REAR SIGHT FRONT SIGHT FRONT & REAR SIGHTS
For whatever reason you may have, you have decided that you need a gun, or you may have purchased one already and now you want to know how it works and how to use it. Answering all of the questions you might have about guns, the different types that are available, their good and bad points and everything you might want to know about shooting could easily result in enough volumes to fill a small bookshelf. It is not my intention to answer all the questions but rather to provide the novice with enough useful information to at least get them started in the right direction.
While I will be attempting to cover as much ground as possible, there is one thing that will be emphasized repeatedly and that is SAFETY! Before you get the idea that safety is only for beginners and the more knowledge and experience you have, the less you have to worry about it, let me point out that bullets don't care how about how much of an expert you think you are. If you aren't thinking SAFETY, you just aren't thinking and I would not want you around me with a gun in your possesion, nor would anyone else. For best results, I suggest you read this entire article from beginning to end so you can be sure of not missing anything important.
Part I - Types of Guns
Part II - Ammunition
Part III - Practicing
Part IV - What About BB Guns?
Part V - Kids & Guns
Part VI - Magazines,
Books & Videos
Return To Survivor's Home Page...
Guns can be divided into two basic types known as hand guns
and long guns. Each of these basic types can be further subdivided according
to the type of action the gun may have and also what type of propellant
may be used to make it work. Propellants fall into three broad categories,
black powder or it's equivalent, modern gunpowder and air. (Air?) I know
what you're thinking here, "Is he talking about BB guns?" Before you decide
I've lost what few marbles I had
to begin with, consider this - a good air rifle will penetrate more
than 150 pages into a phone book. An eye or a child's skull can easily
be penetrated and even an adult might suffer serious injury from a lowly
BB gun. But why even include air guns at all? Because they provide
a quiet and cheap way to practice and because there are times when anything
more powerful would simply not be appropriate.
Black powder arms are those that were either manufactured before
the advent of modern
gun powder or are modern recreations of such guns. They can be fun
to shoot but tend to not be
very practical. (Pouring powder down the barrel, followed by a lead
ball and then fitting a cap to
prepare your weapon to fire while a burglar is coming through the
window is not a great idea.)
With the exception of those designed specifically for black powder,
all modern firearms are
designed to use regular gun powder. You are not likely to ever see
this powder because it is
sealed inside the bullet case. Later on, if you take up handloading,
you will be able to learn all
about the different types of gunpowder and all the myriad variations
of bullet types and weights
and powder loads. For now we will deal only with store bought ammo
so all you will need to know
is what ammo is right for YOUR gun.
When the decision has been made to buy a gun, the next question
is, "Which gun should
I buy?" Before you can answer that question, you must answer this
one, "What are you going to
do with it?" Is it strictly for home/apartment defense or do you
intend to do a little rabbit or
squirrel hunting? Do you need to be able to carry it with you away
from home? Do you intend to
carry it concealed? Also, don't forget to check on what the local
laws are. When I lived in South
Florida it was a felony to carry a concealed weapon but the police
used discression and, for the
most part, honest citizens where not bothered. Now that carry permits
are readily available in
Florida I would not carry without one if I lived there. Owning and/or
carrying a gun is a serious
responsibility and not knowing what the laws are where you live
will be taken as an indication
that you do not take this responsibility seriously.
If you are not going to carry, and you live in a house that
is in or near the country and
you might want to do a little small game hunting now and then, a
rifle or shotgun might be
suitiable but a handgun would not be ruled out entirely. If you
live in a cramped apartment in the
city a rifle or shotgun is almost certainly a bad choice for home
defense. (If you live in the city
and want to own a gun only for hunting or target shooting and not
for home defense, then a rifle
or shotgun could be ok.) You must consider your situation
carefully and don't be afraid to ask
questions. You can visit several gun stores in your area and, while
you are looking over what
they have, discuss your reasons for wanting a gun, what its intended
purpose is and, given what
kind of place you live in and where it is, see what advice you get
from the people you talk to. If
you get the same advice from four or five different people that
would certainly be worth paying
attention to. In the end, of course, you must decide what
you are going to buy. But, whether you
choose a hand gun or long gun, remember you can always get the other
one later on.
The kind of ammunition you will be using is limited by the
gun it will be used in. If you
buy a .357 Magnum caliber revolver, you can use .38 caliber ammo
in it as well as .357 Magnum.
(The bullet diameters are actually the same despite the different
numbers.) But, you can NOT
safely use .357 ammo in a .38. Two other bullets with the same diameter
are the .380 (known as
9mm Short) and the 9mm or 9mm Luger. The cases are all different
for these various bullets but,
to the untrained eye, they can look similar enough to cause some
confusion. It can be quite easy
to mix these up so find out what you gun does and does not use and
always be sure you are
buying exactly the right kind for your gun. Attempting to use the
wrong ammo can damage your
gun and may result in yourself or someone else being injured or
worse.
The same goes for shotguns. There are 2 3/4" shells and 3"
shells and you can use the
2 3/4" shells in most shotguns but 3" shells must only be used in
shotguns that are made for
them. Really old shotguns (and really old guns of any type) can
present special problems.
Consult the experts at your local gun shop before firing an old
gun of any kind.
Another problem with shotguns is what the shell is loaded with.
You can buy shells with
anything from very fine bird shot to 00 Buck, (00 is called double
ought), to slugs. Any of the
various shot shells, for example, will work just fine in my shotgun.
What I can not use are slugs
because the "choke" on my barrel won't allow it. (Shotgun barrels
are often narrowed at the end,
or choked, to compress the shot pattern and improve long range performance.)
Depending on
what choke your shotgun has, you may or may not be able to use slugs.
If you don't know - ASK!
Using slugs with the wrong barrel will only damage your gun and
may lead to a serious accident.
If you are using a rifle, you will have to be even more careful.
The variations between
different kinds of ammo for high powered rifles can be very subtle
in appearance and it is all too
easy to load the wrong bullet into the chamber of a rifle. The place
where a bullet is inserted into
the gun is called the chamber. Bullets are designed to fit into
the chamber with as perfect a fit as
possible. The diamater of the case, where the shoulder is (where
the case narrows), the angle of
the shoulder, the length of the case neck (the part past the shoulder),
its diameter and numerous
other physical details of the bullet must all match the chamber
perfectly. If you attempt to use
the wrong ammo you risk anything from embarrasment to having the
rifle literally blow up in your
face. Find out what kind of ammo your rifle is made for and make
sure you always use the right
kind. And don't forget that ammo is often designated today in two
ways. .308 Winchester and
7,62mm x 51 NATO are the same round. There are several other rounds
that begin with 7,62mm
that are very different, such as 7,62mm x 39 which is used in the
SKS. Know what your gun uses
- be sure you always buy the right kind - and NEVER borrow ammo
from somone else who only
thinks it is the right kind for your gun.
Aside from making sure you purchase the right caliber ammo
for your gun, you must also
decide what type of bullet(s) you will want or need. The cheapest
are plain cast lead. Good for
target practice but you will have to clean the barrel more thoroughly
when you're done. Next
comes full metal jacketed which is a lead bullet with an alloy metal
covering or jacket which
serves to limit deformation of the round on impact and also tends
to leave much less residue in
the barrel, Then there are a variety of semi-jacketed, hollow-point
and other types which are
designed to expand on impact in a controlled manner. Also available
are shot-shell type rounds,
such as the Glaser Safety Slug which is devastating at close range
but will not travel through
walls intact. (.22 caliber bullets are never jacketed but there
is a wide variety of ammo types
available for .22's.)
As mentioned above, the rounds with plain cast lead bullets
are usually the cheapest to
buy. This type of bullet will deposit more metal residue in the
barrel than will other types of
rounds and, if you are shooting at an indoor range, you may be exposed
to significantly higher
levels of lead in the air you breath. If you are using a semi-automatic
pistol, the jacketed rounds
will also feed more reliably.
Full jacketed rounds are ok for target practice. If you need
to defend yourself, however,
you don't want to rely on them to stop an assailant. The amount
of injury that a bullet inflicts on
its target is directly related to the difference between how fast
the bullet enters the target and
how fast (or if) it leaves. A bullet that enters at 1200 f.p.s.
(feet per second) and comes out the
other side at 1100 f.p.s., has only delivered about 8% of its energy
to the target. A bullet that
enters at 1200 f.p.s. and leaves at 600 f.p.s. delivers 50% of its
energy but a bullet that doesn't
leave at all delivers 100% of its energy to the target. Unless it
strikes bone, a full jacketed bullet
may pass through the bad guy and do little more than really piss
him off. A bullet that expands
significantly on impact is more likely to expend all of its energy
in the target.
The shot-shell type rounds are enclosed in a plastic jacket
which serves to make feeding
the round through a semi-auto more reliable and it disintegrates
on impact with almost any
object. If you shoot a bad guy with one of these he will receive
a very nasty wound and. if you
miss, there will be NO ricochets and virtually NO penetration of
sheetrock.
For shotguns, the 12 gauge is the bad boy on the block. Just
the sight of anything with a
barrel that big is enough to discourage most miscreants. If the
12 is too much for you, either a 16
gauge or .410 might be just the ticket. Just don't make the mistake
of thinking that, because you
have a "scattergun", you won't have to worry much about aiming it.
First off, there is no such
thing as a "scattergun". My first shotgun was a sawed-off double
barrel 12 gauge. It had a pistol
grip and 18.5" barrels. (1/2" over the legal minimum.) After
many hours of practice I was able to
"shoot from the hip" quite accurately but that was only AFTER much
practice. The shot pattern
just didn't spread as wide as some people think it would and I had
lots of misses to prove it.
As a novice, you don't really want to get too involved with
what kind of ammo to use and
with revolvers, bolt action rifles, pump shotguns and other weapons
that are not self-loading,
also called semi-automatic, just about any good commercial ammo
will work just fine. The one
serious exception is the semi-automatic pistol. Although other weapons
may occasionally mis-
feed, it is the pistol that will do this most frequently. You fire
a round and the next round doesn't
quite get lined up properly with the chamber and hangs up. Or, the
fired caseing did not eject
entirely and is caught in the slide, often standing straith up.
(This is called a stovepipe.) The
slide can't close and the gun WILL NOT SHOOT in this condition.
You must put the safety on (I'll
cover this later), clear the jammed round and see that the next
round feeds properly. Never
attempt to use a round that shows actual physical damage.
There are three reasons why rounds will mis-feed in a pistol.
1. The weapon needs to be
serviced by a competent gunsmith, 2. You need to change to
a different brand of ammo or a less
radical style of hollow-point, or 3. You aren't gripping the weapon
properly. Number 1 is the
least likely cause of your problems and number 3 is the most likely.
Be sure you have a
comfortable but secure grip. If you hold the weapon too loosely
the frame will move more than it
should and the slide will not be driven back fully. Some experts
reccomend a very tight grip. I use
a grip which is firm but relaxed and it works just fine for me.
You will have to see what works for
you.
If you are sure you are holding the pistol securely enough
and you keep getting jams, try
a different type or brand of ammo. If that solves the problem, find
out what works best and stick
with it. As a last resort, you can have a gunsmith inspect
your gun to see that it is functioning
smoothly and that the springs are tensioned properly. You may also
have the ramp polished. My
Baretta has had the ramp and the trigger polished and it is very
reliable with just about anything I
feed it.
Misfires!
To distinguish between two different kinds of misfire, I will call
the one where NOTHING happens
a Misfire, and the one where the sound of the bullet is somewhat
muffled a Hangfire.
Misfires can happen at any time, under any circumstances, with
any gun and any
ammunition. A gun that misfires frequently MUST BE REPAIRED. If
your gun is functioning
properly and you are using the correct ammunition, you should find
that misfires are extremely
rare events. What matters is not that you had a misfire but WHAT
YOU DO NEXT. I cannot over
emphasize the importance of following very strict procedures when
dealing with this type of
problem. That fact that the bullet didn't fire the instant the hammer
fell does not mean that it won't
fire several seconds later. If you pull the trigger and you know
for certain that there is a round in
the chamber, you must keep the weapon pointed down range for at
least 12 seconds. With the
gun still pointed down range - prepare to remove the round. With
a revolver this usually involves
pressing a release catch and swinging out the cylinder. With a semi-auto
pistol, you must work
the slide by hand. When you buy your gun, be sure they show you
how to clear the weapon or
find out from someone else. If you aren't thoroughly familiar with
the procedures for Loading,
Unloading and Clearing your weapon you are NOT ready to practice
shooting with live
ammunition.
The problem with a Hangfire is that the sound you hear may be just
a little pop or it may be close
to what you would normally hear. If the recoil is noticeably less,
a semi-auto didn't cycle properly
or if anything else you notice indicates that the weapon may not
have fired properly, you must STOP
immediately & DO NOT ATTEMT TO FIRE ANOTHER ROUND! With a Hangfire,
the primer
goes off and maybe some of the powder was ignited, but not all of
it. (Or, the round may have been
accidentally loaded short.) What happens is that the bullet will
enter the barrel and, instead of coming
out the end, it gets STUCK. At this point all you have is a minor
annoyance. Fire another round with
the barrel obstructed and you will most likely have the gun blowing
up in your face! At the very least
the gun will be ruined - at worst someone (most likely you) may
be seriously injured.
If you suspect a Hangfire, you must clear your weapon and then look
down the barrel. If you have a
bolt action rifle, you can remove the bolt. With a revolver, the
cylinder should swing out of the way.
Then just hold the gun up so you can look through the barrel. With
a semi-auto rifle or pistol, you
must lock the slide back and then either shine a light, or reflect
light (a piece of white paper will do)
down the barrel. Look through the barrel from the end. If you can
not see the light and determine
that the barrel is TOTALLY UNOBSTRUCTED, you must not attempt to
fire the gun again until the
obstruction has been cleared. This may be as simple as tapping the
bullet out with a cleaning rod or
you may have to take the gun to a gun shop and have them do it for
you.
Before you practice with live ammunition it is a good idea
to become familiar with the gun
you have purchased. Perhaps the most important thing to know about
is the safety. Rifles,
shotguns and pistols (semi-auto), all have safeties of various kinds.
Revolvers generally do not
have a safety but may have a safety feature which performs a similar
function. I can not tell you
where the safety is on your gun because there are just too many
variations. Rifles, for example,
may have a button that slides left and right through the trigger
guard, a tab beside the bolt which
slides forward and back, a toggle on the end of the bolt itself
or a lever next to the trigger guard
which is flipped forward to be safe and back to fire. (I have all
of the above on one weapon or
another.) Find out where the safety is on your gun and how it works.
Be sure you know which
position is safe and which is not. Make it a habit to keep the safety
ON at all times except when
you are actually ready to shoot.
Most everyone wants to buy a few boxes of ammo and head out
to the range and start
punching holes in paper right away. This is like jumping into a
car for the first time and heading
for the nearest freeway. It really isn't a good idea. Your first
practice sessions should be at home
with an unloaded gun. I almost said "empty" gun but that would not
have been exactly right. It is
not good to allow the firing pin to fall on an empty chamber. Over
time, this could weaken the pin
and it could eventually break - most likely when you need to defend
yourself. Instead of live
ammo, you can load your gun with Snap Caps. They are made of bright
red and yellow plastic
and come in various calibers. With them, you can practice loading,
firing and unloading your gun
without having to worry about the gun going off accidentally.
The more familiar you are with how
your gun operates, the easier it will be for you to handle your
gun in a safe manner and this is
especially true in stressful situations..
Aiming
Whether you are shooting at a paper target, a rabbit for dinner
or someone who is
threatening yourself or your family, if you don't know how to aim
the weapon properly you have
little chance of actually hitting your target. Sights come in various
types and styles but they all
have one thing in common - they are all designed to help you point
your gun at a target
accurately enough that you can depend on being able to strike the
target within the confines of
an imaginary circle. If you set up a target at 100 yards for
a rifle, or 25 yards for a handgun, and
find that you are unable to keep your rounds within a 5" circle,
either there is something wrong
with the gun or something wrong with the way you are aiming and
shooting. If you are new at
this, it is probably you and not the gun. (Top shooters will often
keep their shots within a 1"
circle.)
No matter what kind of sight you expect to be using, I believe
it is best to learn how to
use "iron sights" first. These are the sights that are standard
on almost all guns. There will be
some variations, but they are all basically the same. The Rear sight
will usually be rectangular
and have a notch in the center of it. The actually shape of the
notch may vary from one gun to
another. The Front sight will have the appearance of a post sticking
up. Again their are variations
and you may see one with a ball mounted on top.
REAR SIGHT
FRONT SIGHT
FRONT & REAR SIGHTS
In the illustrations above, you can see how each of the sights
might look and how they
look together. You must position your eye so that you see the Front
sight CENTERED in the
notch of the Rear sight, and the top of the Front sight is exactly
the height of the Rear sight.
What you see here labeled FRONT & REAR SIGHTS is the sight picture
you must have
BEFORE you try to aim at the target. Learning to quickly acquire
a proper sight picture takes
practice and you should spend some time practicing this with an
ampty gun.
Once you have a proper sight picture, you can then line this
up with your target.
It is recommended that your target should appear to be sitting
atop the post, or
Front sight, as in the illustration on the left.
One of the things you may notice is that you can not keep both
your sights and the target
in focus at the same time. Your eyes can either see your sights
clearly, with the target looking a
bit fuzzy, or the target can be clear and your sights fuzzy. You
might think that it would be most
important to focus on the target but that is not the case. The alignment
of the sights is critical and
you must keep the sights as clearly focused as possible. Your target
may appear fuzzy but this
will not affect your accuracy.
Keeping your gun steady is also extremely important. If you
are unable to keep the
sights from wandering all over the target then your bullets will
wander all over the target as well.
There are two ways to minimize wandering. One, the way you hold
the gun and two, if available,
make use of some form of rest. Starting with the handgun, try this
out while you are practicing
with the gun empty. Hold it out in one hand and notice how much
your point of aim wanders
around the spot you are trying to aim at. Now use both hands. If
you are right handed, simply cup
the left hand under the right and the butt of the gun. The extra
support should reduce the amount
of wander noticeably. Now try sitting at a table and aim the gun
while resting your elbows on the
table. The more support you can provide, the steadier your gun will
be. Supporting your handgun
or rifle with a rest or sandbags is called using a Bench Rest. Use
of a bench rest eliminates
almost all unwanted movement and will make sighting in a weapon
that much easier. If you want
to have a sort of portable bench rest for your rifle, you can install
a foldup bipod.
If you are using a rifle (or a shotgun), one hand will be gripping
the weapon just behind
the trigger and the other should be placed under the fore end of
the stock, palm up, and holding
the stock firmly. If you are right handed, your right elbow should
be at the same level as your
hand. Your left elbow should be directly under the centerline of
the stock. The butt of the rifle
should be planted firmly into your shoulder and your right cheek
should be making firm contact
with the stock. Your trigger finger should NOT be in contact
with the stock. (When shooting a
handgun, the trigger finger should make as little contact with the
frame as possible.) Do not
wrap your finger around the trigger. Use the end of your finger
and, when you are ready to shoot,
apply steadily increasing pressure with your finger. In other words,
you should be "squeezing"
the trigger, not "pulling" it. Whenever you are holding a gun but
not ready to shoot, make it a
habit to extend your trigger finger along the side of the gun and
away from the trigger. In a tense
situation, you can unconciously jerk your finger and fire the gun
unintentionally. Keeping your
finger along the side of the gun won't make any difference if you
have to shoot. Not taking this
simple precaution could cost someone their life. Remember - if you
aren't thinking SAFETY, you
aren't thinking!
"Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction." This
is one of the basic laws of
physics. When you shoot a gun, you are igniting a small charge of
gunpowder which burns at an
extremely high rate, producing a large volume of gas that propels
the bullet down the barrel of
the gun. The energy imparted to the bullet is equal to the energy
imparted to the gun. Because
the bullet weighs only a few grains it is propelled at very high
speed. The gun, being
considerably heavier, will not move as fast as the bullet but can
still move fast enough to cause
injury if it isn't being held properly. Semi-auto pistols may not
function properly if they are not
held firmly enough. If the frame is allowed to move too much, the
slide may not go back far
enough. The result could be a jam which would take several seconds
to clear. On the range it is
an embarrasment and a bother - in a real life survival situation
- it could be much worse.
If you fail to plant the butt of a high powered rifle or shotgun
in your shoulder, the recoil
will slam it into your shoulder and remind you. If you are new to
using this kind of weapon, don't
try to shoot all day. You'll wind up with a very sore shoulder even
if you hold the gun properly.
Start out with shorter pratice sessions and, if you feel you need
a little more protection, you may
want to get a pad for the buttstock. Check with your local gun store
to see what's available.
When choosing a weapon for your own use, it is a good idea
to take into account your
weight and general physical condition. The lighter you are, or the
less you're muscles are
developed, the more difficult it will be for you to handle larger
caliber weapons. The venerable
Colt M1911 .45 caliber pistol is known for its one shot stopping
power but it also sports a pretty
hefty recoil. You want to be sure you can handle the recoil BEFORE
you buy the gun. Some
firing ranges have guns you can rent and this would be one way to
see what size gun suits you.
If a .45 is too much for you, try something in 9mm. Below that,
I cannot recommend either .32 or
.25 caliber. Instead I would go for something in .22 caliber that
will handle long rifle .22's and use
the hyper velocity rounds such as Stingers or Yellow Jackets and
stay away from anything with a
short barrel which is more difficult to aim and will result in much
lower bullet velocity. There are
lots of good .22 target pistols around that should do nicely.
Breathing
(BRAS)
When shooting at targets from any position, from standing to
sitting down at a bench,
you are the platform on which the gun is wholly or partially resting.
Get your sight picture, line up
on the target and then just hold it for a few seconds. You should
soon notice that the sights, and
thus your weapon, appear to be moving up and down - right in sync
with your breathing. With
each breath you take, your ribs, shoulders, arms and head all move
in unison. No matter how
hard you try, you will not be able to hold your sights "dead on"
as long as you are breathing. Of
course, you don't exaclty want to give up breathing either, but
you must learn how to control it. I
learned a very simple acronym so many years ago that I have no idea
where I first heard it.
BRAS. Breathe, Relax, Aim, Squeeze. These are the four steps you
must remember and
practice. Breathe - take a little deeper breath than normal
and let it out slowly and smoothly.
Relax - practice letting your tension flow away with the breathe
you have exhaled. Aim at your
target, and Squeeze the trigger - then return to normal breathing.
With every aimed shot you
practice, you should be practicing BRAS as well until you no longer
have to tell yourself to do it.
When you progress to practicing rapid fire, you will find that you
can not use BRAS, but you will
still benefit from having practiced this way.
Should you find yourself using a high power scope, you will
see that every little
movement results in your point of aim moving around that much more.
This is when you will be
able to see that it is not only your breathing that can affect the
point of aim, but your heartbeat as
well. This is not something a novice needs to be concerned about
but is does serve to illustrate
how easily your aim can be affected.
Is a BB gun really worth having around? For me, the answer
is most definitely yes. For
you, that's a question that you will have to answer. The advantages
of a BB gun, or Air Rifle, are
many. They are quite cheap, the ammo is cheaper still, they are
quiet and you can practice
almost anywhere. The neighbors aren't going to hear you and, as
long as you are shooting
inside, or in a safe direction outside, they will never know you
are there. As I mentioned earlier, a
BB gun is capable of hurting someone if used in a careless manner.
When I used to go fishing
and bring home catfish, they would still be alive and a wiggling
catfish can do some damage with
its sharp fins. I would shoot them through the head with a BB pistol
just before cleaning. The BB
went all the way through without any trouble. A BB gun will definitely
kill small animals and is
certainly capable of doing serious damage to any human if they are
hit in a vulnerable spot.
Treat a BB gun the same as you would any gun - WITH RESPECT. Besides,
if you are using a
BB gun to practice and you do so in a careless manner then you are
PRACTICING TO BE
CARELESS! It is much better to practice SAFETY at all times. You
may never know about the
tragedy you avoided by keeping safety in mind at all times but you
will know about the tragedy
you didn't avoid by being careless for the rest of your life.
When teaching young people about shooting, a BB gun is usually
the best place to start.
You can teach a child all about safety, responsibility and markmanship
without putting a firearm
in their hands. As a kid I spent many hours "hunting" with my BB
gun in the woods. Various flying
insects made good targets and I was able to sharpen my skills without
endangering anyone else.
I can also remember taking part in gunfights with other kids where
we actually shot at each other.
We were lucky no one was ever seriously hurt. So, don't assume that
kids know better. They
don't. They have to be taught that a BB gun is not really a toy
and that it can hurt someone. If
taught properly, it will carry over when they are ready to move
up to their first .22. It is much
better to be in a postion of reenforcing lessons already learned
than to be starting from scratch
at this point.
If you own one or more guns, and you have one or more children
in the house, you have
every reason to be concerned about what could happen if a curious
child got their hands on your
gun without your knowing about it. A good friend of mine keeps a
pistol in his bedroom and,
since his children are grown and gone, he doesn't worry about keeping
the gun in a safe place.
Recently, they were having a lot of friends and relatives over for
a party and I had to remind him
that there were now children running around the house and his pistol
was not "out of reach." He
thanked me for reminding him and wasted no time in moving it to
a safe place. So, even if you
don't have children of your own, you still need to be careful.
In most of the rural areas of this country, guns are as common
in the home as tea kettles
and seldom kept under lock and key. The children are simply taught
to keep their hands off and
never left alone where they might get their hands on a gun until
they are old enough to be
trusted to stay away from them. If you want to take further precautions,
it is quite easy to do so.
Any gun store you visit today will have gun locks of various kinds
available. These locks prevent
access to the trigger and render the gun safe. Some also have a
built in alarm that will sound a
shrill 110 decibel warning if the gun is even moved. Securing a
gun so that it can not be removed
from its storage place is not only safer but will also deter thieves.
There are other precautions
you can take as well like separating your gun(s) from your ammo.
When considering how far to
take your safety precautions, remember - there is only one person
who is ultimately responsible
for your gun, and that's YOU.
Part VI - Magazines, Books & Videos
Whatever you are trying to learn there will always be magazines,
books and videos
available. I can waste thousands of words trying to describe the
proper way to hold a gun and
the proper stance or other position to use, and you will still learn
more from a few pictures. There
are lots of good gun mags around and the best thing you can probably
do is to try a few and see
which one(s) suits your needs, and then order a subscription.
Books which are written to address specific areas are also
common and you should find
the best variety at a gun show. Whatever magazine you buy is likely
to have ads for mail order
booksellers as well. Videos are usually a bit more expensive but
offer the advantage of your
being able to see someone actually doing what they are trying to
teach you. They will also be
plentiful at most gun shows and available through mail order retailers.
If you have access to the Internet then you have another whole
world to explore. Besides
being able to contact various mail order book and video retailers,
there are all kinds of gun
groups to be found and places where you can participate in discussions
on every facet of
firearms from long range shooting tips to social responsibility.
Some of the most useful
information will be found on Web sites that focus on survivalism
because many of the people that
have been drawn to learn about this subject are not familiar with
firearms. If you believe that we
are going to be experiencing serious disruptions in our society
and you are taking steps to
prepare to be self sufficient for an extended period of time, then
you must consider that their will
be many people whose only preparation will be to keep a gun and
some ammo handy so they
can go out and take whatever they might need from someone else.
If the doo-doo hits the fan,
you WILL need to be able to defend yourself.
And remember, one last time, "If you aren't thinking Safety - you aren't thinking!"
- = - = - = - = -
Legal Stuff
Copyright 1998 by Val Mehling. This article may be reproduced in
its entirety and distributed
to interested persons free of charge. The sale or any other use
of this article, without the
express written consent of the author, is strictly prohibited.