Special Safety Update For The Libs

Posted Sunday, March 4, 2012, at 12:55 AM
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    Zook, not trying to detract from your blog at all, cause frankly I like the humor level. But I ran into an interesting thing the other day and thought I should share, mostly because you've probably witnessed the same thing but I never had.

    First off, I got to resume` myself a little. I've shot firearms a long (long) time. Because I follow some abnormally high level weapons safety procedures (if I can describe it that way), when I handle a firearm it usually looks a little too swift for bystander's eyes. In fact, if I'm witnessed handling a gun a little slowly, you can count on I don't know anything about it and take my time to ensure its safe to handle.

    Anyway, I was at this couples house and the guy wanted me to take a look at his pistol. As soon as he started to go get that pistol, his wife seemed a little hyper-aware, agitated, and nervous. Now, I've seen that look before. Most notably, in myself when someone appears to be handling a firearm improperly. So he brings out the pistol and the fight/flight climate was so thick, you could measure it. Now, we both look at guns the same way when clearing ammo; safety, magazine (if applicable), chamber clear, etc, etc, and after all that, it's just a safer hunk of inanimate metal. Well, this guy pretty much did that, if not all in the same order that I would have done it, but well enough for my confidence. During the procedure, his wife wiggled in her chair and shifted her eyes. Not good signs, but other peoples nervousness around guns don't bother me so he hands the pistol to me, slide back just the way I like it, and I go thru the same clearing procedures, regardless if it's been just done in front of me or not, and start checking it out for him. For some reason, his wife was a lot more at ease; a load less uncomfortable and the heavy feeling had lessoned quite a bit. Now, his wife is well aware of my experience with firearms and during clearing procedures, my movements are very deliberate, as if almost inviting other people to take note of my obvious movements stipulating the weapon is safe, not loaded, and is just a hunk of steel that can't become self aware, not that it could with ammo in it anyway.

    So my observation is this: The confidence that a weapon handler presents while handling said weapon, seems to have a lot of impact on inexperienced onlookers perception. Also, how we shooters respond to our toys; not referring to them in the third person, seems to make a difference and place others at ease. There just seems to be this gap in understanding between those that deal with firearms and those that don't, and I don't quite understand that. HAHA! There's a lot about cars I don't understand but I'm not going to quit driving. Bungee jumping and hobby flying has the same deadly results with unsafe practices as firearms ownership, all of which require the human factor to be involved. But some reason, folks just can't make that connection, the human is the problem, and like I said, I just don't get it or the attacks on inanimate objects.

    -- Posted by Darksc8p on Sun, Mar 4, 2012, at 4:19 PM
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    Love the humor!

    But be careful, it might wake up!

    Good points by JYD & DarkSc8p

    -- Posted by jessiemiller on Tue, Mar 6, 2012, at 1:46 PM
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