Gun Safety Tips

The most useful aspect of this portion of their "special report" is to compare it with the victims they feature in their other stories. How many of those victims were following these rules? The answer might surprise you. The incidents can be grouped into four categories:

1. People who removed the magazine from a handgun and, thinking it was unloaded, pointed the gun at someone and pulled the trigger.
2. People who experienced an accidental discharge due to the gun functioning as designed, and were injured because the gun was not pointed in a safe direction while loaded.
3. People who experienced an accidental discharge due to a flaw in the firing mechanism, without pulling the trigger, and were injured because the gun was not pointed in a safe direction while loaded.
4. People whose firearm discharged when it was dropped.

The first two categories are clearly cases of negligent or simply unsafe gun handling. The third set of cases involve a mixture of fault; clearly, an accidental discharge that occurs without pulling the trigger is a problem. But following the rules of gun safety they lay out in this portion of their article is sufficient to prevent injury, so the gun owner must also bear some responsibility. Notably, most of the cases they present that fit this category are cases where appropriate corrections or recalls have already been made, and additionally cases where the fault occurs after damage to the mechanism rather than as an inherent flaw.

The last category is the only clear case with real fault in the manufacturing process. And yet, dropping a loaded gun is certainly a careless action. I have little sympathy for those who are injured as a result -- the obvious solution is "Don't drop a loaded gun". This should be simple common sense. Yet by the same token, a dropped gun should not fire, as a common-sense safety measure by manufacturers.

It's interesting that this last category is occupied entirely by "cheap" guns, rather than well-made firearms from reputable manufacturers. Why? Because reputable manufacturers make guns that do not fire when dropped already. The consumer has a choice.