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You know how old I was when I learned the most important rule of firearms? Five.
I learned it from watching an anime called Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs.
The rule is “the weapon is always loaded, treat it as such”.
When a fucking anime from the 80s has better firearms safety than a boatload of CERTAIN people, something is horrifyingly wrong.
Its easier to paint all gun owners as reckless at best, criminals at worst, when you have dumbasses like this walking around. Truth is, the vast majority of american gun owners I’ve met have been strict followers of the 4 rules. If I ever meet someone who isn’t, they immediately become strangers after I leave the situation. Ill try to correct behavior, but not everyone is receptive. Thats where common sense gun laws would be great to have, like proving competency with a firearm and the safety rules especially, every year if you want a ccw. Unfortunately, the ccw in my state is an online course with 10 questions at the end, and fees and a waiting list to get your physical card. I could (and did, but did not carry until confident with my setup) get this ccw without ever having fired the gun I intend to carry, much less handled it safely.
Also, for people less familiar, if you are ever handed a firearm, IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CLEAR IT YOURSELF. Just because someone clears it in front of you, does not make it clear. I dont care if the person field strips it in front of me, the first thing im doing after they hand it to me is clearing it myself.
Gun owners reading maybe? Please be more reponsible/safe with your firearms. Be as safe as you think you should, then be a little safer. There’s countless little things to work on, like not breaching the fire line or responsible clearing before leave line. We all take a huge responsibility when we decide to carry concealed. You have to delete your ego, you can’t be short fused. There’s no room for prejudice, or stupidity. You alone are responsible for what comes out of your weapon, and if the responsibility is shrugged off, tragic things happen that you have to live with. Don’t mess around, stay sharp.
Treat EVERY GUN as if its loaded (imagine that rounds can magically appear if you set it down or take eyes off, because they sometimes do!) Keep your finger off the trigger until ready and safe to fire. (Keep your booger hook off the bang switch!) Do not point your firearm at anything you are not willing to destroy (whether youre firing or not, whether its loaded or not) Fully know your target and all things behind it(bullets have a tendency to keep going)
I dont care if the person field strips it in front of me, the first thing im doing after they hand it to me is clearing it myself.
This kind of attitude is the exact right way to do it when safety is involved. You make it automatic, not a decision. It’s like wearing your seatbelt. It saves you time and energy while producing the best results.
Put another way: Crazy shit happens every day. You make it automatic not because you distrust the person unloading it in front of you. You do it because you shouldn’t trust yourself to be perfectly flawless in life and death situations. You do it 100% of the times that you rationally know for certain that it’s empty, so that you skip the check 0.00000% of the time that some crazy sequence of events quietly creates a dangerous situation.
I’m honestly very anti-firearms, I live in the USA and while I have met young veterans who take good care of their firearms and exhibit excellent discipline, I have met enough dangerous folk waltzing around toting firearms to flex power at best or to carry out violence at worst, (many different walks of life), that I do not want fire arms in the hands of anyone. The state already has a monopoly on violence, thigh high sock wearing lesbians on lemmy, or people who served and choose to own and carry aren’t really necessary. We’d be better off without them as a whole. And violence isn’t the absolute solution some of my peers would make it out to be.
Having observed the state, I do not trust it with a monopoly on violence. Yes, we would be better off without them. When we can guarantee that nazism will never, ever rise again, then we may feel free to disarm ourselves. Until then, that seems unwise. After all, ICE is doing most of their work in cities and states with harsh gun restrictions, where it’s safe for them to oppress.
Btw
When we can guarantee that nazism will never, ever rise again
That’s a “never.” Remember like 8y ago when everyone said “it could never happen here?” Well…
I like to think humanity is capable of evolving beyond such stupid ideas. But in the near term it does seem a bit of a long shot.
You can’t really kill most ideas (it seems especially not the bad ones), they just lay dormant for a while, maybe change shape a little, maybe change location, but they come back. Many things in life are cyclical, just like fashion trends coming back in style so do ideas, and unfortunately those are usually not limited by nostalgia.
Unfortunately, even if it did “never come back” we can’t verify that “never” until the sun explodes (assuming that kills all the humans, if we get off planet before that all bets are off) as “never” can only truly be known retroactively.
And tbh, if we did have that utopian world devoid of fascism (all authoritarianism, really) and crime for eternity, guns wouldn’t be an issue anymore anyway to necessitate a ban, at that point fuck it, have fun!
obligatory firearm safety reminder:
- rule one is “keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire”
- rule two is “never point the weapon at anything you are not willing to destroy”
- rule three is “always treat any weapon as though it is loaded”
- rule four is “know your target and what lays beyond it”
only by holding each other accountable can we make sure that everyone stays safe and has fun.
Thanks. I’ve never owned, fired, or even held a gun.
I have no intention to. I knew most of these, but I’m glad to see it officially written out like this.
If I’m ever in the position where I need to handle a gun, I can do so more safely then I would have before.
Good work. Keep that shit up.
Calling a firearm “fun” is already part of the problem
Have you ever tried it?
There’s nothing quite so uniquely irritating as someone intensely critical of something they know very little about.
I’m not American, and this kind of absolute is completely unacceptable.
You’re basically fun-shaming.
There’s plenty of stuff that’s universally disliked, like… Idk, murder… But that’s not the whole reason guns exist. Sport shooting, hunting, event target practice, can be lots of fun to people, and they all involve guns, and no person is harmed, if done correctly.
Stop being so hateful.
I don’t even like guns. I’ve never held, nor fired one. And I wouldn’t ever, even slightly, say that there is no “fun” to be had with firearms.
You’re a dick.
Firearms are fun. Knives are fun. Martial arts are fun. At least to a decently large number of people. That doesn’t mean that their roles in society don’t suck.
One might say that the danger (to people, to society…) outweighs the benefits of allowing target shooting as a sport. Maybe, I’d still disagree, but that’s an opinion we can argue about. We don’t allow people to build their own nuclear reactors for fun, for example. But saying something isn’t “fun” is ignoring that a lot of people perceive the world differently.
A lot of stupid things are “fun” to a huge number of people. Loud cars, street fights, guns… Normal people grow out of it. Just because some adult children still think it’s “fun” doesn’t mean we have to tolerate and allow it.
Disagree. I’m not from the US, so maybe guns being seen as fun is more of a cultural issue in not aware of, but plenty of weapons are seen as fun here in the UK. And while we do have gun crime, I think firearms are seen differently here vs the US.
People will go axe throwing for fun. With Scouts, we shot air rifles on camp a number of times (supervised by people who knew what they were doing). Knife throwing is also a thing. Clay Pigeon shooting is also not uncommon here.
I genuinely believe using a weapon on a (non-living) target is fun for a lot of normal, well adjusted people.
1: Don’t have a gun.
The only rule You really need.
I get your point, but hunting, as a sport, is about as old of a sport as you can get, and for that sport there will always be people who prefer firearms.
At a basic level, firearms really can’t be barred from most countries as a blanket rule for everyone that is never allowed to be broken.
Therefore, firearms exist and people have them. That might not be you, or your neighbor, nor anyone you know, but they exist and people have them.
If you are ever in the rare position of being in the presence of one, and/or the situation where you need to handle one for any reason, would this information not be better to know ahead of time, rather than unknown until that moment?
It’s like first aid, IMO. I’ve known first aid for well over two decades, including CPR and everything. I’ve never needed anything more than how to correctly apply a bandaid. I’m still grateful to know what I know in case I’m ever in a situation that I may need it. That situation might never come, it may never happen. I’d rather know, and never have the need to know, than have the need to know, and not know.
Safety, first aid, anything that keeps people alive, should be universal knowledge. Doesn’t matter if it’s guns, cars, CPR, bandaids, or forklift safety… It’s better to know it, and never need it, than need it, and not know it. Period.
Running is a sport. Swimming is a sport. Football is a sport. Hunting is a game at best. For mentally unwell people.
Oh come on. I get what you are trying to point out, but that is like saying you don’t need to know forklift safety rules, as you will never operate a forklift.
Dude. Forklifts are useful.
Guns are also useful. Especially with the world at its wits end with Nazis
My grandpa who takes me shooting was going over the firearm safety rules and with rule two I was like “that seems extreme” and his response it’s supposed to be, a gun killing or injuring or damaging isn’t as vivid as the word destroy
And yeah for me the other rules kinda seemed a given, bullets move fast and possibly through our hanging rubber targets, the gun probably can’t fire if you don’t give it a squeeze, and as for loaded better safe than sorry.
These rules seemed almost obvious to me, and yet there’s all these guys at the range behaving like absolute idiots
My friend’s dad stopped us just in time before we tried skeet shooting with a handgun and a rifle. We were on their property, which spanned miles. His dad said, “I don’t know what the maximum range is on those, but is that really how you want to find out?”
Yeah you expect the American public to abide by the rules and make smart choices?
I’m a member of the American public. I abide by the rules, make smart choices, and don’t tolerate those who don’t. All my friends are the same way.
Less than 1% of American gun owners commit 100% of gun violence in the US.
To quote K from Men In Black: “a person, can be smart. but people, are dumb.”
also yes. I do.
The biggest problem with the American Constitution is the right to bear arms, IMO. I’m not American so take this with a grain of salt, but think of the dumbest person you’ve met, would you trust them with a gun? Probably not.
It shouldn’t be a right to own a gun. I’m not saying the barrier should be all that high, but you should be required to prove that you’re more intelligent than an oak tree to own one.
No, the biggest problem (IMO) is that we enshrine the right to bear arms, but mandate no education about firearms in public school. If we’re going to embrace guns the same way we do cars, we should teach “shooter’s ed” the same way we teach “driver’s ed.”
The second biggest problem is, even though most Americans agree that the root causes of violence need to be addressed (poverty, homelessness, unemployment, mental health, etc.) the sad reality of our political system is that these interests aren’t represented because capitalists have hijacked our government for their own benefit.
Tbh some schools used to, kinda. All the ones around me used to have a rifle team until the early-mid 00s (some got rid of it earlier). I’m not sure they’re allowed to anymore now that schools are federally mandated gun free zones (which seems to be the only thing that mandate stopped by the looks of it.)
I don’t and it shows in our gun deaths compared to every other developed country.
Once you subtract suicides, self-defense, justifiable homicides, officer involved shootings, and accidents, what you’re left with is a statistic that indicates 100% of gun violence is caused by less than 1% of gun owners.
Overall, the vast, VAST majority of gun owners in the US are safe and do make good choices.
I would argue that they do follow those rules. They’re just willing to destroy other kids at school with hopefully more kids behind them. Same goes for muslims in mosques, etc
About 80 percent of the time yes. Even the dumbest slack jawed hick knows not to fuck around with guns, doesn’t make them not twitchy but that’s a different issue. It’s white trash and rich yuppy types who are generally the threat.
Yeah the ones that want to be like the rest of the world and not have the entire populace be gun obsessed morons. They are the issue 😆
I was referring to folks who generally speaking were progressive yuppies back in the day but melted their brains on fox news then Facebook before going out to buy a gun without any training whatsoever. The type who when a protest happens are in their front yard swinging around their gun like their lives are on the line. Mind you that grouping is generally overlapped with white trash.
If you don’t want a gun do your own thing. I frankly would kill to get mandatory gun licensing requirements.
Ah I see. I don’t disagree.
Yeah kinda forgot that most folks aren’t half feral hicks where the term yuppy very specifically refers to shitstains who moved to the city back in the 80s and 90s only to move back in the 2010s and 2020s to gentrify everything. How I wish to bleed the condescending ones in particular.
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FFS I can watch you clear a firearm and the first thing I will do is clear it when handed to me or I pick it up at the range.
Always assume it’s loaded. It’s not hard.
same. people think they’re smarter than themselves.
How do we make people feel stupid again?!
Put lots of hot objects around saying “Do not touch: hot”.
Rubics cube without google and you don’t know how to solve it.
lobotomy?
See they would be stupider, but I’m not sure they’d gain any level of awareness.
In the social media age it seems like everyone’s opinion seems just as valid, so there’s no reality check on how dumb you actually are.
It’s like how you think you can fight, then go to an MMA gym and get man handled and then come to realization you can’t fight at all.
so lobotomy at an mma gym then
I have watched a fat dude with a beard turn a ping pong ball into an orange using nothing but a solo cup and a quick wit. I do not trust, I only verify.
How?
cups and balls is a common magic trick, which is being referenced here. You slip the thing into the cup as its set down. Classic slight of hand routine.
Oh, nice! :D
Hey that actually is a fat man with a beard as well lol. That was cool.
How many balls? YES ORANGE
I’m not a gun person so maybe I was just fooled by a video. I also probably don’t use the right terms so forgive me.
But it was awhile back; one video I saw of a guy showing how he was clearing the chamber of a pistol. Pulled it back from a full clip and counted each one. He counted 8 (which was expected for the size). Kept clearing it while nothing came out. Asked the viewer “Clear? Nope. Did you notice what’s wrong”?
Pulls the gun back to show the bullet still visually in the chamber.
Apparently it was a pistol with a recall or common issue of not correctly clearing the last round. He had an additional bullet chambered at the start so he counted the clip size but the pistol had 9 rounds initially with one still completely capable of firing at the end.
Like, he literally pulled it back and cleared it like 20 additional times. Bullet still just sitting there at the end.
Will try to find the video.
Yeah, it sounds like a malfunction. It should clear by racking the slide until nothing comes out, but ALWAYS verify by checking the chamber.
Yep yep. I will only trust that the chamber of a gun is empty if I can shine a light down the front, and see it from the back. Even then, damn bullet goblins can pop a bullet in there in the blink of an eye, so you still want it pointed away from anything that can feel pain
A faulty extractor would easily cause this issue. That’s why you also have to visibly inspect the chamber. A round would be easily visible while the slide is back.
ALWAYS treat every gun as if it is loaded
Acts and prove, acts and prove.
I don’t get America, a place where you can walk around with a weapon that has no purpose other than to cause harm
Some context here: this is almost certainly a gun store, and this is going to be from the check-in station for when people come to jlhave their guns worked on, a holster fitted, or for gun sales.
I used to work an a major outdoors store and we’d have dozens of customer-owned guns come in a day, and we’d find a round in the chamber a few times a year, and we have them hell over it every time. We also had jar of shame like this one.
The worst that I experienced was when I was mounting a scope on a 300 Win Mag. The rifle was checked in up front, made it through 2 salesmen who helped them select a scope, and then to me for the mounting.
I had the customer shoulder the gun so I could find their eye position, got the appropriate mounts, and took the gun to the back and spent some time.mounting everything.
When everything was mounted properly, the optic zeroed with the bore scope (good enough to hit paper at 100 yards), and the gun ready to go I worked the action to check clearance on the bolt and a nickel-plated round was ejected. The guy at the gun check-in had seen the color of the jacket and assumed it was the magazine follower (they’re supposed to che k more thoroughly, and the next 3 of us in line did the same quick visual check and were fooled by the silver color.
My asshole was puckered for a week, and when I reported the incident to the firearm department manager he threw a shifting at everyone involved (including the customer), but let me off easy since I reported the incident and he could see how shaken I was.
But it also was a great demonstration of the importance of the rules of gun safety. Even though we all “knew” the gun was unloaded, there wasn’t any real danger since we all still treated it like it was loaded at all times.
Safety requires multiple layers. With the 4 rules (treat all guns as if they are loaded, do not point the gun at anything you aren’t willing to kill or destroy, be aware of your target and what’s behind your target, and keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire), you can screw up on any 3 of the rules without anyone being injured.
I have a neighbor who appears to be schitzophrenic. He seems to think I hacked his wifi for some reason. He’s threatened me in the parking lot, assaulted another resident, and I have a video of him standing outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night, pointing at it, and swinging a baseball bat. I bought a gun. I carry it when I go to my car or the mailbox or do laundry. Because the cops didn’t do shit and I am not going to get murdered by this motherfucker.
Idk why but you reminded me of this story lol.
I had a neighbor for a while who would walk around talking to himself. The closest I got to him, I was walking to the dumpsters with the trash and he was walking the other way towards me. As I was walking by I nodded and said “how’s it going” y’know as ya do, and he responded with a totally normal “fuck you american you come to africa I kill you yadda yadda.” I laughed and said “Ok you have a nice one too” and everything was cool, but I probably would have been worried if I hadn’t had a gun concealed on me at the time.
Luckily I didn’t have to use it! Closest I’ve got was a different dude who pulled a knife on me and my then-gf in a parking lot in '19. I moved the concealment and grabbed the grip and for some unknown reason he decided to walk away without pressing the issue further. I assume he found someone else to rob, no clue what happened after I bought my groceries and left.
People seem to think gun owners are itching for an excuse to use it. Maybe some are like that, but as for me, and it sounds like you, and the majority I’ve met, well I don’t ever want to put holes in anything that isn’t made of paper. It is reassuring to know that if someone’s going to try and bludgeon me to death I have an option to prevent that though.
You see, we might just need to cause death at any moment, one never knows, there’s too much life around all the time. Someone’s gotta keep that in check.
how do you expect us to protect ourselves from other gun owners?
I can’t tell if this is a joke or you can’t see the irony haha
It’s for killing MAGA. Washington and his friends were worried people would try to create tyranny, so they made sure Americans all had guns to kill the people who do that.
The amendment was actually added at the insistence of slaver states to ensure they would have well armed militias to hunt down escaped slaves and put down any slave rebellions.
Then why’d they add “being necessary to the security of a free State”?
Idk if the other guy is right, but it’s not like they would add “to hunt down slaves” instead. So they might have put that to get the whole thing added on.
Right, but if the only way the slavers could get it in was to say it’s for rebelling against tyranny, then it seems like rebelling against tyranny was the important concern.
Also I’ve read the declaration of secession by the confederate states and it was really explicit about slavery being the point. I think they would say it’s for slavery if they thought they could get away with it
It’s wrong… kinda close, but wrong (not slaves - different non-white people). Wondering if a correction gets made.
Every gun you see is always loaded.
This is clearly a lie, but is a useful lie that if you live by will make yourself as well as others safer around guns.
Better way to word it is: “Treat every gun as if it is loaded”
Followed with:
-
Never aim your weapon at anything you do not intend to destroy.
-
Keep your trigger finger straight and along the receiver until you intend to fire your weapon.
-
Keep your weapon on safe until ready to fire.
-
Be aware of your target, your surroundings, and what lies beyond your target.
-
Disagree. Every firearm I’ve ever handled has been loaded.
Sure, sometimes I’m wrong, but even a hint of “well it might not be loaded” seems like a dangerous slippery slope.
It’s no use reasoning with people who would rather be correct than be safe.
Fair point.
There is a fallacy named after this.
If you treat loaded and unloaded guns with the same safety, you don’t have to lie.
Is it the fallacy fallacy?
“I should treat this safely” is not “there is a bullet in this I’d better not fuck around”. Framing matters.
The slippery slope fallacy. Just because you just checked and know that the gun is unloaded doesn’t inextricably lead to danger if you always treat a gun as if it were loaded.
You don’t have to lie to yourself or others that the gun is loaded if it is not, just always treat it as if it is.
The only thing you do by lying is give people reason not to trust you.
I know the fallacy fallacy. It doesn’t apply in this case because you really were making a slippery slope argument with no evidence, and despite my counterarguments. But I don’t have more time to spend on ashitpost lol
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Take a bullet, leave a bullet
I can’t tell you how many times this has saved me at checkout.
Wow you must encounter some really aggressive cashiers
I dunno about aggressive, they seem pretty courteous to me
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Rule #0 of firearm safety: Trust no one.
not even myself from an hour ago! or 5 minutes ago! Every single time one is picked up it is checked
Never trust the last person, especially if the last person was you.
Nope, Rule #0 is: have no firearm.
Edit: americans don’t like this.
What the fuck are Americans doing?
Shop worker: “Clear your weapon sir.”
Customer: “Ain’t loaded.”
Shop worker: “Sorry, store policy.”
Customer: “Fine” (clears weapon, ejects a live round) “Oops! How’d that get in there.”
Shop worker: (Puts the ejected round into the jar) “How can I help you today?”
I’m no expert on their citizenry, but on average, probably the same fucking shit you or I are doing.
But with guns.
“Well organized” “militia”
I ask myself this everyday
Dying, a lot
Trying to convince each other that we’re “responsible gun owners”
American things.
Ammmeeeeriiiiicaaaaa
Even from just movies and video games, I know to empty the breech and not just take out the magazine.
At the same time: It should be treated as loaded 100% of the time even if you just 100% fully unloaded it.
I go the extra mile and treat it as loaded even after taking it apart. Never know when the barrel tube might go rogue.
Yep. When I check my rifling I do so from the back of the barrel lol.
Ding ding ding. If you can see light when looking up the barrel through the breech/chamber, your weapon is very likely to be clear.
I know to empty the breech and not just take out the magazine
It is so very important to know that there is a right order in which to do this, too. Many many NDs come from people racking the slide then dropping the mag. At least one life that I know of would have been saved by getting the order right
If you aren’t condition 4 when entering, I’ll meet you at condition 0.
I’ve had multiple people try and hand me a gun saying “It’s not loaded.” Let me see you clear it, please. I want to see light down that chamber if I’m going to accept that. Some guys get annoyed, but I once failed a gun safety course as a teen because I forgot to ask as the instructor as he handed me one. I will absolutely never forget that going forward.
My rule is whenever anyone hands me a gun (why do people do that so often?) I always eject the magazine then rack the slide myself to verify. I don’t trust the other guy not to do it too fast and not to have his finger on the trigger
I taught my kids never to touch a gun unless the owner cleared it in front of them and showed them the empty chamber.
repeal the 2nd
With all due respect, right the fuck now we shan’t.
We shall, maybe, some time in a faraway future when things in society are, shall we say, less immediately threatening to literal life and liberty.
gets off intoxicated soapbox
So we shan’t, maybe later it’s a shall, but we shan’t.
Shan’t.
