No, I say that it's perfectly possible to hunt safely with a round in the chamber.
As I said above, in may be safer by some incremental margin to hunt cold- but then, it might not, too. You prove to me that it's a good idea to have a bunch of yay-hoos frantically chambering their rifles when they see a deer for instance. Now THAT sounds like a mess to me. And here's the clincher. Some small percentage of those yay-hoos will then forget to unchamber, and be walking around thinking they have an empty rifle when they don't. There's another mess for you. Or, those same yay-hoos, after chambering their 30-30 or whatever, will now have to rack ALL the rounds through the rifle to clear it.
Accidents happen with guns. They happen when people manipulate the action, they happen when they think the gun is empty, they happen upon loading and unloading. Those things count as a debit against the increase of safety that might be gained if everyone was compelled to carry cold.
And it wouldn't work for beans where and how I hunt.
And a lot of other guys have said the same things as I just said, several times over. :-)
-jeff
jeff -
Say what you want but unless you can provide factual data its just hot air.
There are a number of problems with your contention:
1. The statistics are heavily against you. During the 1992-2005/6 period only 6 incidents (2% of total) involved unloading a firearm. Considering that most people hunt with a "hot" chamber and have to unload at least once a day and people that hunt with cold chambers MAY have to unload one or more times a day, there is already a prodgidous amount of unloading going on. Contrast the 6 unloading incidents to the 107 other incidents (36% of total) in the "Non-intentionally fired" category during the same time frame. The number of incidents involving triggers that snag on something or hunters falling is over 5 times greater than the number of incidents that occur during unloading.
2. There are no statistics in the report for the number of incidents where a firearm was being loaded and it is quite possible the number is 0.
3. The vast majority of hunters are quite capable of loading their firearm from the magazine without shooting someone in the process, even when game is present. Statistics bear this out as well as every shot after the 1st involves a reload. If people were getting injured by follow-up shots it should show up in the "Intentionally fired" category. The number of such incidents in Alabama, from 1992 through the 2005-2006 season, is zero incidents or 0%.
4. You propose that many accidents would happen because people would forget their firearm is loaded. We already have that situation. Truly empty chambers would eliminate the shooting incidents that result.
5. Those "yay-hoos, after chambering their 30-30 or whatever, will now have to rack ALL the rounds through the rifle to clear it"? Well, no, it is entirely possible with most if not all leverguns to eject a cartridge from the chamber without loading another in the process, just as it is possible with bolt guns.
Accidents do happen with guns, but unloaded chambers reduce the likelihood of a shooting incident to zero.
A cold chamber man not work for you (I suspect it would work better than you are willing to admit) but that does not mean a hot chamber would be safer.
Coyote Hunter - NRA Patriot Life, NRA Whittington Center Life, GOA, DAD - and I VOTE!
No, I'm not a Ruger bigot - just an unabashed fan of their revolvers, M77's and #1's.
