I’d like to commission a survey and ask a random sample of gun owners in the US:
1: Have you ever heard of the 4 rules.
2: Can you say them? (any reasonable approximation accepted)
My hypothesis is that only a tiny fraction of gun owners have ever heard them and even fewer can recite them.
How important are safety rules that people never hear of, when they manage to somehow avoid shooting themselves or anyone else by the millions every day?
Could it be that if you are not an idiot you just know not to point a gun at something and pull the trigger unless you want a hole in that thing? Conversely, if you ARE an idiot will any number of rules help?
Anyone want to underwrite a survey?
UPDATE: I’m pretty sure that everyone who reads this knows the 4 Rules, OK? Y’all aren’t the people I’m talking about. Or are you?
Not only we do we know and recite the four rules but we have a fifth rule, as well . . . if you accidentally drop the gun do not grab for it.
God forbid your finger slid into the trigger guard . . . let it go.
I went over the four rules in the truck on the way to the range last night with the 11 year old grandson!
Most every trainer or range officer has recited some version and I hear/read of the safety rules frequently.
I think they are more prevalent than you may think.
Most everyone gets “Is gun, is dangerous,” even people who have never seen a gun outside of the movies. With that comes the realization that yeah, this thing can be used to make holes appear in things in the general direction the barrel is pointing. Whether or not most people (or most gun owners specifically) know the “4 rules” is another matter entirely. But in the end, like you said, people aren’t dying left and right.
And I meant to say that I would be interested in seeing the results from that survey…
I think you’re right, at least to some degree. There are a lot of folks with guns who’ve never or rarely fired them. Inherited or given them from family and have no formal training. Or did some panic buying.
I went to some gun stores in LA & Orange County just after the King riots. All of them had been cleaned out, everything on the wait list with nothing available for sale. The gun store folks told of all kinds of folks buying whatever they had, folks with no experience wanting .44 magnums etc. Their only insight into gun safety was whatever the clerks told them. (CA has since passed a law requiring written training)
I don’t go to public ranges — they’re way too scarey!
Give me a private range with a bunch of Bullseye shooters and I can relax. They know, and follow, the rules. And when someone breaks one, they get hollered at real fast, and *never* make that mistake again. (Don’t ask how I know.)
Dude, seriously. That horse isn’t just dead, but it’s been turned into glue and Alpo.
Stop beating it already… 😉
No Jay, no topic is ever dead! This needs to go on and on for months and months and from Blog to Blog until the Web crashes from the shear number of Terabytes frying Servers around the World, collapsing Civilization and bringing us back to the Age of Steam!
Or not.
Anything new on the iPad scene?
1. Never eat at a diner called “Mom’s.”
2. If she’ll do oral and anal sex only for $40, check the size of her knuckles and Adam’s Apple.
3. Never get into a land war in Asia.
4. Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Oh yeah, and 5) Don’t act like an ‘effin idiot with a gun in your hand.
You’re right Alan, WE know the rules, but the public range I was on today was scary… Idiots have shot the steel posts from close range (20 feet or less), and the ceiling over the benches has probably 60 holes from guns being fired up (either accidentally or on purpose)…
JayG, to expand on and thoroughly coarsen your barnyard analogy:
Nobody makes sweet, sweet love to this particular chicken quite like Alan. 8^)
I think the 4 Rules comes out of an understanding that people get complacent. New shooters and infrequent shooters maintain a wariness that regular shooters loose due to familiarity.
The 4 Rules are like a checklist for a pilot. If you use your checklist every time, you will never land with your landing up, never take off with flaps pinned, etc. If you follow the 4 rules, or my club’s range rules, or even your 2 Rules, you will never have a negligent discharge that leaves you with a lifetime of regrets.
Perhaps for folks who were raised around guns they’re redundant. Or just unknown. For a total n00b like me who gets into gun ownership, they’re priceless.
What Lissa said.
I know that if I follow those 4 rules very, very carefully, it will be nigh-unto impossible for me to ventilate, aerate, perforate, puncture, fold, spindle or mutilate somebody or something by accident.