Pass The Ammo

As mama always said “Gun cleanliness is next to Godliness”, we must always take responsibility of the safety factor while cleaning.

Yesterday, a Boise man was cleaning his 45 when it discharged and struck the sleeping neighbor in the leg. Extremely careless on his part, but it can and does happen to people. Only a proper fear and respect for a firearm will prevent such mistakes.

Unfortunately, I’ve been involved in a situation similar to this. When I was 21, I was fortunate enough to purchase a Bushmaster AR-15. It was late one night and I was cleaning the rifle on my bed alone in my room. After I was satisfied with my work, and loaded a few rounds in my magazine and proceeded to rack the slide constantly to monitor the feeding and ejection of the cartridges.

Mid way through the magazine, a messenger window popped up on my computer from my then-fiance. Here is where I dropped the ball. I set the rifle on my bed, locked and loaded and with the safety off. In retrospect, I did it out of the security of knowing I was alone in my room, and with the intention of a quick chat and then wrapping up the cleaning work.

A minute after I had sat down and began talking, an unnamed family member walked into the room to see what I was up to. As with most men, a black gun is a sexy thing. Sometimes you can’t help but stare, with an intense urge deep in the loins to touch this gun. Unfortunately, this family member gave in to those urges. He picked up the rifle while commenting on it’s sexiness. It was relatively new, so he hadn’t had a chance to handle or shoot the rifle yet. So the temptations were overwhelming, and he was unable to resist.

And as quickly as he had given in, he broke all gun safety rules in a split second. Yes. He had thoughtlessly squeezed the trigger.

This could have been a fatal mistake. Fortunately for myself, the muzzle was pointed at the foot of my bed, mostly straight downward. The .223 slug passed through my bed, through the floor and lodged into a main floor joist, as I was living upstairs above the garage. Had it missed the joist, it most likely would have gone into the hood of moms van.

So after we both just had the fire scared out of us, we got into a cussin’ fight over who’s fault it was. Obviously, we were both at fault in different degrees. But we both learned a very important lesson, and not in the best way.

Basic Gun Safety Rules

1. All firearms are always loaded.
2. Never let the muzzle of a firearm point at anything you are not willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger unless your sights are on the target.
4. Be sure of your target and what is behind it.