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.
You just said one thing, then you said something very different. If everyone here is indeed a good gun handler as you say, the your first quoted sentence makes no sense. The folks I know do not handle guns any differently whether the chamber is hot or not. And I don't expect any less of them or of myself. In fact, I won't be around anyone who handles a gun less carefully when it is empty than when it is hot. The rules are rules and no government dictum will change the fact that their compliance for safety reasons is voluntary. People who are willing to treat an unloaded gun differently are people who are almost certainly going to end up doing two things; they will at times also treat a loaded gun just a bit less carefully, and they will eventually discover that their "unloaded" gun isn't- perhaps even making the discovery when the "unloaded" gun discharges.
Sometimes, the air you 'let in'matters less than the air you 'let out'.
