid to fire a weapon. Now, there have been some firearms where they were recalled because the drop safety didn’t work properly. Basically, if you dropped it, then it could still fire. However, having it on safe until ready to fire and not playing around with it greatly decreases the chance of this happening. 

Saying the pistol, rifle, revolver, shotgun, fires by itself is like saying a knife laying on the table will get up and start stabbing people. It just doesn’t happen. However, what does happen is stupid people doing stupid things, which accounts for a multitude of mishaps. You either intentionally shoot someone, or you’re being stupid and accidentally shoot someone. I’ve been carrying a gun for a long time, and not once have I unintentionally shot someone or something. I credit firearm safety, particularly the one about not putting my finger on the trigger until I’m ready to pull it.

Always treat your weapon as if it is loaded (even if it’s not)

To expand on the above point, if you’re treating your weapon as if it’s loaded, then you shouldn’t be putting your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to pull it and shoot your target. If you’re pointing and pulling triggers on things you don’t actually intend to shoot, then you’re not treating it as if it’s loaded.

If you haven’t heard the story from several years back. There were a bunch of guys standing around playing a game, "do you trust me?" Well, someone in this particular group trusted the guy with a gun, and the guy with the gun dropped his loaded mag and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, there was a round in the chamber, and he shot his buddy in the face.

The moral of the story, don’t let anyone point a gun at you because you "trust" them, and don’t point a weapon at someone because you "trust" yourself. The guy thought his weapon wasn’t loaded, and if he had treated it as if it were, he wouldn’t have shot his buddy.

Never joke or jester with your firearm; they aren’t toys.

Never joke or jester with your weapon. If the guys mentioned above weren’t joking and playing with their firearms, no one would have ever been shot in the first place. The group of gentlemen decided to play with their pistols, and as a result, someone got shot.

There’s also a video floating around on YouTube of guys playing Russian roulette with their guns. This means there’s a chance you might get shot, and there’s a chance you might not, but you won’t know until the trigger is pulled. Want to know what happened? Some guy got unlucky twice and shot himself in the foot twice. You’d think he would have learned the first time… but if you’re dumb enough to shoot yourself for fun once, I suppose you’re dumb enough to do it a second time.

Know what’s behind your target

Now, let’s move on to a safety rule that doesn’t end up in accidentally shooting a weapon, rather intentionally shooting and accidentally shooting someone or something other than your intended target.

Chances are, whatever you’re shooting at, that bullet can penetrate it. And if it can’t penetrate the item, then you could potentially miss the target and hit something you weren’t aiming for. Let’s break this down into two parts.

Part 1: One thing a lot of people don’t necessarily think about is how bullets travel. For those who might not be familiar with firearms and their ammo, not all bullets stop inside their target. For instance, you might shoot your intended target. However, that bullet may have an entrance and exit wound. The question you should ask yourself before pulling the trigger is, "if there’s an exit wound, where will my bullet travel to, and what will it hit?" If the answer is anything that could cause innocent lives harm, then you shouldn’t pull the trigger.

Part 2: We all have a bit of ego when it comes to shooting, especially if you’ve been doing it a while. Even if you fall into this group, we are human, and everyone misses. The chance increases when your heart rate is up from adrenaline, caffeine, etc. One thing to keep in mind when shooting, whether you’re a good shot or not, is, "if I pull this trigger and miss, is there a chance of me hitting an innocent life?"

For example, if someone pulls a gun on you while standing at the gas pump and you decide to take that shot, are you going to hit the gas pump? Are you going to hit someone in that family of five standing directly beside the shooter? 

I’m not saying don’t take a shot when needed, but I am saying, know the consequences of making that shot if you were to cause greater harm in that situation.

Always keep your weapon steady and downrange (pointed at the target, not innocent bystanders)

This rule has more to do with range shooting than anything. But, you should also consider this when aiming at any target (living or paper). You shouldn’t be swinging your firearm around, pointing at and flagging the person beside you or innocent bystanders. 

And if you’re obeying the first rule of not pointing at anything you don’t intend to shoot, well then, you automatically aren’t breaking this rule.

Why Is Firearm Safety Important?

With all those weapon safety rules covered and what it looks like when we don’t follow them out of the way, we can answer why firearm safety is so important; because people get shot and killed when we don’t follow them. Best case scenario, you shoot something you didn’t intend to shoot, and it wasn’t living, so everyone is okay. Middle of the road, you shoot someone, but it’s not life-threatening, but it does cause significant injury—possibly handicapping them. And of course, in the worst-case scenario, you end up shooting and killing someone you didn’t intend to—you go to jail, and even if you don’t, you’ll probably never get a good night’s rest ever again.

To add a different perspective, think about the family of that person you just accidentally shot by being stupid. You just shot and killed someone’s dad, husband, son, or mom, wife, daughter. And it’s their family member that might think they can’t live without that person. This could mean someone else ends up killing themself because they can’t go on without the person you unintentionally shot.

It’s hard enough justifying shooting and killing someone in self-defense; it’s even harder when you end up killing a friend, loved one, or stranger by not following basic firearm safety.

So, why is firearm safety important? If you can’t answer this question yet, start this article over and read it a little slower.

What Happens When Gun Safety Isn’t Applied?

If you’ve read up until this point, you should be able to answer this question. But, to expand a little further, when we don’t apply gun safety, we end up shooting ourselves or others. 

There’s a story floating around about a guy cleaning his weapon who shot his own leg because he didn’t clear it out properly. Luckily the wound was minor, and no one else got hurt.

There’s another story where a guy was playing around at a clearing barrel, practicing quick unload, and ended up shooting the barrel. Thank goodness these barrels are meant to handle negligent discharges, and no one got hurt. But what if this weren’t the case?

Unfortunately, there are so many stories like this that I could probably write an entire book series just on negligent discharges — because guns don’t accidentally shoot themselves.

Gun Safety

Now that we’ve covered basic firearm safety, why it’s important, and what happens when we don’t follow these rules, let’s get a bit more specific.

Safely Handling a Firearm

How you handle your firearm will determine whether or not it’s just a matter of time. What do I mean by this? If you’re always handling your firearm in the safe manner listed above, then you’ll never shoot someone or something you didn’t intend to shoot. 

However, if you’re constantly playing with your fireman, joking around, flagging people, treating it like a toy, well, it’s only a matter of time before you end up firing a round you weren’t expecting to fire — because you THOUGHT it was unloaded. So, follow the safety rules listed above, and you won’t have to worry about the negative implications of not following them.

Practicing Safe Shooting 

You’re at the range; you go every Saturday. Is it possible to become complacent and break one of the cardinal rules of weapon safety? Absolutely. You should eat, breathe, and sleep weapon safety. Every time you’re around a firearm or handling one, you should enforce and follow these rules. This becomes especially important when you’re on the range with a bunch of other people and shooting live rounds — you’re there to pull the trigger, after all.

This is where "keep your firearm steady and downrange" becomes so important. With that, let me cover a few key areas where people end up breaking these rules on the range.

• If you turn around to talk to the instructor, keep the firearm’s muzzle toward the target. Please DO NOT turn around and point it at the guy or gal next to you and your instructor or range safety officer (RSO). 
• If brass goes down your shirt (this does happen), DO NOT freak out and start flagging everyone on the range. Instead, calmly place the firearm on safe and then onto the firing line or shooting table — muzzle facing the target — it’ll eventually stop burning.
• Don’t be that guy. Trying a bunch of tricks you saw on YouTube when you can’t even hit the target. Practice the fundamentals of shooting before adding in quickdraws and all that other fun stuff (unfortunately, this too can have negative results). 
• If your weapon jams or doesn’t fire, know how to do immediate and remedial actions. And if you don’t, ask without turning around and pointing your gun at others (raising your hand should get the instructor or RSO’s attention.
• If there’s a squib, meaning the round is lodged in the barrel, DO NOT attempt to fire another round through the barrel, this can cause significant damage to your gun and, most importantly, you and those around you.

Safely Cleaning a Gun

When it comes to safely cleaning your gun, your first step is to clear it in a safe place (away from personnel and resources).

1. Safety – Check to ensure and then place the weapon on safe if it is not already there.
2. Magazine – Remove the magazine or check to make sure there’s not a mag inserted.
3. Chamber – Inspect inside the chamber to ensure a round hasn’t been chambered (don’t look down the muzzle).
4. Safety – Check the safety AGAIN!

Once you’ve completed these steps, you are safe to disassemble your firearm and clean it. And once you clean and assemble, you need to do a function check; this ensures your weapon will function properly BEFORE you chamber a round and pull the trigger.

Safely Storing and Securing your Firearms

I’ve written a multitude of articles on safely storing and securing your firearm. If you have kids or people over, you should consider a gun safe, trigger locks, and separating ammo from the magazine and gun.

If you’re wearing a pistol, make sure you’re wearing a proper holster where the gun will not fall out. The holster should have retention, making it difficult for others to take your pistol out as well.

Remember, if you own a firearm, you’re ultimately responsible for what happens with it. Train your kids, teach them safety, don’t be stupid, store properly, understand trigger discipline, and most importantly, apply it!

Conclusion

There you have it, everything you need to know about safely handling, shooting, cleaning, and storing your firearm. If you ever question if you’re practicing gun safety, you’re probably not. And if you have questions, make sure you ask. Anyone at the gun range will be happy to answer your questions about weapon safety, whether it has to do with carrying, pulling the trigger, cleaning, or storing. So, don’t be afraid to ask because guns don’t kill people; people kill people by using guns.  And some of those are by not practicing basic weapon safety.

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