Gun “SAFE”ty
Let’s talk about gun safety for a little bit. The first thing that you should do before you buy a gun is buy a safe for your gun. If you don’t have the money to buy a safe for your gun well, you probably shouldn’t buy the gun. The thing is we don’t want people to have access to it that shouldn’t have access to it, for instance our children or maybe somebody that comes to visit us that obviously should not have access to it. A friend with anger issues or maybe a relative with small children comes to visit or worse yet, teenagers. You just don’t know what could happen so don’t take chances.
Always make sure your gun and your ammo are locked up safe and secure and preferably in separate locations. So, if by chance someone gets access to one, they don’t have access to the other.
We just had this case happen in Michigan with a student who killed four of his classmates at school. Now the mom and possibly the dad are being used as an example and the parent or parents are going to jail for involuntary manslaughter. Albeit you know I can’t say right or wrong whether that should or shouldn’t be the way things should go. I can say one thing, that if they had first had a safe, and thought about safety, making sure those guns and ammo were locked up that would not have happened. Of course, there were other warning signs and if you followed the case, you would know that because it’s just a little wonky and personally if I had a that was drawing pictures of shooting people, I don’t think that I would buy him a gun, no freaking way.
The best thing that you can always do is to make sure that things are put up and that they are not accessible to anyone who should not have access to them. My personal method is that I have a digital safe and I keep my keys in it. Anything that I store my guns or ammo in I must obtain the keys from the digital safe first. For me it feels as though I have double security and I also always know where my keys are. Let’s face it, how many times do we lose our keys? If I lost my keys on my keyring then someone could get at my guns and ammo, and I surely don’t want that to happen. For me it just makes a little more sense, and it makes things a little bit easier because sometimes you get home from the range, and you don’t feel like putting everything away right away. That is a bad habit you should not get into, always put your guns and ammo up first thing when you are done using them. I’m sure that all of us have done that once or twice but you know it’s that one time that you slip up and don’t put things up right away that could have consequences and you don’t want that happening. Anything that you can do to make things easier for yourself the better and for me that’s the one thing that makes things easier is having easy access to my keys, always knowing where they are, and always knowing they are safe. That is why I put them in my digital safe, thus I don’t have to keep them on me all the time and risk dropping them, misplacing them, or having them stolen. I always know where they will be and that is a good feeling.
Moving forward, the same goes for buying more guns and ammo. Always make sure you have adequate storage space inside your safe or safes. If you do not, then do not buy that much ammo or do not buy the extra gun. You may want it, however, be safe first. Buy the extra safe you need for storage to expand your collection and then buy the gun or ammo you want so it remains in a safe location where children and people that should not have access to it cannot get at it.
We all need to be responsible as gun owners. Do we want our 2nd amendment rights shanked out from under us? Do we want our guns taken away really? Think about it, by any one of us not taking safety as a main priority and letting any of our guns fall into the wrong hands all we are doing is giving Congress the firepower they need to do just that. Keep diligent and keep safety a main priority and show that we can be responsible. Otherwise, the way things are going, it’s not looking good.
If you carry also be safe while you carry your firearm. Don’t use it as a first response. Never ever do that unless it is absolutely necessary. I carry pepper spray along with me as well, why? As a responsible gun owner let say someone pulls a knife on me and all I have is my gun. Then what? I am not really giving myself any other choice but to pull
that gun. However, in this case I can pull my pepper spray instead, spray and flee. By doing that, I saved a life, and I saved myself a trip downtown. Even if you use your gun in self defense you are going to most likely be taken into custody and then you are going to have a court battle waiting for you later. Always have a backup plan and avoid having to use the gun if at all humanly possible.
Practice, practice, practice. If you don’t practice shooting your firearm, practice drawing it, or practice cleaning it. Then leave it in the safe. It won’t do anyone any good if you don’t know how to use it with 100% confidence. The bad guys will, and if you don’t why have it, it will do you more harm than good. The average conflict according to the FBI happens at about 7 to 10 yards with about 6 shots being fired. However, other evidence suggests the average distance is about 3 yards with 3 shots being fired in under 3 seconds. Think about that, 3 seconds? I have heard that if you can’t draw your gun in about 0.7 seconds it’s not worth drawing at all. Now this is hearsay but being that 3 shots fired in less than 3 seconds seems to be a very popular result on Google, I can only image that first shot happens rather quickly. If you don’t practice do you think you can react in time with a clear head? Even with practice having a clear head will be hard enough, so you had better have those motions memorized to where you don’t have to think about them. You can just do them.
So, what happens if you don’t practice and then you get shot? Even if you survive you just added another gun to the criminal stockpile. Not a good thing responsible gun owners want to do, let alone get shot. Nobody wants to get shot, not even by a BB gun, it’s not going to be fun. It will never be fun, and it only brings misery and sorrow to the person’s family and friends.
With all that being said, remember one thing please. “SAFE”ty first.
