Etiquette question

[Sam1911]

but I am regularly amused at the sheer panic of supposedly rational people's inability to assume rationality in others.

That probably comes from most of us having been around the shooting public long enough to realize how disastrously misplaced any assumptions of gun-handling "rationality" would be.

Sheer panic? That would be unreasonable. But it isn't unreasonable to be unwilling to allow every potential customer who walks in off the street to behave with a firearm in your store in whatever way their own "rationality" leads them. When people have guns in holsters, that's rational. When those guns are out in their hands "rationality" (safety) is a heavily unfavorable roll of the dice.

The biggest problem is that once guns are in hands, not holsters, the mistakes that end lives, end in lawsuits, end careers and businesses can happen in an instant. Maybe the guy who draws his weapon unexpectedly will point it at a concrete wall/floor, clear it, and ground it on the counter in a perfect display of safe gun-handling. Maybe he'll sweep you, two other salesmen, a customer, and himself -- all with his finger on the trigger. Maybe he'll just have an "ND" right into you or the wall, or out the storefront window into traffic. These aren't hypothetical, wild, crazy one-in-a-billion chance happenings. These are things that gun shops see -- some of them near daily. There isn't time for the attending salesman (if there is one) to calmly evaluate the developing situation and advise the customer that the motion of his muzzle appears to be heading in a path that will shortly be endangering another person and could he please halt that motion and correct to a more appropriate course...

I don't see how taking steps to reduce these risks, through measures which many of us consider basic etiquette anyway, is "sheer panic."

 

[Nushif]

I guess it's my limited socialization to the shooting public then, but I have yet yo even see an ND in person, and while occasionally I have seen some very limited sweeping mostly with guns I have seen cleared I don't see these crass violations with any kind of frequency, much less regularity.
I see people being unsafe because they are so scared of guns more often than someone being too casual. One of our friends, for instance is someone I don't like to go shooting with entirely too often, because quite literally she will handle any gun like a poisonous snake. This means she is utterly unaware of her surroundings, and oftentimes trips and almost falls with them, or once was too scared to engage the decocker safety because she thought it would go off if her finger lingered on the safety too long. All because all her attention is transfixed on this object she is awkwardly handling with three fingers, waiting for it to explode.
So for all the casual gun handling errors you see, I guess I see way more of the panic induced ones.

 

[Sam1911]

Well, that certainly makes sense.

For my part, the stuff I commonly see when observing casual shooters at our range (which has very strong safety standards, but many shooting bays and no official safety officers except in matches or match practice) are things like casually turning from the line with a firearm (muzzle sweep) or manipulating/handling guns off the firing lines (standing in the parking lot racking a shotgun or the slide of an autopistol).

But we get reports here at THR every month of just CRAZY stuff folks see done in gun shops or at gun shows (folks bringing in and handling guns they think are unloaded ... which aren't, dryfiring a weapon AT a clerk or another customer, etc.). And every few months there's another story of an ND at a gun show or other public place.

If you don't see that happening around you, that's good. Be grateful, but stay vigalent.

 

[subierex]

Most of the local stores near me have a sign that says something like: "we don't mind if you carry, we just don't need to see it".

Recently got pulled over for speeding and the cop said the same thing when I informed him I was carrying.