Owning a firearm requires great responsibility

"I'm giving this thing to you with one condition," the father said to his daughter. "When the time comes that you aren't afraid of it, I want it back."

The gift was a handgun that the father had owned for years. He'd always had guns, handguns and rifles, for hunting and target shooting. The daughter had grown up in a house where guns were taken for granted almost like furniture - almost but not quite.

I came across this in the "Outdoor" section of the "West Post", one of the several regional supplements to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (I live in "West [St. Louis] County").

Most advice, to be useful, should be easy to remember. This article falls under the heading "There is no (lasting) freedom without responsibility" and contains many of the rules one should know and follow for gun ownership and use.

I grew up in a home in which, like the one described in the above article, "guns were taken for granted, almost like furniture". I was taught all the rules and mostly followed them except that one day shortly after my sixteenth birthday I shot myself accidently (straight through the abdomen, front to back, luckily missing my spine) with an "unloaded gun". The bullet was a ".22 short", one of the smallest pieces of lead you can shoot out of a gun and I mended quickly.

Many stories would take a turn here, with the teller saying that the accident turned them off guns, or made them anti-gun. What it taught me was not to be a smart-a$$ who thought he knew it all, and to follow the rules from then on (Rule #1: Treat all guns as if they are loaded). I continued hunting as soon as I was up and around again. I am 61 now, and I do not currently own a gun, but am an NRA member and emphatically retain the right to own a gun for self-defense. I am no longer interested in hunting, but I understand as well as the rest of you that that is not what the 2nd amendment is about anyway.

The four rules of gun safety by Col. Jeff Cooper

1.All guns are always loaded. No exceptions. Don't pretend. Be deadly serious about this.

2.Never let the muzzle cover [or point at] anything you are not willing to destroy.

3.Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.

4.Be sure of your target. Know what it is, what's in line with it and what's behind it. Never shoot at anything you have not positively identified.

Here is the Marine Corps weapons safety rules.

1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.

2. Keep your weapon on safe untill you intend to fire.

3. Never point your weapon at anything unless you intend to fire.

4. Meep your finger straight and off the trigger untill you intend to fire.

Simple yet so functional. Semper Fi

The NSSF has been infiltrated by the Sarah Brady Bunch with their "guns cause violence and are dangerous" brainwashing. While negligent discharges are always possible and potentially deadly, the solutions proposed are even more dangerous and potentially deadly.
There is no mechanical substitute for mental conditioning and training.

Click here for an example of Project Homesafe Foolishness

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