Gun Safety Rules

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I dunno which Army guys you were with, but if we'd cleared without eyeballing and fingering, we'd have been in deep doo doo. That was SOP in my unit.

Don't get me started, but speaking of Army guys, didn't you just love having someone sit next to you, chest to chest, with their chest mount holstered pistol in condition 1?

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

See, everyone knows this. Very few people handle guns like they know it. It's better to handle guns like the magic death wands TV and action movies represent them as, yet STILL people with little experience handling firearms pay almost no attention to where precisely the end that the bullet comes out is pointing.

TV and action movies also generally represent them as being highly resistant to accidental discharge while in hand. Think of how "anti Hollywood tradition" that accidental discharge in Pulp Fiction was.

People handling guns for the first time assume that pulling the trigger is likely to instakill someone, but they can carry it around with their finger parked in the guard without accidentally pulling the trigger.

[Kraydak]

Not to minimize the importance of gun safety, but please remember that almost no gun-safety-ignorant, gun-toting people accidentally shoot someone, even when drunk. Like car accidents (accidents, not crashes that occur because your character thought he could drive his semi down stairs on flat tires), gun accidents are so far down the probability curve that RPGs have to either massively inflate the danger, or approximate that they never occur at all.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Kraydak

Not to minimize the importance of gun safety, but please remember that almost no gun-safety-ignorant, gun-toting people accidentally shoot someone, even when drunk. Like car accidents (accidents, not crashes that occur because your character thought he could drive his semi down stairs on flat tires), gun accidents are so far down the probability curve that RPGs have to either massively inflate the danger, or approximate that they never occur at all.

I wouldn't say that, without looking at actual published numbers, I can say that anecdotally in handling insurance claims, that any given state is going to have at least handful of gun accidents every hunting season, most of them minor, like one claim I had of a guy using the stock of his rifle to clear brush while holding the barrel with his thumb over the muzzle, most minor incidents just go unreported.

Anecdotally I'll also say that most minor gun accidents in the military go unreported, the more egregious ones will result in article 15s and Captain's Masts, and the truly egregious ones result in court martials, but for the most part the vast majority of minor incidents are handled at the lowest level necessary to drive the point into the tool who jacked up.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Don't get me started, but speaking of Army guys, didn't you just love having someone sit next to you, chest to chest, with their chest mount holstered pistol in condition 1?

We didn't do that. Not even necessary, with a double action autoloader.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

See, everyone knows this. Very few people handle guns like they know it. It's better to handle guns like the magic death wands TV and action movies represent them as, yet STILL people with little experience handling firearms pay almost no attention to where precisely the end that the bullet comes out is pointing.

Lots of people also lack Common Sense, or actually have mental disadvantages /low IQ in GURPS terms. Idiots abound.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Yeah, that's what I said too, but since condition 1 is safer than condition 2, the choice is between condition 1 and condition 3.

Mind you, I know it's perfectly safe, but I just preferred to carry in a hip holster instead of a chest mounted one.

I carried a carbine or rifle most of my time in , but when I did use a pistol, I always preferred a hip carry.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

See, everyone knows this. Very few people handle guns like they know it. It's better to handle guns like the magic death wands TV and action movies represent them as, yet STILL people with little experience handling firearms pay almost no attention to where precisely the end that the bullet comes out is pointing.

I haven't had that experience. On the contrary, most 'newbs' I've seen are quite careful in their handling. Of course, this may because they were around me, and I am big on safety.

I maintain that a GURPS character with the Common Sense advantage and of the appropriate TL would grok the basics of safe firearms handling even without proper training. Training would reinforce his natural common sense approach to safety, of course. Paying for Common Sense helps the PC avoid doing stupid things- like pointing a gun at your buddy, not checking to see if it's loaded, etc.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

I wouldn't say that, without looking at actual published numbers

As I recall, adjusted for the number of people who own guns in America compared to cars, you're about 20 times more likely to die in a car accident driving to the range than by an accidental discharge of a firearm at the range. If you don't bump the rate up to account for the fact that not everyone owns a firearm, it's even rarer.

I wasn't able to find any statistics on what percentage of that involves someone under the influence of alcohol as the shooter, but I'm guessing it's a healthy chunk.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

As I recall, adjusted for the number of people who own guns in America compared to cars, you're about 20 times more likely to die in a car accident driving to the range than by an accidental discharge of a firearm at the range. If you don't bump the rate up to account for the fact that not everyone owns a firearm, it's even rarer.

I wasn't able to find any statistics on what percentage of that involves someone under the influence of alcohol as the shooter, but I'm guessing it's a healthy chunk.

Sounds right, at any rate.

Somebody should tell the 'libyooorawls' to ban cars. They pollute our beautiful planet and kill more people than those nasty old guns.

:)