Firearm Safety Rules

Firearm Training and Safety Course
Everyone should enroll in a firearms training and safety course and everyone should learn the proper safe way to use firearms and then consistently practice those firearm safety rules.
The Seventeen Firearm Safety Rules

Always treat every firearm as if it were loaded and ready to fire.
Never point a firearm at anyone (including yourself) or anything that you do not intend to kill or destroy.
Always point a firearm in a safe direction, such as the ground but not at your foot, when you are moving the firearm from one location to another location.
Never put the open end of the barrel on the ground or in water because if anything gets inside the barrel then the gun may explode when the trigger is pulled.
Never put your finger on the trigger until the sights are aligned on the target.
Never, never pull the trigger unless the firearm is pointed in a safe direction or at your target, including when the firearm is not loaded. Thousands of firearm injuries and accidental deaths could have been avoided if this rule had been followed.
Positively identify your target (no guessing) and everything behind your target the bullet might hit.
Always wear safety glasses when shooting any type of firearm.
Do not put your eye too close to a riflescope or you may get a black eye or a more serious eye injury.
Always wear some type of hearing protection when shooting any type of firearm.
Do not put your hand, fingers, or face on or against the moving parts of the firearm when pulling the trigger or you will get injured.
If using two hands to hold a semi-automatic pistol then do not put your other hand directly behind the moving slide on top of the pistol because it will seriously injure your other hand. Instead grasp the wrist of the hand that is holding the handgun.
Do not store or carry your firearm with a live round in the firing position in front of the firing pin. Wait until you are ready to use your weapon before inserting a live round into the firing chamber. Thousands of firearm injuries and accidental deaths could have been avoided if this rule had been followed.
If your firearm has a safety then the safety should be ON until you are ready to actually pull the trigger.
Do not use your riflescope to look at other hunters. Use binoculars instead.
Never, never point a laser at the eyes of a person or an animal because the laser can permanently blind the person or animal. Or the laser may permanently and significantly reduce their ability to see clearly.
If it has been awhile since a firearm was shot then verify the barrel is empty before loading the firearm. Something could have crawled inside the barrel and died. Or something could have built a tiny nest inside the barrel, or laid some eggs inside the barrel. Once I found a cleaning patch inside the barrel of a rifle that had slipped off a cleaning rod the last time the barrel had been cleaned by another person. If I had loaded and shot that rifle before removing the cleaning patch then the rifle would have exploded in my face and in my hands.

Reasons for Safety Advice Number 13 Above
(Added February 7, 2024)
I realize that almost every firearm manufacturer advertises their semi-automatic firearms with "+1" added to the capacity of the magazine for that firearm. Two examples would be "7+1" and "15+1". The "+1" indicates that a live round could be stored in the firing chamber of the firearm in addition to the number of rounds that are stored inside the magazine of that firearm.

Temporarily adding an extra round into the firing chamber of his firearm might be a good option for a law enforcement officer who has been given orders to draw his firearm and to enter a building and apprehend one or more armed criminals that may be in that building. Sometime in the next few minutes the law enforcement officer may need to use his firearm to defend himself and having an extra round in the firing chamber may be very useful. However, when the officer leaves the building and the threat to his life has passed, then the officer should immediately safely remove the live round from the firing chamber of his firearm.

The above example is a special situation. Having a live round in the firing chamber of a firearm is not good advice for anyone else. Each of us should only load a live round into the firing chamber of our firearm when we are ready to actually shoot our firearm. A live round should never, never be in the firing chamber of our firearm in any other situation at any time. If you will pause and think about it, that is what the law enforcement officer did in the above example.

If you do not have a live round in the firing chamber of your firearm then the chance of an accidental discharge of that unloaded firearm is zero.
However, if a live round is in the firing chamber of your firearm then the firearm could accidentally discharge and the bullet could injure or kill yourself or some other person. All it would take is for the trigger to be accidentally moved by your finger, or by your clothing, or by your holster.
If you accidentally drop your firearm and if it makes contact with the floor then any of the following could happen:
- A manual safety may get knocked out of the safe position and into the firing position.
- A passive safety, such as a trigger safety, could move into the firing position due to the force of the drop and the fact that the safety is on a hinge.
- If there is no safety, or if the safety was not engaged, or if either of the above two should happen, then the force of the drop could move the trigger backwards on its hinge and activate the firing pin, and the firearm could fire a live round if there is a live round in the firing chamber. Since you will be very close to the firearm in this situation, then who will be the most likely person to be accidentally injured or killed? If the bullet injures or kills an innocent person then how will you feel?
The sudden stress in an unexpected life-or-death situation doesn't exist in a no-stress target practice situation. Stress has the tendency to cause accidents such as an accidental discharge when drawing a "ready-to-fire" weapon from a holster or from inside your clothing. However, if you do not load a live round into the firing chamber until it is needed, then the firearm will normally be pointed away from you and away from other innocent people when you transfer a live round into the firing chamber, and the chance of an accidental injury will be greatly reduced.
People who previously carried a live round in the firing chamber and who accidentally shot themselves or another person will unanimously tell you that they made a terrible mistake. And they will strongly recommend that you do not repeat their mistake of believing that a firearm accident would never happen to them because they were always going to be extremely careful with their loaded weapon that was ready to be fired. This would be similar to a person running with a sharp pointed knife in their hand and believing that it is impossible for them to trip and kill themselves because they have never tripped in the past when they were running with a sharp knife in their hand. Most intelligent people know that it is extremely dangerous to run with a sharp knife in their hand and they will repeatedly tell their family members not to do it.
Or you can follow the "unsafe" advice of people who recommend carrying a firearm with a live round in the firing chamber. They believe this is safe because they have not yet had a firearm accident. But these people cannot truthfully say that in the future they will never have an accidental discharge of their firearm.
If you do not load a live round into the firing chamber of your firearm then you need to be prepared to be criticized by your friends, and perhaps by members of your own family. Their reason will be that you are "not ready" for an unexpected life-threatening emergency. They will tell you that your failure to keep a live round in the firing chamber may cost you your life if you are suddenly attacked by a criminal because that "live round" may save you 1 or 2 seconds when you really need your firearm. What they will not tell you is that you may accidentally shoot yourself (or an innocent person) when you try to quickly draw your firearm in an emergency if there is a live round in the firing chamber. They will assure you that this will never happen because you will be calm and composed in this type of life-threatening situation and you will not make any mistakes. Your friends and family members may have good intentions when they criticize you but they are simply repeating what they have read in books and in magazines, and they are repeating what they have been told by other people for many, many years. A person who advises you to keep a live round in the firing chamber has never impartially considered the reasons why this advice should be ignored. If a person does change his mind on this issue then he may never openly admit that he has changed his mind because that would mean that he has been giving other people really bad advice for a very long time.
Will you be pressured into joining the huge crowd of people on February 7, 2024 who advocate carrying a live round in the firing chamber? Or will you use good common sense and ignore this bad advice as I have consistently recommended that people do (number 13 in the first list above) since February 2, 2009?

Grandpappy's e-mail address is: RobertWayneAtkins@hotmail.com

Firearm Training and Safety Course

The Seventeen Firearm Safety Rules

Reasons for Safety Advice Number 13 Above (Added February 7, 2024)

Reasons for Safety Advice Number 13 Above
(Added February 7, 2024)