safety

Letter to the Editor from Garrett Guinn

Safety first. This should be your mantra when dealing with any type of firearm, whether you’re out in the cold and wet sitting in your tree stand, baking in the hot sun on the 12th day in your sniper hide, or in front of the TV cleaning your pistol. Safety should always be the first, middle and last thing on your mind. 

As a kid, I spent hours running around the “woods” of Anchorage playing “guns.” We would grab toy guns, sticks, anything that we could throw to our shoulder and make “pow” sounds with and spend half of our time arguing over who shot who first and was, therefore, “dead”. As much fun as a kid can have!

My father and older brother were avid hunters so I knew that guns were in the house and that they were dangerous and I was not allowed to touch them.  As a kid, that made them the only thing I could think about playing with! Imagine the looks on the other kids faces, with their toys and sticks, as I stepped onto the field of play with a REAL gun! I would’ve been king of the neighborhood.

About the time I turned 8, I screwed together enough courage to ask my father if I could take one of his guns out to play with. To be honest, I expected a resounding “No!” which is exactly what I got. He asked me if wanted to know why, and when I told him yes he explained that guns are a tool with a very specific purpose, and are extremely dangerous when not used properly. I told him that I wanted to learn more.

The first thing I was taught was that was that every gun was loaded, even when it’s not.  This was a tough thing for an 8-year-old to grasp, let alone most adults. Through this seemingly simple statement I gained a healthy respect for every gun that I ever looked at or handled. Then we started on safety.

My apprenticeship took two years of marksmanship training, gun cleaning, and hours of questions both to and from my father before he decided that I was ready to learn about hunting, which I had been pestering him about my entire life. We started my familiarization with game that we would be hunting, basic fieldwork and continuing marksmanship.  Three years after I first asked him about guns, he decided that I was ready to go hunting... finally!

Unfortunately, not many people receive this type of childhood training with guns anymore. I believe this is the reason for so many of the accidents and apprehension among Americans today, so I have put together a few rules about guns for the uninitiated.  

Every gun is loaded, even when it’s not.  If you treat every gun you handle as if it were loaded, you decrease the chance for an accident exponentially.  Would you point a loaded gun at a friend?  Would you let your child play with a loaded gun?  If every gun is to be considered loaded, these things would never happen.

A few rules to live by:

Your gun should be considered loaded at all times. Think about all of the stories you have heard of gun cleaning accidents. Is it loaded? Yes it is!

Always keep safety at the front of your mind when handling firearms. Ask yourself constantly if what you are doing could be even safer? Firearms are unforgiving – there are no second chances.

Never point your gun at anything you do not intend to shoot. Keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction at all times until you are ready to fire. Then point it only at your intended target.

Never pull your gun, unless you intend to fire it. Guns make terrible clubs. They don’t make any part of you bigger.

Hit what you aim at. Go to the range and practice and prepare. If you hunt, make the kill as cleanly as possible. Practice under adverse conditions. If you have to shoot defensively, odds are you’re not going to be comfortable!

Teach your children about the guns you have in your home.The more they know about them, the less chance they could have a terrible accident. Locks are great, but knowledge is power.

Take as many classes as you can. Good enough is never good enough.  This applies to most everything.