As a country we spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on public service announcements (PSA). The topics range from drunk driving and smoking to learning foreign languages and lightning safety. Oddly absent from PSAs are any concerning the four rules of gun safety. Given the recent ill-tempered debates over gun violence in America, gun safety would seem like a particularly urgent topic.
But here's the thing: When it comes to accidental shootings, unless a gun malfunctions, they are completely harmless so long as you follow each of the four cardinal rules of gun safety, as outlined below. Pick a scenario where someone is accidentally shot, and you tie it to a violation of one of the four rules. There're that comprehensive, and they're that important.
Rule #1: All guns are always loaded. Period.
Everyone knows that all guns aren't actually loaded all the time, but if you treat every gun you come across like it's loaded, that presumption will change the way you handle it. It is both tragic and remarkable how many gun accidents are followed by someone saying, "I didn't know the gun was loaded." If in your mind all guns you come across are loaded, then you will never have to utter those words.
Rule #2: Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy.
This is very simple: Treat your gun like it has a mile-long light saber coming out of the front. If you point your gun and that light saber at your toes, guess what, you just sliced your toes off. If you turn to talk to your friend with your gun in your hand, guess what—you just light sabered your friend's torso.
When you think of your gun as an omnipotent death ray that instantly kills everything that you point it at, you quickly learn not to point it at anything you don't wish to kill. When I put my firearms away at the end of the day, for instance, even though no one is there but me, and even though my gun is secured in such a way that I can't accidentally hit the trigger, I still make sure that I keep it pointed at the ground, away from windows, and that I make slow and deliberate movements with it. If you do the same, you'll never "laser" anyone or anything of consequence.
Rule #3: Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target (and you have made the decision to shoot).
Perhaps it is from growing up playing with water and dart guns, or maybe it's just because that's what we see everyone in Hollywood do, but it seems to come naturally to people to pick up a gun and immediately put their finger on the trigger. That is not how guns should be handled. You never touch the trigger until you have picked a target, aimed at the target, and have made the conscious decision to destroy the target.
For whatever reason, this is a difficult rule for people to follow, and if you go to the gun range you'll see a handful of people resting their finger on the trigger as they aim. That's all wrong. Further, in every gun or shooting class, without fail, there is always one guy who says, "But what if I'm aiming my gun at a bad guy, shouldn't my finger be on the trigger then?" NO! Even FBI or Secret Service snipers keep their finger off the trigger until they've decided to shoot. This concept is called trigger control. You rest your trigger finger near the trigger in case you need it, but never on the trigger. Period.
Rule #4: Be sure of your target, what's beyond it, and what's in front of it.
The last time I went hunting, I heard a wild hog off in the distance, splashing through a creek just out of sight. I knew he'd pop out any second, so I positioned my rifle in anticipation. Sure enough, in no time he was about 100 feet away and right in my sights. However, behind him were a bunch of shrubs, and behind that I had no clue. Even though I could clearly see the hog and had a perfect shot lined up, I refrained from shooting for the simple fact that I had no idea what was past those shrubs. Spending all morning in the cold, damp mud without doing what I went there to do was bad... it's just infinitely less bad than accidentally shooting a hunter who may have been out there in the woods as well.
If you can't clearly see your target, or you don't know what is behind it, you don't pull the trigger. Period. This is also why you don't fire guns into the air, because you have no way of seeing the target and the bullet, having been fired from a barrel at any angle other than 90 degrees from the ground, will have enough force to injure or kill someone. Being sure of your target also includes ricochets. If you're shooting at something, you are responsible for knowing whether it will absorb or deflect the bullet. As a general rule of thumb, if you're shooting at brick, stone, water, metal, or anything that has a broad, flat surface, you should assume that it will cause a ricochet.
Part of seeing the target, and knowing what's behind it, is knowing the range of your weapon. There are rifles capable of shooting in excess of a mile. If you are using one of these rifles, you are responsible for that whole mile behind your target. For instance, while not accurate past 500 meters, a standard AR-15 can be deadly at over a mile and a half (under the right conditions), and that's a pretty small caliber rifle.
The rule also encompasses knowing what's in front of your target, which is pretty self-explanatory.
Firearm Negligence
Shooting or handling a gun in such a way that it violates any of the above standards is negligence, plain and simple. Following those rules will make it virtually impossible for a negligent discharge to happen. In the many cases we've handled involving firearms, proving that the defendant was negligent was as simple as defining the accident scenario in terms of the above standards. Here are two examples from real cases our firm has handled:
- Our firm was hired by the family of a young man who was shot in the abdomen by a .223 rifle round. The way the accident occurred was that the young man and his friend were playing in a barn that had been converted into a game room. Quite some distance away, a neighbor was playing with his new rifle. The neighbor set a target on the opposite side of a pond and began to fire at it. Then, one of two things happened. Either the neighbor willfully shot at the barn, not knowing that the children were in the barn, or the neighbor shot at his target, but the bullet reflected off the surface of the pond, ricocheted, and then hit the barn. We can't say for certain since there were mixed accounts from eye witnesses. In either event, it's quite clear that a violation of rule #4 occurred. If the neighbor willfully shot at the barn, he clearly did not consider what was beyond the wall of the barn (i.e. the children inside). If he shot at the target on the other side of the pond, he also violated rule # 4. Despite the fact that the young man suffered immensely and came incredibly close to dying, he made a strong recovery and the case was successfully resolved.
- In another case, the victim was not so lucky. This young man and a friend of his were hanging out on the friend's grandparent's property, playing with guns. The young man, "Ned", was sitting in a pickup truck, while his friend was handling a .22 rifle. As was the case in the last story, our attorneys never were able to determine precisely which version of events occurred (mostly because the negligent wrongdoer was more than willing to lie through his teeth), but we narrowed it down to two front-runner theories. The first involves the friend aiming at a coyote, tracking the animal with his rifle, and then pulling the trigger as the animal ran past the pickup truck Ned was sitting in. In other words, he sort of pivoted and pulled the trigger right as his gun strafed the truck, shooting Ned in the head and killing him. The other version of events (the one I find to be more likely) was that the friend was simply fooling around with the gun and he pointed it at Ned, not intending to pull the trigger, but with his finger resting on the trigger. If the first version of events is what happened, then the friend violated rule #2 and rule #4. If the second version of events is accurate, then he violated rule #2 and rule #3. This case too was successfully resolved by our attorneys upon winning a wrongful death suit filed against the negligent shooter.
The takeaway here is that firearm negligence is any type of conduct that violates the above rules, including but not limited to:
- Not knowing how to operate your gun (as in, what all the levers and button do);
- Not properly maintaining your gun;
- Not knowing how to shoot, when to shoot, and when not to shoot;
- Shooting without provocation;
- Shooting in violation of a written law; and
- Shooting your gun in a place the forbids you to have it.
As you may have gathered, our firm is not categorically anti-gun. We're a good-sized outfit with employees from all walks of life, so we have varied opinions on the matter, but we're most certainly not the type of firm that condemns gun owners and wants to find any excuse to sue them—and we certainly don't take the Johnny Cochran approach of suing shooters every time someone gets shot. On the contrary, sometimes people get so far out of line that shooting them (or hitting them or running them over with your car) becomes a necessity. When someone uses a firearm improperly, though, you'd better believe that our firm is willing and able to take them to task. As shooting instructor and Mesquite SWAT Team sniper James Ferguson is fond of saying, "If you handle your gun like X, it'll cost you."
Many of us at the office own firearms, and we believe strongly in our constitutional right to bear them. We also believe in the importance of safely exercising that right so we don't endanger others. Despite the lack of PSAs, and thanks to better education, the number of accidental firearms deaths in the United States has fallen from 1,441 people in 1991 to roughly 600 people in 2011, while overall firearms accidents have fallen similarly. With better education and awareness of the four basic rules of using a firearm, we can decrease firearms deaths and accidents even more.