By Scott Polk
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- This week there is a story of an Idaho gun owner having a negligent discharge.
After the Idaho legislature decided this summer to allow teachers to carry in schools, in an effort to prevent school shootings, a professor in just the first week of school shot himself in the foot when a firearm went off in his pocket.
Now I can already imagine your reactions to this article.
There has to be a reason that this happened, guns don’t just go off on their own.
Most likely the teacher in question was fiddling with his weapon, didn’t have it in the correct type of holster or had other things in his pocket that caught on the trigger.
All of these potential issues could have been avoided and all should have, so why weren’t they and what can we as responsible gun owners do to help prevent future such accidents from happening?
When accidents happen with firearms we give the anti-gun movement more ammunition for their narrative. They hold all gun owners up as being no better than the most irresponsible of us, and stories like the one above only give them ‘ammo‘Â to further their cause while damaging the image of responsible gun owners everywhere.
The problem is that everyone thinks that they are a responsible gun owner, no one ever thinks that they will be the one to have a negligent discharge or accidental shooting, no one ever thinks that it will be there child who gets a hold of a firearm to show off to their friends.
We all think that these stories only happen to ‘other people’, and not to us. Perhaps we’re right, perhaps as readers of AmmoLand, we are the educated minority who are active participants in the firearms community.
The ones who understand the importance of training, who are aware of the family gun safe and whose guns are always secured, not accessible to those who shouldn’t have them while you have a plan to get your hands on a firearm from any room in your house. If that is you then great, perhaps you really are one of the ones who will never be at the center of a story. But does your responsibility end there?
A few months ago I was at a friend’s home talking about some shooting I had been doing recently, this friend started to look uncomfortable. It suddenly dawned on me that I had no idea if they shot, or how they felt about guns, so I asked if I was making them uncomfortable. It turns out that I wasn’t (though I was perhaps boring them to death as when I start talking guns and shooting I tend to go on for a while) they did in fact own a gun. They had bought it for home protection and had it in a safe upstairs. At the time I didn’t think much of the conversation, they had the gun stored safely away from their children and the conversation moved on, but since then I have become bothered by my own reaction. Upon learning that this couple had a gun they had shot perhaps once and then stuck in a safe I said nothing, I missed a prime opportunity to educate them on responsible firearms ownership.
This is exactly the sort of ownership that leads to accidents, people who haven’t trained or practiced with their firearms are not as safe as the ones who have and as a friend I should have been more willing to speak up and help this family to become the safest gun owners they could be.
Share the Knowledge, Improve Gun Safety
This is where we fail as gun owners, not in our own ongoing training and education, but in the spreading this knowledge to those around us.
It’s true that it is easy to buy a firearm, it’s easy in many states to get a concealed weapons permit and start carrying a weapon with you every day. What isn’t easy is learning how to be a safe and effective firearms owner and we, as a community, need to take responsibility for helping others to understand this.
As a well-educated firearms owner when was the last time you took the time to teach someone else and help make our community safer, and what will you do going forward to prevent accidents not only in your home but the homes of those around you?
The Fundamentals of Firearm Safety
Resources:
- NRA Gun Safety Rules
- National Shooting Sports Foundation Guns Safety
- Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Sports Manual
About Scott Polk
Scott Polk is a contributor to AmmoLand Shooting Sports News and active in the Great State of Idaho for gun rights.
He supports constitutional carry for everyone. He currently, works with local grass-roots organizations to educate and assist with messaging.
In addition Scott Polk is a pro-gun/second amendment business owner that specializes in internet marketing.
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottpolk
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottpolk
Over the past year I’ve read a lot of stories of professional gun handlers (police and others) that have negligently discharged a firearm. I don’t work about the person that keeps their firearm in the safe. i worry about the one that doesn’t.
The problem with me supporting the teaching process of gun safety is that it is hypocritical. The 3rd rule is a rule that although surely designed for the politically correct NRA no one with any self defense exposure would ever follow it. I would NEVER carry an unloaded firearm or for that matter leave an unloaded firearm at the ready in my house. by the time one loads a firearm the likelihood that they are either overtaken or dead approaches 100%. So how can I teach effective gun safety when the written doctrines as described by the most sacred of… Read more »
It’s been my experience that the majority of professors are total dumbasses with no common sense. I’m glad it was this morons foot and not mine.