FIREARM SAFETY

Primary Safety Rules

• In a tradition that was started by the late Jeff Cooper, most defensive firearms instructors teach some version of the first four rules for handling and operating firearms:
  1. All guns are always loaded.
     • Probably more people who have been shot unintentionally were shot with "unloaded" firearms than with any other kind.
     • Some instructors object to the absolutism of Cooper's wording. After all, we do unload firearms for cleaning, repair, storage and dry fire. If you share that objection, feel free to reword this rule as All guns are loaded until proven otherwise.
     • An increasingly common unintended discharge occurs when users of striker-fired pistols that require a press of the trigger for disassembly press the trigger without having verified that the chamber has been emptied.
     • With any firearm, such verification - or "proof that the gun is unloaded" - should involve a triple check - with intervening operation of the extractor system - of the status of the chambers (revolvers have more than one) by both sight and touch. If the firearm does not allow you to reach the chamber with a finger for the touch check, consider running a rod through the bore or shining a light through it.
  2. Don't let the muzzle of the gun cross anything you're not prepared to shoot.
     • At conventional handgun ranges, if your gun isn't pointed at a person or object, you can't shoot that person or object.
     • Keep in mind that if the gun is pointed at an upward angle and it is fired, the bullet may travel a very long distance and strike a person or object you may not even see.
     • Similarly, many walls may not stop bullets, so rounds fired at walls may penetrate and strike a person or object on the other side.
     • If you fire through a windowless door at someone who is trying to break it down:
       • You may or may not hit the unknown intruder.
       • You may hit an unseen hostage.
       • Your bullet that misses the intruder may hit an innocent person beyond him, perhaps even inside a neighbor's home.
  3. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard, up on the frame of the gun, until the sights are on target and you're prepared to shoot.
     • Tradition places this rule as rule three; if I were starting fresh, I think I'd make it Rule One.
     • Firearms do not discharge on their own. If, in the heat of battle or in total brain fade, you inadvertently point a firearm at someone you don't intend to shoot, they can't get shot if your finger is not inside the trigger guard.
     • Most guns are designed to be fired by a finger on a trigger. They are more natural to grasp that way, so the finger tends to drift there under stress. While a single-action trigger would seem more vulnerable to Rule Three violations, the force with which a hand can contract during a startle reaction is more that enough to operate a double-action trigger, so it is essential to follow rule three regardless of the type of gun you're handling.
  4. Always be sure of your target and what's beyond it.
     • The first part of this rule is absolute: you must always identify your target.
     • The second part of this rule is relative: in a sporting or training environment there is no justification for not knowing what is beyond your target. In a deadly encounter you may be forced to fire in circumstances where your brain may not even be able to perceive what is beyond your target. All the more reason to select ammunition which is not likely to exit its original target.
  5. Maintain control of your gun.
     • Arizona Attorneys Michael Anthony and Robert Brown have researched civil litigation involving firearms and found that most successful lawsuits against gun owners involve incidents where someone other than the owner has accessed and misused the gun.
     • As a result, I have accepted their suggestion and now teach this fifth basic rule of firearms safety.
     • Make sure that you keep the gun within your control when you carry it. Guns in purses and other means of off-body carry are difficult to control, as are guns being shown to friends, stashed between couch cushions, placed in desk drawers, etc.
       • A challenge for many gun owners is what to do with a gun when using a commode in a public restroom. Every year we see reports of guns forgotten in restrooms, fired while reholstering and discharging when dropped.
       • Guns tend to get forgotten when placed on top of toilet tanks and dispensers of toilet paper and paper towels. A useful practice for many gunners is to stretch the underpants between the knees, creating a "hammock" in which to place the gun, with the muzzle pointed away from one's own body parts.
       • With the ever growing popularity of striker-fired pistols with short-stroke triggers, there seems to be an increase in unintentional discharges while reholstering. If feasible, leave such pistols in their holsters if you must remove them from their places of carry - such as waistbands or pockets - during "pit stops."
       • As lawful discreet carry becomes more commonplace, there seems to be an increase in the number of discharges of dropped guns. I view this as a function of people buying cheap guns that are vulnerable to such discharges. Such guns include "mini-revolvers" that either lack safety notches between the chambers or whose users fail to use such safety notches and pistols that lack firing-pin safeties or have poorly designed ones. While I hate to see lower-income people denied the right to keep and bear arms by legal mandates for mechanical safety features, I cannot recommend the carry of such guns.
       • From a tactical perspective - for men - standing at a wall-mounted urinal limits awareness of your surroundings and your ability to respond to an attack. If available, even if you will remain standing, it's generally wiser to use a stall, even if it lacks a door that you can latch.
     • When you must store a gun that you are not carrying, take reasonable steps to limit access by unauthorized users. If you must simply disable it with a lock, a cable lock is preferable to a trigger lock - most trigger locks violate Rule Three.
     • A caveat to this rule concerns dropped guns. As suggested above, most modern handguns of good quality are designed not to fire when dropped and people have shot themselves trying to catch guns that have slipped from their hands. If you do momentarily lose control of a firearm, it's generally safer to let it fall to the ground. Unfortunately, as discussed above, there are still some handguns on the lower end of the price scale - typically mini-revolvers and inexpensive pistols - that may not be drop-safe. (Instruction manuals - typically available on the websites of manufacturers - will usually mention such things as firing-pin safeties. You may also want to do an internet search for lawsuits and settlements to help determine which brands have had issues, even with firing-pin safeties - such as those that require engagement of the thumb safety for full protection.) With those handguns, it's really a toss-up as to which is the greater risk - try to catch a falling gun or letting it hit the ground.
       • Pistol users are advised to replace the firing-pin/striker spring periodically, when they do the routine replacement of the recoil spring. (If you push the slide assembly out of battery and it does not return to its fully forward position, it's time to replace the recoil spring.)
  
  Because we do actually unload firearms and also place them out of our immediate control from time to time, a corollary of Rule One and Rule Five, the condition check, is also worth learning:

  Whenever you pick up a firearm that has been out of your control, even if only for an instant, open the action to determine that it is in the condition in which you want it, loaded or unloaded.
  
  A "click" when you expect a "bang!" can be as deadly as a "bang!" when you expect a "click."
  
  A further and highly recommended application of this concept is to open the action when handing a firearm to another person. This not only reveals the condition but also disables the firearm.

Secondary Safety Concerns

• Eye Protection
  • Eye protection is not intended primarily for catastrophic gun failures. Shooting glasses or goggles protect you primarily against smaller, lower velocity particles such as oil droplets off the slides of autoloaders, bullet shavings from revolvers and flying brass.
  • Most of us shoot at least some of the time on a line with other shooters, who are more likely than we are to generate the threats to our eyes. It is mandatory, as far as I am concerned, to wear a baseball-type cap, the old-fashioned way, bill forward, if you are shooting in the presence of people shooting autoloaders. This helps keep their brass from getting trapped behind your glasses. Wrap-around glasses or side shields are a good idea, as well.
• Hearing Protection
  • Many firearms (and airguns) are loud enough when fired dry to cause hearing damage! Even target velocity .22 rimfire rounds mandate hearing protection.
  • When sounds get loud enough, as they do with many centerfire loads, there is enough noise to be transmitted to the ear through bone. For this reason, plugs may not be adequate protection. Unfortunately, the seal of muffs is weakened by the earpieces of your shooting glasses so a combination of both is probably the safest proposition for your hearing.
  • If you shoot at times in environments where it is crucial to hear things like range commands, you may want to consider active, electronic hearing protectors. These let in or even amplify lower level sounds but block excessive noise. You might even consider using these over foam plugs.
    
    

    Suppressors as Hearing Protection

    Misleadingly referred to as "silencers" in most federal and state statutes restricting their use, suppressors are basically mufflers that only reduce the sound of gunfire from most firearms. With most centerfire firearms, that reduction is not sufficient for routine use without conventional hearing protection. Suppressors are of greatest value for occasional gunfire when conventional hearing protection is not in use, such as in hunting and in home defense, where the shooter - and particularly other family members - may not have the time to don hearing protection. Contrary to depiction on both the large and small screen, suppressors are useless on almost all revolvers as the expanding gas retarded inside the suppressor simply backs out through the barrel-cylinder gap. Autoloading pistols generally require a Nielsen device to keep the suppressor from interfering with the cycling of the slide. With manually operated rifles (e.g., bolt-action and lever-action), the less costly, traditional baffle suppressor works fine. With autoloading rifles, such as the AR-15, the more costly, newer flow-through suppressor is preferred, to minimize the amount of ammonia-containing gas vented from the ejection port, near the shooter's face. While a few states still ban private ownership of suppressors, the $200 federal transfer tax - intended as prohibitive when the National Firearms Act was enacted in 1934 - was zeroed out, effective January 1, 2006, with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 1925. Additionally, with the introduction of electronic filing of the NFA application forms, waiting times for approval and registration typically now run in days rather than months. The Trump administration has chosen not to appeal a District Court ruling and injunction out of Texas that, without a tax on suppressors - along with short-barreled rifles and shotguns and "any other weapons" (primarily disguised firearms) - the registration requirement cannot be enforced. At this writing, ATF has adopted guidelines recognizing that ruling, treating those items like any other firearms. Caveat emptor: The registration could be reinstated by a future Congress by reinstating the the tax or by a successful appeal of the injunction by a future administration. Further, there is no legal requirement for a future administration to provide an amnesty period to register any of these items acquired without registration. Additionally, at this writing, state statutes that contain provisions for private ownership of suppressors and other items regulated under the NFA generally specify that they be registered. Thus, it seems judicious to register them anyway, while such registration is untaxed.

    
    
  • This article discusses hearing, hearing loss and hearing protection in greater detail.
• Toxic Substances
  • Lead is a highly toxic substance which can eventually affect almost every organ system in the body. This happens when the body mistakes it for one of several necessary minerals which also have two positive charges in their salt forms.
  • The risk to most shooters actually comes from repeated exposure to very small quantities of lead, rather than a few exposures to large quantities. Some of this repeated exposure occurs from very small particles we inadvertently carry into our homes.
  • Lead mists are usually generated from bullets and primers when guns are fired, and may also be generated when bullets strike steel targets and the backstops of indoor ranges. I favor wearing a lead-mist-rated respirator on indoor ranges.
  • I recommend wearing a cap while shooting and changing out of your shooting clothes and shoes before entering your living quarters. In the past, I advised washing your hands and the area around your mouth, including any facial hair, with cool water and soap before eating, drinking and, if you haven't learned better, smoking, and before leaving the range. While this is preferable to taking no precautions, there are now wipes available that remove lead more effectively by means of chemical reactions and trapping the chelated lead in the towelette.
  • Remember that most primers use lead styphnate, so picking up empties and reloading are also sources of lead exposure. I recommend the same lead and eye precautions for reloading as for shooting.
  • When you clean your guns you not only may dislodge lead particles but you may be exposed to other hazardous chemicals. Do it outdoors, if possible, preferably before changing out of your shooting clothes. Consider wearing some inexpensive vinyl or nitrile examination gloves while cleaning guns. Other than for use on high-power rifles, where copper fouling is a concern, I have pretty much switched to one of the newer, water-based bore cleaners.

Shooting During Pregnancy

• Both lead exposure and very loud noise can be harmful to a developing fetus. I would advise restricting shooting during pregnancy to what is absolutely necessary for training and skill maintenance. Most of what follows has been adapted from an article by Teresa Wrobbel, M.D.
• To limit lead exposure:
  • Use lead-free ammunition, if available.
  • Shoot outdoors, if possible.
  • Try to shoot when there will be few other people shooting; others may not be using lead-free ammunition.
  • Use a lead-mist-rated respirator, particularly if you shoot on an indoor range.
  • Avoid handling ammunition and empty cases if you do not use lead-free ammunition; have a partner do those tasks for you. Have someone else clean your firearm.
• Lessen the transmission of noise to the fetus by wearing several layers of clothing.

• Dry-fire practice is essential to good shooting because it develops proper trigger control, the most important element to hitting your target with a handgun. It also violates rule one because it assumes that a firearm is unloaded.
• To do it safely you need to take a few precautions:
  1. Guarantee that the gun is truly unloaded. Check the gun three (3) times by sight and touch to ensure that the chamber(s), as well as any magazine which may be in the gun, are unloaded. Do not have any live ammunition in the same room where you dry fire.
  2. Aim at something which will contain the most powerful round which could be fired in your gun and which you can afford to sacrifice. TV sets will not stop most rounds. If you must aim at the TV, make sure that it is in front of something like a brick fireplace, which will stop the bullet that has already destroyed the TV. Interior house walls will not stop bullets! If you usually shoot .38 Special loads in your .357 Magnum revolver, assume that the inevitable screw-up will occur with a Magnum load.
  3. Don't mix dry-fire practice with drawing or reloading practice in the same session. You will be conditioning yourself to perform these skills subconsciously and will be at risk to complete the entire sequence inadvertently. Disable your handgun when practicing reloads by removing the slide from an autoloader or tying something around the top strap of your revolver.
  4. If you wear the gun immediately after completing your dry-fire practice you must be particularly vigilant against the temptation to get in just one more perfect trigger squeeze.

Also available DEFENSIVE USE OF FIREARMS: Revised and Updated Click image for free download or purchase of print copies

Questions? Comments? Stephen P. Wenger P.O. Box 4227 Show Low AZ 85902-4227 U.S.A.