I’ve recently been thinking about the Rules of Gun Safety. As I see them, they are:

0. Always wear eye protection, and hearing protection where warranted.

1. All guns are always loaded.

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything which you are not willing to destroy.

3. Keep your finger OFF the trigger until your sights are on the target.

4. Always be sure of your target and what’s behind it.

5. Never try to catch a dropped gun.

As I’ve said before, these are the classic rules (1 through 4) as developed by Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, plus a couple that I emphasize as well.

I have a 14 year old son who is learning to shoot, and he has various friends who join us. Since we live about an hour from the range, every shooting session starts with a discussion of the rules. I’ve found that some points resonate well with these guys, so I wanted to share what we’ve talked about.

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Rule 0: Eyes and Ears.

Or, Always wear eye protection, and hearing protection where warranted.

[My version of this rule says “hearing protection where warranted” because Rule 0 also applies to Airsoft guns, BB guns, and other non-gunpowder guns. I require my son and his friends to always wear shooting glasses during their maneuvers.]

TEENAGER VERSION

Protecting your sight and your hearing should be a no-brainer. You want to spend the rest of your life enjoying the world, and all the sights and sounds it has to offer. Think of life without music or television. Bleak, isn’t it?

But a lot of people see movies and TV and soldiers and think they can get away with not wearing protection when shooting.

The problem is, when you shoot a gun without eye and ear protection, you are damaging your hearing every time, and you could damage your sight, if you get hit by a stray shell or ricochet. Hearing damage and sight damage are not reversible. Once you lose hearing, it’s gone. The cilia in your ears, the little hairs that transmit the sound, don’t grow back. And once you damage your eyes, chances are the damage is irreparable.

So, everybody put these on, keep them on, and don’t give me any more lip.

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GROWN-UP VERSION

[WARNING: Engineering content.]

EYES

The regulations and standards for protective eyewear are found in ANSI Standard Z87.1. Now, this standard covers eye protection for just about every exposure, not just impact, and it’s quite involved.

But you should always use eyewear that’s stamped somewhere with “Z87.1.” This means it meets the impact standards at least.

Regular glasses generally don’t meet this standard, because of the lack of impact resistance, and the lack of side shields. If you wear prescription glasses it may be worth it for you to get a pair of Z87.1 standard shooting glasses.

Off the shelf sunglasses fare even worse. May of them don’t offer even basic impact protection.

Shooters’ eye protection comes in all shapes and sizes and colors. Pick the one you like, and buy 2 or 3 pairs. Different colors help make targets easier to see in different light conditions. The most common are gray for sunny conditions, yellow or amber for low light, and vermillion, which enhances a beige or orange target.

EARS

The intensity of a noise, that is, how loud it is, is expressed in units of decibels, or dB. Hearing protection is rated by a Noise Reduction Rating, or NRR, which is also stated in dB. This is pretty much the measure of how much the ear protection reduces the noise level for the wearer.

Generally, noise about 85 dB is considered dangerous, since it can cause permanent damage. Noise over 140 dB is usually painful, and gunfire can range from 120 to 160 dB depending on the caliber and the surroundings of the shooter.

The NRR of hearing protection is measured by the manufacturer using a continuous noise, so its applicability to the sharp pressure wave of a gunshot isn’t exact. However, most experts recommend using ear plugs or ear muffs with a NRR of 19 or higher when shooting.

Obviously, the higher the better. Ear plugs can work, if you use them right. Foam ear plugs need to be inserted all the way into the ear canal, almost flush with the ear opening. Roll them up, and insert them before they expand, by reaching behind your head and pulling your ear back, and inserting the plug with the other hand.

If you can see foam ear plugs sticking out of your ears, you don’t have them in right.

Earmuffs are easier to use, but they can be hot, and they’re bulkier. The choice is yours.

Personally, I wear foam earplugs with a NRR of 21, inserted correctly, during any time I’m at the range. Then, when it’s my turn to shoot, I put on some earmuffs with a NRR of 25. This prevents me from having an involuntary startle reflex when I shoot.

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Don’t overlook eyes and ears around the home, too. Wear eye protection when you cut the grass or use hand tools. Wear hearing protection when you use power tools or lawn tools.

I even bought a set of ear buds for my iPod that fit into the ear canal, and provide a NRR of 22. Very nice when I’m cutting the grass, or on the airplane.

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Finally, here’s a good video that explains it all, from our friends at MidwayUSA.

Video courtesy of MidwayUSA

Musings on gun safety.

Here are the Rules of Gun Safety as posted at the Fill Yer Hands zombie-proof bunker in Kennesaw, Georgia:

0. Always wear eye protection, and hearing protection where warranted.

1. All guns are always loaded.

2. Never let the muzzle cover anything which you are not willing to destroy.

3. Keep your finger OFF the trigger until your sights are on the target.

4. Always be sure of your target and what’s behind it.

5. Never try to catch a dropped gun.

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All these rules apply to Nerf and Airsoft and BB guns, too, for a couple of good reasons. First, these guns can hurt you if you don’t follow the rules, and second, if you don’t follow the rules with these guns, you’re likely to ignore them with “real” guns, too.

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This sign is posted at the Nerf Gun / Airsoft storage area in the zombie-proof bunker:

Rule Zero: Eyes and Ears.

We also store the eyewear in the same place as the ammo for these guns. It makes it a lot easier to remember.

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When we are at the range, the first thing we do after setting up targets is go over these rules with everyone in our party. Everyone there knows they are free to call any of the others on a rule infraction. This isn’t meant to be mean, it’s meant to keep everyone safe.

Usually, Rules 2 and 3 are the ones to violated, but usually only once. All I have to do is yell “Muzzle!” or “Finger!” and the person gets what I’m saying.

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I find that with my son’s friends, one of the hardest things to teach is to point their guns at the ground when not shooting, not in the air. Thanks a lot, Hollywood.

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It makes me feel good when I pull into the driveway in the evening, and my son is leading an assault on his backyard action shooting range, and he and the four teens with him, all armed with Airsoft or Nerf guns, are all wearing eye protection. In fact, my son has on knee pads and shooting gloves.

I am more than willing to furnish eyewear for all the shooters. And I am more than willing to banish someone who refuses to wear them.

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I recently came across this video from the NSSF that explains the Four Basic Rules very well.

Good day, class. Please settle down.

First, for those of you who asked, YES, there will be a quiz. Every day. But you won’t know when it is. And if you fail, you may not know it.

Second, for today’s class, I have brought in a guest speaker, a man named Derek “Tex” Grebner. Please pay attention to his video.

Someone please get the lights.

Okay, okay, okay. Settle down.

Lots of lessons to learn here, students.

First, never attempt a new pistol technique with a loaded weapon. Especially the first time. Or probably for the first 10 times. Do this very slowly, with a training partner, until you are both sure you can do it without any problem. Then do it another 20 times before you load up. Then do it s l o w l y.

To me, the second lesson is that this is why I don’t like holsters with retention devices on them. This whole thing happened, admittedly, because the first holster he used – with another gun – had a retention device that was in the same place as the thumb safety on a 1911. Bad design, no matter what. Your mileage my vary, but I won’t own one.

Third, if you don’t have a first aid kit in your range bag, get one. You should have one with you every time you go shoot. If you look on your syllabus, we will cover First Aid next week. Those of you who get queasy looking at blood, get over it.

I’m glad he came out of all this safe. And I’m sorry he’s going to spend the rest of his life serving as a warning to the rest of us. But that’s the risk we all take.

Class dismissed.

Oh, hey, please look out for the quiz later.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

(signed)

John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton