From a new-to-me blogger comes the story that a woman in South Carolina was ‘accidentally’ shot by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy during a class to get her concealed weapons permit. The deputy was the instructor.

What’s interesting to me are the blogger’s comments: Jeff Cooper’s rules, he says, “are not flexible”. Oh, really? I’ll refer you back to my original article on the detestable Rule #1 for clarification. I think they’re tremendously flexible, which is precisely the problem.

There are three issues with his conclusions: 1) Labeling rules with meaningless numbers (rules need to be in words for people to be able to understand and follow them); 2) deifying those rules by reverently invoking the name of the person who wrote them (‘appeal to authority’, a logical fallacy), thus preventing criticism; and 3) doggedly hanging onto the first rule which does nothing – repeat, NOTHING – to make anyone safer and in fact leads to exactly the accident covered in his story. That’s because, as I keep saying, people feel free to do stupid things with guns that they THINK are unloaded.

Safety rules that actually work:

– Always keep the muzzle pointed in a generally safe direction (“generally safe” means that should the gun unintentionally fire, it will not hurt or kill you or any other human being.)
– Always keep your fingers outside the trigger guard until you are actually ready to fire.
– Always remember that you are in control of a weapon, and if used negligently it may injure or kill you or someone else.

No equivocation, no ambiguity, and if all anyone remembers is the first one they (and everyone around them) will still be safe. The same can never be said for Traditional Rule #1.

Respect the man, challenge the material.

-=[ Grant ]=-