Moms Demand Action Safety Seminar Models ‘Responsible Behavior Around Guns’

Oh it’s unloaded. You can tell because there’s no mag in it.

Oh it’s unloaded. You can tell because there’s no clip in it.

He thought he was on Mother Jones.

Hammer*

edit button please come back…

Guns are mechanical devices. They fail rarely, but they can fail. Pointing the muzzle at ANYTHING you don’t intend to shoot is a terribly stupid idea, even with your hand clear of the trigger, hammer, etc. Even if this is an airsoft gun (or even a non-functional training mockup), the person in the photos is forming bad and dangerous habits that will be a problem when she is around a real gun – and she’s passing those bad habits on to others. Doesn’t matter who is in the image: the picture shows someone doing something incredibly foolish and ignorant with a weapon that should be treated with respect.

As for trigger locks, like any tool, they have their time an place. Around kids, maybe so. When a gun is meant to be accessed quickly in an emergency, possibly not. This is a topic open to debate and circumstance. The fact that you are comparing it to fundamentals of gun safety says much more about you than it does about other gun owners.

1) The action is not open, whether it’s a pellet or real gun
2) If it’s a real gun and not a model 80 (with firing pin block), and blow to the down hammer can discharge a round, especially if giving it more potential energy by holding it over your head.
What about treat guns as they’re always loaded, and always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction? (The rule the gun is covering in the picture). As for youth access, if the youth is trained and responsible, it’s a good thing. If the youth is irrespondible or troubled, the parents need to control access.

You’re going to be waiting a hell of a long time. We’ve been waiting three years now for them to get the notifications to work. Just get told: “we’re working on it”. Must not be trying very hard…
The strange part is, they used to work fine. For years. How tough can it be to go back to what used to work fine? Too tough for the current management, obviously. So, if they cannot even manage to repair what already existed, just how good are we supposed to think any new features will be? My guess is: really terrible.

@napresto
The gun is pointed at a sharp angle towards the ground. There is nothing that gun is pointed at it could potentially destroy other than one of the tiles of the flooring.

@Anymouse
I see no evidence she is going to strike the hammer. As for the dropping the gun argument, this is true for all guns, but why does it apply in this case any more than anyone else holding any other gun ever? She appears to have a pretty firm grip on it.

@L: The gun is pointed at her own fingers and wrist, for Pete’s sake. Not to mention the possible injury to her hand caused by the slide action if it were to discharge. Not to mention this is a still image captured of events that were in motion, and so I daresay the gun probably is being pointed in a variety of directions, and not just at the floor. If you treat firearms casually like this, you will eventually do so at a time when it comes back to bite you.

I don’t understand why you are trying to argue that this image shows safe gun handling. It does not, full stop.

@napresto
A semiauto’s slide will fly backwards with not much more force than what the spring will absorb so that the slide goes back fully every time with standard pressure ammo so that it can function properly. The force the recoil spring can absorb is variable from gun to gun but usually several pounds, maybe a bit more than a dozen. Add a few more pounds to get the force of the slide motion. That is not nearly enough to cause injury. In fact, if you grasp the slide to the frame your own force will overcome it and prevent the slide from cycling. This is demonstrable at the range as long as you do it safely with a long enough slide without dangling digits in front of the muzzle.

Speaking of dangling digits in front of the muzzle, this picture shows it to some degree. If you drew a line straight from the muzzle to the floor, however, the only obstruction would be air. But they are close so that the blast from a possible shot could cause some burns. Alright, so in order for that to happen she has to be near the trigger… oh but she’s not. Okay, what about striking the hammer? I don’t see a mallet nearby. Dropping the gun? Well maybe but if she dropped it that’s an issue with any handling and like I said she appears to be holding it pretty firm. PLUS if she dropped it her fingers would no longer be near the muzzle. Do you see my point? In order for something to go wrong she has to actively do something that is wrong. The current position of the photo doesn’t show any danger.

Had a soldier firing blanks from an M-60 machine gun. He had a jam, opened the action and started to pull the round out of the chamber. The weapon “just went off.” The round “cooked off” from the heat.

@L: Your theory of gun safety seems to assume that nothing can or will go wrong, and so any and all handling will be okay so long as the fleeting circumstances of the moment don’t seem to create hazard. This is dangerous. You simply aren’t taking into account that unexpected failures can happen, both human and mechanical, even from seemingly “safe” starting conditions. I’m not arguing that the gun WILL go off as held (indeed, you are correct, it probably won’t). I’m arguing that you can’t rule out that any firearm MIGHT behave unexpectedly through mechanical failure or negligence.

For example, someone could bump into the woman, causing her to drop the gun and catch the trigger on her thumb or attire. Deadly consequences would be much less likely in such an event if she were holding the gun properly. The sear engagement could be inadequate (through wear or perhaps amateur gunsmithing), and the hammer could drop unexpectedly. In such an event, the woman definitely (as opposed to probably) wouldn’t lose any fingers if holding the gun properly. Safe gun handling requires that you minimize the chances for serious trouble in unlikely events by following the four rules and holding the firearm properly.

So I ask you, in all seriousness: do you truly believe that this woman is MINIMIZING the chances for serious trouble by holding the gun as she is? If so, why aren’t gun owners taught to hold handguns in the fashion shown, instead of with their hand firmly on the grip, index finger extended above the trigger guard, and with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction?

@napresto
The problem with your argument is that if there is an astronomically small chance that something can go wrong then it’s a dangerous situation according to you. With that reasoning you could also say that nobody should ever be near a gun at all in case it explodes.

To me, a situation is safe if you are either one very complicated deliberate action away from danger or multiple independent simple actions away from danger. She is three steps away from danger because she has to first put her other hand on the grip, then cock the hammer, then pull the trigger all the while keeping her other hand where it is. The way I see it, if you insist she not hold it that way, it just makes her go from three actions to four actions to do something stupid. If she was too stupid to do three stupid things in a row (according to you) why is adding an extra step for her to do four stupid things in a row any better? It takes me three motions to fire my gun, grab grip, pull gun from holster, pull trigger, am I unsafe too?

@Icabod
I don’t think it is a bad bet to assume that handgun in a MDA meeting was not recently fired a thousand times in rapid succession.

@L: Okay, last post for me on this. I just gave you several examples of how those “three actions” (or four, or whatever) could happen unexpectedly and in millisecond succession, where one way of handling the firearm would nonetheless mitigate damage and the demonstrated method in the photo would definitely make things worse. I’m really not sure why you are going to bat for someone who you probably don’t know and who clearly has no idea how to act around firearms. Plus we’re now miles way from your original point, which is that gun owners would laud allies while criticizing others for the same behavior based on political viewpoint. (This seems false to me, though I’m sure that might vary from person to person).

It’s been fun debating with you, and I appreciate that this hasn’t degenerated into nastiness, as so many internet debates do. Maybe we’ll even do it again someday. Nonetheless, as a parting shot, I’m going to ask that you not come to the range on the same days and times that I do… watching you hold a pistol by the muzzle in the air over your head pointed at your fingers, all the while claiming that it was perfectly fine because you’d need to do THREE THINGS instead of ONE THING for something to go wrong, would be more than my heart could take.

@napresto
Last post for me too, I don’t really have much more to say that I haven’t said anyway.

I wouldn’t hold it at the range like that just because there’s simply no reason to. Plus the rangegoers are going to be uneasy because they have no idea what I’m doing and I’d probably get a few questions from the RSO. It may be safe but when you’re at the range with other people with guns too you have to not only be safe but show that you’re being safe because that’s what you’d expect from others so you don’t get nearly killed (or killed) every Saturday. Hence the chamber flags. Sure it’s safe with the action open but the flag is the extra step to announce at a glance to anyone that it *is* safe.

Also the pose makes more sense in this context just because it’s a meeting. She’s holding it in a way to easily present it to everyone else. Simple as that. As for the “disaster in milliseconds” I already expressed my thoughts on that above (the part about astronomical chances).

Buy a Taurus…or a Remington 700.

Hypocrisy is a big part of human nature. The key is to keep you hypocrisy hidden.

As for your example of the 14 year old that uses his dad’s gun to be a hero vs. the 14 year old that does a heinous act with his dad’s gun, the sin in the latter to most gun owners isn’t that the father failed to lock up his guns, but he failed to recognize the malevolent nature of son. Which in fairness is often pretty hard to do. Sometimes that’s easier for someone that not emotionally attached to recognize antisocial behavior and that’s where the schools need to step it up and not pocket the O’Bamamoney to keep kids like the Parkland shooter out of trouble.

I disagree. I think you should be self-aware and not be a hypocrite in the first place. Keeping it hidden is a) avoiding the problem and b) being dishonest to those you interact with.

The only problem is that self awareness is NOT part of human nature. Self awareness is a discipline to counteract out baser intuitions.

Not that that’s a bad thing…

I’d correct that typo but some genius here decided we didn’t need an edit button.

It is a pretty big problem, and the solution is self-discipline where self-awareness does not come naturally. Unfortunately something very hard to implement, especially on a massive scale.

Still, I can’t help but to do my small part to point out something when I think it’s wrong. Like my original post. I guess you could call that my own human nature.

Recognizing the faults in others – now THAT’S human nature.