Post your safety related rants here

[Eric]

Did somebody at the range do something stupid? Your buddy is an imbecile? Were you next to That Guy in a class? This is your opportunity to vent.

I'll also take a moment to remind folks of the 4 Universal Firearms Safety Rules. There are several variants of these, but they essentially get the same point across. If these are always followed, all will be well.


1. ALWAYS TREAT ALL FIREARMS AS LOADED.

2. NEVER POINT THE FIREARM AT ANYTHING YOU DO NOT INTEND TO SHOOT.

3. KEEP YOUR TRIGGER FINGER INDEXED ABOVE THE TRIGGER GUARD UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON-TARGET AND YOU HAVE DECIDED TO FIRE.

4. BE SURE OF THE TARGET, AS WELL AS THE SURROUNDINGS AND BEYOND.

[Eric]

I'll start with a short one. I attended a week long instructor class recently. I'm not posting the name of the instructor that was brought in, but it would be familiar to many. Early in day 1 the instructor was doing a demo on the line and several times swept half of the attendees with his pistol (rules 1 and 2 violated). Sure, it was "unloaded" but really!?! It was addressed and did not occur again.

[alamo5000]

I have some observations but since I shoot at home or at friend's places 95% of the time I am rarely around that kind of thing. However upon entering the range that I go to from time to time (it's indoor so I go when the weather is bad) I looked up and noticed not one, but about 50 bullet holes up above where people held their pistols or rifles up and tried to rack the slide only to have it discharge thus leaving tons of holes through the roof. Then I noticed the exit door... the one BEHIND me... it had a massive crater in it. It looked like someone shot it with a .44 magnum from about 10 feet away. Fortunately the door is made out of some pretty hefty material so it didn't go all the way through... but damn!

After seeing all that aftermath it made me think the world is full of idiots.

[alamo5000]

Another one was this guy took his rifle to my friend Jim who is also my FFL and an all around salty foul mouthed bastard who also happens to be funny as hell....He wanted Jim to diagnose the problem with his rifle. Jim took one look at it and asked (and I quote) "What in the F**** did you do?!" (Jim is about 6'4 and about 260 with a goatee and a baseball hat and is a pretty rough guy. He has big rough welder hands that are about twice the size of a normal human. He's built like a linebacker and has NO filter between the brain and the mouth). About every third word that he says is a swear word. He really kind of reminds me of the character from Gran Torino only he is slightly more angry at times. (Get off my lawn!) Once you get to know him though he's a really nice guy. He's a character that's for sure.

The guy had apparently left his bolt action .308 chambered...in the garage... which was open air and exposed to the elements for about a year and a half or, maybe two years. He left it propped up on the muzzle of the gun. Dirt dobbers built nests on the rifle in a couple places and the whole thing was rusted up. That rifle looked like crap. But what did he do? He checked it and found that a round was in the chamber still so he went without even batting an eye and pulled the trigger on it with that old round still in there. All he saw was a big puff of smoke and a big noise....What did he do next? He chambered another round and fired it AGAIN to see if he could figure out what was going on. Same thing. Smoke and noise. After the third try he figured something was wrong.

By the time he brought it to Jim you could look at the barrel sideways and see the rifling in it... it had split lengthwise. Then he asked Jim if he could fix it.

Jim was ranting for half an hour after the guy left....'oh I think I see the problem here...THERE IS A BIG F***ING HOLE IN THE SIDE OF YOUR BARREL you dumb MF'er!'... he was just talking to himself grumbling away... in his 'girl voice' he would say 'can you try to fix it' then he would go off on one of his tirades....

[Eric]

I was at a gun shop last year that primarily deals in new guns, but also some used ones and it has a range. I was taking a look at a new rifle and asked the counter guy if I could dry fire it. Of course I had verified it was unloaded and was preparing to direct the muzzle to the floor prior to pressing the trigger. I was abruptly stopped and told that I had to point it at the wall to pull the trigger...STORE RULES. I was confused since the wall was clearly an unsafe direction. The parking lot was on the other side of the wall and a major freeway behind that. I thought I was missing something and inquired if it was a reinforced wall of some kind. Nope. I tried to point out the problem but again got...STORE RULES. I left and have not returned.

[Canexpat]

#4

We usually go shooting at a mined out quarry pit used for log road building above my place. Very high in the Cascades, up more than a couple miles of logging roads. Popular with many.

We rolled in there one morning. I stopped at the entrance looking into the quarry, and above us, on a leveled area against the wall EVERYONE else shoots TO, were a couple guys set up with coolers and tables. Buddy and I both say "WTF are they doing up there? " as there is no real safe room to shoot from their position.

We parked on the landing and looked around and waited to see what they were up to. After a couple minutes there was a bit of hand waving from them. I waved back. After another ten minutes they began violently breaking their little camp. Throwing coolers, jamming rucks, slamming tables closed; tossing all into their rig.

A few minutes later they rolled down to us, they stopped and the driver proceeded to tell me how rude I was for screwing up their morning. I asked what he meant and he replied they were shooting. I said "There's plenty of room for all but not with you staged where you were." He says "We were shooting this way" pointing at the targets they had pinned to trees at the entrance. Great situational awareness on my part...

I asked "You were shooting to here? From up there? Towards the quarry entrance?" "Ya!" he replied. "Across this landing? And over the road I just drove up?" I asked. I blew up.

Dumb shit put his head down after I verbalized my assessment of his and his buddy's collective intellectual capabilities. They drove off to the sound of my yelling expletive after expletive...

Couple hours later a State Troop rolled in on a courtesy check, said hi and left. No coincidence in my mind.