The Three Firearm Safety Rules

Rob Pincus: Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Whenever we have a weapon under our control, what we want to make sure we're doing is being safe and being very careful about what we're doing with it. We need an objective set of standard, so that everybody can look around the room and know that everybody is being safe, or at least know if some one not being safe in terms of violation or safety rules. So to get everybody on the same page, we're going to talk about our three safety rules. Safety rule number one is to keep your trigger finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot. So what I want to do is make sure we understand what finger off the trigger really means. Now clearly this gun has locked back. Administratively, it's been checked as open. The chamber is clear. There is no magazine inserted. And I've checked with my training partner Mike to make sure that we're 100% clear. Finger off the trigger means all the way up on the frame. For a right-handed shooter, we don't want to be able to look from the left side and see the trigger finger anywhere down in this area. Here that's too close. We want to keep it all the way up. Keep it up on the frame, clearly where it's out of the way. That's until we're ready to shoot. Ready to shoot means we're on a range that's been designated for a live fire. We have a target that's been identified and the command to fire has been issued by an instructor or you've been given the option of finding a target in our 360 degree maze for instance and gauging appropriately when you've seen it. Then we'll be ready to shoot at that point when you've identified a target, extended towards it, you're then going to be ready to shoot. You're going to move your finger to the trigger, touch and then press. You remove your finger back to the frame as you come back into the ready position to assess and look for more targets. That's the drill for safety rule number one. Safety rule number two, I have also been demonstrating and that's to keep the weapon pointed in a generally safe direction at all times. When the weapon is pointed in a generally safe direction, it means that no one is likely to get hurt if the weapon goes off whether negligently or on purpose. Generally, speaking down in front of you at the floor is going to be your generally safe direction. Of course, if there were people lying down, if you're moving down a set of stairs that may not be it. So objectively, the rule is weapon pointing in a generally safe direction at all times. Again, this includes when you're going to shoot. In a training environment, this is a steel wall. We've identified it as a generally safe direction. There's a target up there. We identify. We extend. The weapon is still pointed in a generally safe direction, touch, press. Bring the gun back in. Depress the muzzle and this allows us to then move around and asses and look for other potential threats that we might need to engage. Safety rule number three is what we call the big picture rule. The big picture rule is there to remind us that this is a weapon, which if used negligently or maliciously, could hurt or kill you or someone else. This third rule we'd have in there as the big picture rule, because sometimes people get so worried about one small detail of what they're doing where they get excited about something and they forget one or more of the rules. For example, if you're so worried about your finger being off the trigger that you turn the gun to look and see, now the gun maybe pointed in an unsafe direction. If you're worried about your thumbs beings crossed in terms of having a good 360 degree contact grip and while you're trying to figure that out, you've forgotten rule number one and left your finger on the trigger, we could again have a negligent discharge to cause someone to get hurt. We use only frangible non-toxic ammunition here on our ranges so that we can be reasonably sure that no rounds are going to come off one of the steel targets at an angle that we haven't accounted for. That we don't have to worry about rounds coming back towards the shooter or coming back towards some of our sensitive equipment or computer lighting and things like that. Of course, safety is first and that's why the generally safe direction is going to be towards those target stops even though if these were traditional lead rounds, these directions and angles may not be safe. It's important that you only train under close supervision in approved training areas in the ways that the ranges you're training were designed to be used. Three Safety Rules Keep finger off trigger until ready to shoot. Keep weapon pointing in a safe direction at all times. Big Picture Rule -- Remember, you are in control of a weapon that can injure or kill if used maliciously or negligently. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.