Wes Janson
Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2006
- Messages
- 1,962
There are a great deal of people here who are making a far greater deal out of something than it is, because they've had it drilled into their heads by instructors or parents that "The Rules Are The Rules, No Exceptions".
Reality is not such a simple thing. There is no such thing as perfect safety with a firearm, unless you melt it down into a lump of steel and throw it into the Marianas Trench.
Either you learn to distinguish between "technical" safety violations (zomg!!11! looking down the barrel of an empty bolt-action to inspect the rifling!) and those which deserve immediate corrective action. Inability to differentiate between the two is, in my opinion, a greater danger than the risk presented by the former. Common sense and critical thinking skills are the necessary means of determining what's important and what isn't. If someone is deliberately, carelessly pointing an unloaded weapon at another individual, this deserves polite corrective action for the sake of preventing other, more serious breaches of safety. It does not warrant assault with a deadly weapon, folks-and "He started it!" isn't going to go well with the local representative of the law.
As far as I'm concerned, every weapon I touch must always be cleared, and cleared again if dry-firing. Once I've handed that weapon to someone, what they do with it becomes irrelevent unless blatantly careless. Getting bent out of shape by being accidentally swept by a cleared an unloaded gun is, in my opinion, the sign of an inexperienced shooter. Life is always a matter of balancing risks with rewards, and firearms are no different. Common sense and critical thinking, again.
Reality is not such a simple thing. There is no such thing as perfect safety with a firearm, unless you melt it down into a lump of steel and throw it into the Marianas Trench.
Either you learn to distinguish between "technical" safety violations (zomg!!11! looking down the barrel of an empty bolt-action to inspect the rifling!) and those which deserve immediate corrective action. Inability to differentiate between the two is, in my opinion, a greater danger than the risk presented by the former. Common sense and critical thinking skills are the necessary means of determining what's important and what isn't. If someone is deliberately, carelessly pointing an unloaded weapon at another individual, this deserves polite corrective action for the sake of preventing other, more serious breaches of safety. It does not warrant assault with a deadly weapon, folks-and "He started it!" isn't going to go well with the local representative of the law.
As far as I'm concerned, every weapon I touch must always be cleared, and cleared again if dry-firing. Once I've handed that weapon to someone, what they do with it becomes irrelevent unless blatantly careless. Getting bent out of shape by being accidentally swept by a cleared an unloaded gun is, in my opinion, the sign of an inexperienced shooter. Life is always a matter of balancing risks with rewards, and firearms are no different. Common sense and critical thinking, again.
