The guys in the gun shop are not mishandling the rifles because they know them to be safe - that's standard practice for those guys.
Nobody is talking about cold chamber mandates - you sound like an Obama democrat...........oh, wait.
It's not to say that someone with a hot chamber cannot handle safely, they certainly can, and mostly do. It's the part that cannot be controlled that is the point.
Also, lotsa really bad analogies made from pistols to shotguns to golf to driving. Here's one for you:
Odds are one of your precious children could run across I-5* in the dark and not get hurt. Would you let them anyway?
*Pick your closest interstate - if ya have one.
Lot of emotion flying around. Not sure why folks deem that necessary.
First, you made MY point very concisely. Guys handle guns carelessly when they "know" them to be empty. Not saying that anyone present is a bad gun handler; to the contrary, I suspect everyone here is a very GOOD gun handler. But we, or at least I, am talking in general terms here. Make it mandatory that everyone carry cold (I say that not because I favor government regulation, but because it's the only way to set up a hypothetical where everyone is carrying cold), and you know as well as I do that there'd be some damn sloppy gun work out there. Why? Because, you see... everyone "knows them to be safe", right?
You are wrong about my driving analogy. It's actually a very GOOD analogy. Here's why. The core of this debate, hot vs. cold, is safety. The safety of an individual, and those around him. Driving is exactly analagous. It is a statistical truth that less people would die on the highway if we drove 55 mph. Period. So, driving faster is a choice that you and I make (hell, I do anyway) because we want to, and the FACT that it endangers ourselves and those around us, exposes everyone to more risk, is something we are willing to live with for whatever reasons.
I challenge you, bendy-boy, to explain why that is not a superb analogy. Further, if you do drive faster than say 55 mph on the freeway, I'd like hear how you justify endangering yourself and those around you. Thanks in advance.
Lastly, YOUR analogy is fundamentally flawed and thus, meaningless for the discussion at hand. This is a thread about managing risk while doing something you want or need to do. Not about creating risk doing something like running across a freeway. Not applicable. Try harder.
As I've said before, there's a continuum here, a scale. I unload (unchamber) a rifle all the time, and I've carried "cold" when it seemed reasonable or prudent. When I'm hunting alone, which is most of the time, out in the big woods, I hunt hot and in my opinion that's perfectly safe and reasonable. I'm not in this life to be some puzzy-ass risk avoiding freak (not saying anyone here is). I'll drive 75 on the highway... I'll drink too much... I'll play my guitar too loud... that's just how it is for me.
I'll say again, the deer I killed a few days ago wouldn't have died that night if I'd been hunting "cold". Maybe one of you bad-asses would have gotten him that way; I'll concede that (though I doubt it rather strongly). But that doesn't fill MY freezer.
Some of us are hunting elk and deer with tags in the 10%, 15% success rate range. A guy made a comment earlier about how "the meat always seems to come down the mountain". With all due respect, it ain't like that in some places. Guys go years and years between Oregon public-land elk, for example. I'm not missing out on one because I handicapped myself by needing to chamber my friggin' rifle just to shoot the bastid.
YMMV, bendy-boy. Oh- better go wipe those counters with the anti-microbe stuff.. and don't forget to wash your hands again! Danger lurks everywhere... can't be too careful, bendy-boy.
Danger lurks everywhere... can't be too careful, bendy-boy.
