Safety is the number one issue in gun handling and shooting, and, as the Zia membership handbook puts it, safety is the moral issue. Guns can be handled safely, of course, just like cars can be driven safely. Alas, it is also true of both guns and cars that they can be handled in quite unsafe ways.
This will be a topic that I’ll post on a lot, because it is so important. For today, let’s start with some good reading.
First, the NRA has 3 fundamental gun safety rules, which you can read here. Following them keeps us all out of trouble!
Col. Jeff Cooper, founder of the “modern technique” of pistol shooting, founder of Gunsite, and general inspiration to many many modern shooters, developed his famous 4 Rules for safe gun handling. Even though many people argue about the best way to word Rule 1, it still remains true that we would have to violate two of the 4 Rules to get into any trouble. And of course, we won’t violate any of them, right?!
My shotgun teacher once mentioned that her mother always admonished, “It’s not polite to point a gun at people!” And that is certainly the first golden rule. If you always keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target, and if you never point your gun at a person (or anything else you are not willing to put holes into) then the trouble you can get into with a gun is limited, approaching zero. Which is exactly how we like it.