Guns and Hunting Thread (12-1-2012)

Is It Safe?

One thing that's been drilled into my head since I was a small child is gun safety. When I say I grew up with guns in the house, I mean there was at least one in every room. They were usually loaded or had full magazines. And trigger locks? Puh-leeze.

Things are different these days. The People's Republic of Massachusetts requires you to keep your guns locked up at home, but even before I lived here, I had a wife who enacted that same law once we had kids in the house.

The focus on physically securing firearms is all well and good, but they don't exist to accessorize a room in a gun cabinet or be locked out of sight in a safe. The real fun comes in shooting them, and of course an element of danger comes along with that.

The NRA has three fundamental rules of safe gun handling:

1. ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction. This is the primary rule of gun safety. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed so that even if it were to go off it would not cause injury or damage. The key to this rule is to control where the muzzle or front end of the barrel is pointed at all times. Common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on different circumstances.

2. ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.
When holding a gun, rest your finger on the trigger guard or along the side of the gun. Until you are actually ready to fire, do not touch the trigger.

3. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use. Whenever you pick up a gun, immediately engage the safety device if possible, and, if the gun has a magazine, remove it before opening the action and looking into the chamber(s) which should be clear of ammunition. If you do not know how to open the action or inspect the chamber(s), leave the gun alone and get help from someone who does.

I'd add a fourth: There is no such thing as an "unloaded gun". The explanation of every gun accident you ever hear of begins. "I didn't know it was loaded ..."

Don't be this guy:

Gun of the Week - Answer

Identify this revolver by make, model and caliber (answer appears at the end of the thread):

Sure, You Can Make a Gun Out Of a Shovel, But Let's See You Make One Out Of a Hoe

From moron XBradTC, comes this tale of ingenuity. I mean, who hasn't looked at a shovel and thought, "I can make an AK out of that"?

Marksmanship Award

I found out after the inaugural gun thread that Cam Edwards is a lurker moron. Hi, Cam! Here's one of his armed self defense tweets from this week.

Hero of the Day - Ohio: Burglar caught after homeowner shoots at him - news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/… #NRA (via @cincienquirer)

— Cam and Company (@CamAndCompany) December 1, 2012

And if you want to help a brother out, you can listen to Cam's show each weeknight on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 9pm to midnight eastern or stream it live from NRANews.

Gun of the Week

The gun of the week is the Smith & Wesson Model 1917 in .45 ACP. Colt made one too, but the photo is the S&W. You can tell the difference between the two easily by the S&W-style vs. Colt-style cylinder latch.

Just The Tip

Thanks for the great gun thread tips and requests that were sent in this week. Sorry I couldn't get to them all, but they're in the queue.

If there are topics you're interested in seeing in the gun thread, please send them to AoSHQGunThread at gmail. You can also send them to me on Twitter at @AndyM1911.

posted by Andy at 01:55 PM

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