Does the military follow the 4 rules?

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JoeShmoe

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I live about a mile from my local airport, and I like to go running there because there are lots of level quiet streets to run on. There is a National Guard unit based there, as well as a Marine C130 unit.

Today while I was running I was approaching a group of buildings on a public street within the airport grounds. There was a group of about 20 soldiers in uniform with M16s standing near the street. I thought they were probably getting ready to go out on some exercise.

As I got closer I noticed several of the soldiers prone on the grass beside the street with their rifles on bipods pointed in various directions, as if they were practicing defending a position. One of those soldiers had his M16 pointed directly at me as I was running by. He was on his sights, but I didn't see if his finger was on the trigger.

So my question is, do they drill with real M16s, and if so is it ok to point them at civilians on a public street, even if they are unloaded? I hope it was unloaded, but then there would be no way for me to know that except to assume. Are soldiers except from following the 4 rules?
 
Yep!

The only two rules I recall being strictly enforced is, muzzles down in a helicopter so you don't shoot the rotor off, and don't stick the guy in front of you in the back with your bayonet when you jump off.

A few years ago, the NG here spent most of one weekend firing blanks in a machine gun at the Holiday Inn parking lot across the street!

Anyway, it's a pretty safe bet that the only way the guys you saw had any live ammo, was if they bought it at Walmart on the way to the base.

rc
 
Anyway, it's a pretty safe bet that the only way the guys you saw had any live ammo, was if they bought it at Walmart on the way to the base.
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In which case, they probably didn't have magazines to put the ammo in. The military can be very particular in what they let people have.

The military can be funny about muzzle discipline. If you ever sweep someone on the qualification range, god can't save you. Out in the field though.. heck you can't play with MILES gear if you don't point the thing at someone.
 
If they are on a specific range they might. I recall them being very rigid about muzzle direction in Basic but that was Basic. The tactical ranges and target houses they set up are different. Just like in actual combat the 4 rules generally mean squat, (not that I ever experienced anything of the sort.) I served in the late 70's and was a Generator Mechanic for a Communications Battalion. Read that as REMF that's what I was.
 
I am sure it was unloaded. The 4 rules are taught although not always strictly enforced, and not always enforced equally. I am pretty sure some SI's I had at OCS would be more upset if they caught you with your M-16's dust cover open than if your finger was in the trigger guard or your swept them. That said, some things are impossible to avoid. On a busy base, you can't possibly practice certain movements without pointing your weapon at something you don't want to destroy. Also, pretty sure standing at attention with your hand on the front sight of the M-16, the gun is pointed up, but if it went off it would probably wing you in the shoulder.
 
You can't do any force on force training with blanks much less MILES without pointing a gun at someone. What the Army tends to do is ammo shakedowns whenever live ammo is used for anything including rodding the rifle as it comes off the range. It doesn't always work but for the most part it works pretty well. But there is no doubt training with blanks does degrade safe handling practice.
 
tyeo098 said:
Was he tracking you as you ran by? Or did you simply run through his line of fire?
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The spot where they were set up was at a point where the street turns 90 degrees. They were set up so as to be covering both streets, in an L shape, so to speak. He wasn't tracking me as I ran by, but he would have been aiming my direction all the way up the street as I ran toward him. I wasn't concerned about it, just annoyed that M16s were pointed at me as I ran on a public road. Doesn't seem like good PR.
 
That sounds like z formation ambush training. And NO the military doesnt practice the 4 rules the way civilians do. In fact unless he had a red cap on the end of his barrel he didnt even have a blank in the magazine. Guns get pointed at you in the military so you know what the business end looks like especially durring force on force training.
 
doc2rn said:
That sounds like z formation ambush training. And NO the military doesnt practice the 4 rules the way civilians do. In fact unless he had a red cap on the end of his barrel he didnt even have a blank in the magazine. Guns get pointed at you in the military so you know what the business end looks like especially durring force on force training.
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The thing is I am not in the military, and I wasn't participating in force on force training.
 
What are "THE FOUR RULES"?

Being retired from the Army and having not heard of a universal 4 rules... I gotta say no and I'm beyond OK with it as the military is a different environment and not a club.
 
Hard to say based on what you saw. Typically the 4 rules are preached in the "military" (not in so many words), whatever that is (it used to be you were in the "service"), but it's hard to say what gets enforced by whom, where. You didn't hear any shots so there wasn't any MILES training going on. It was just static formation training. BUT, they should NOT have involved you to that extent. Very bad. I'd find out who they were and get in touch with the battalion commander (no one lower than the battalion commander), ask for an interview, and lay the problem on him/her. No excuse for that. Period. Do it!
 
Did you start running "serpentine"?

Reminds me of the story from Hathcocks book about some folks getting upset that the students in sniper school were snapping in (practicing sight acquisition) on Vietnamese civilians working in the fields.
 
NG with ammo? Doubtful, a few years back we had this little dust up here in SoCal after some cops were aquitted. The NG showed up, with empty guns.

I figure after that little episode a few years back at the university, the folks in charge decided live ammo wasn't such a good idea:rolleyes:
 
If your that concerned about it, why did you not stop in at the NG center and talk with the unit administrator, or the 1st Sergeant, the CO, or whoever if you were that concerned for your safety. Bring it to their attention, an internet discussion solves nothing.
The Army does stress muzzle awareness (flagging) during training, especially during close in work like urban ops when soldiers are "stacked" for room clearing scenarios.
What you saw sounds like individual squad or platoon "dry training", where a soldiers will work on "common tasks" and go through the steps so everyone understands them. Also called "Rock Drills".
That aside, there is a dummy in every bunch who wants to play stupid. Not unlike at any public/private range where there is always that "one guy" acting stupid. You can have all the special 4 rules you want, unless everyone helps to enforce them--------then they aren't much good.
 
At my last job, we did a lot of work at DOE/DOD/Military places. I've had a lot of muzzles pointed at me/swept past me that caused me no great alarm. I can't say any of them were breaking a rule as each of those soldiers may well have been "willing" to destroy me :uhoh:, but I never thought they felt they needed to.

One that I'll never forget, and it happened regularly, was looking up at the (M-60 ?) gunner trained out the side of a Huey circling around our worksites as convoys came and went.

Another funny one was when a coworker walked over and told a couple of soldiers that they were within our exlusion zone and needed to move back. These soldiers were part of a group of ~30 running a training exercise to defend/retake/? one of our strategic nuclear command centers. They may not have had any live ammo, but were a formidable looking group of heavily armed soldiers. They politely complied with the "command" of my 18 year old coworker and avoided our work zone. I was at least 200 yards away and just watched this unfold, helpless to do anything. I'd been watching the team from afar and seeing my coworker walk up to and engage them in full stride was surreal.

So from my experience, the military absolutely does not follow the 4 rules as most of us do. But most of us are civilians and they were all active duty military. I never felt like anyone I encountered was being reckless or unsafe beyond the demands of their job.
 
I have never seen/heard "4 rules" explicitly taught that way in any USAF firearms training in the last 20 years.

Range rules generally include the 4 rules amongst the many others, but there's not much off-range firearms handling.

The rifles you saw could have very easily been rubber ducks or other simulated firearms, too.
 
Not to make light of the question at all, but it doesn't sound like much was going on there except some harmless training "on the side" that you happened to run into... literally.

I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I'm very reasonably Sure that firearms safety is a very well indoctrinated fundamental for most members of the military.
 
The military shoots people and breaks things, the great problem they have is making sure that they shoot the right ones.
With modern FOF training it is unlikely that any military personel who carrys a gun hasn't pointed it at someone and today there are probably few who haven't pointed a hot weapon at another human if they have been in for more than a couple yrs.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of your weekend warriors that you saw training haven't seen a couple deployments.
The 4 rules usually take at least 2 infractions to be able to cause an un wanted casualty. From what I have seen, the combat arms at least has terrific trigger disipline but accidents still happen. To bad they couldn't have found a clear area to train in.
If you want to see something real funny take a look at the blue guns that the new Cadets at the USAFA are using, no mistaking them for the real ones.
 
1. Treat every weapon as if it were loaded.

2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.

3. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger until you are ready to fire.

4. Keep the weapon on safe until you intend to fire.

The four rules are drilled into every Marine from beginning till end and I'm sure the other services teach these rules also.
 
The military follow the "4 Rules"? Hah! I recall Jeff Cooper writing that a lot of his correspondents in "The Sandbox" were appalled by the careless weapons handling they saw and some the people I have talked to have said there have been a lot of accidents-all carefully covered up. Only safety rule I ever saw enforced was in BCT when we were told to keep the weapon pointed down range when we were on the range and locked and loaded. The Army's basic rule on weapons handling and safety is keep the weapons out of the hands of the troops.
 
Soldiers can't always follow rule #2. It just happens, particularly when you never know who might be an enemy. It's more a case of, "Never point your weapon at anything you are not prepared to shoot."
 
shuvelrider said:
If your that concerned about it, why did you not stop in at the NG center and talk with the unit administrator, or the 1st Sergeant, the CO, or whoever if you were that concerned for your safety. Bring it to their attention, an internet discussion solves nothing.
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I'm an airline pilot, and am used to seeing the public perceive danger where there is none, so I wasn't about to raise a fuss over this. I was just surprised they were doing this in public, and was wondering to what extent they follow the 4 rules.
 
The main problem I find is complacency. The TEACH rule #1, but then they spend a lot of time clearing weapons, so they engender a culture of; "It's ok, it's not loaded." This leads to sloppiness and bad habits.

And even though safety is supposed to transcend rank, try correcting an E-9 on his muzzle discipline sometime. It took a long time before I had the rank and position to carry the assumption of competence and professionalism required to walk to someone of any rank and respectfully remind them of the rules.
 
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