Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Gun Safety for Hunters

There are many reasons that a hunter would get seriously injured, but the leading cause is improper gun handling. Unfortunately, too many hunters ignore vital safety precautions when hunting and do not take good care of their weapon. Hunting injuries or fatalities are becoming all too common in the world of hunting and many people do not seem too concerned about the fatal realities of these incidents. The logical hunter, however, takes careful note of all of the safety precautions involving his or her wet and learns the basics of gun safety for hunters.





https://huntpreys.com/index.php/2018/12/17/gun-safety-for-hunters/

Interesting that when I went to the link, the first picture is of a youngster with his finger on the trigger, but he is not ready to shoot.

Action open or not, our finger is not on the trigger until we are on target and ready to shoot.

The photo used in the linked page is shown below.

The image appears to be a photo made during a photo op at a hunter safety course. The instructor's hat shows Michigan DNR logos. A search engine found the photo on several web pages related to Michigan hunter safety from about 2014. The photo source is credited to the Michigan DNR. OOPS!

Wherever this course took place, his instructors should have been alert to the kid's problem. The DNR publicity office was certainly asleep at the switch.
--Bob
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Having been a Texas Hunter Education Instructor for 15 years from 1981 thru 1996 I know first hand about students violating rules that we as instructors didn't catch but someone else did. It's embarrassing, but it can and does happen.

Some may think this one in the picture here is no big deal and to be honest I would say I'm not certain the kid has his finger on the trigger (Although it appears that he does) but it is a big deal if the kids finger is on the trigger even though the action is open and the barrel is pointed in a safe direction because we teach by repetition in order to ingrain safety into the student's minds.

Repetition forms habits. Good safety habits help insure that when someone gets excited or distracted in the moment that he handles the firearm safely without conscious thought. So we repeat repeat repeat and don't stop repeating. Untrained people tend to get perturbed by this because they don't understand why we do it. But it's the only way to insure that in the moment people will default to the safest mode.

A good reason for having more than a few safety rules is so some overlap. If one single safety rule is accidentally violated, other overlapping rules may prevent an accident. We strive to be as safe as possible when gun handling, but we being human, stuff happens. Overlapping rules help insures one violation doesn't cause an accident.

Safety conscious as I like to think I am, I have come short of the glory once (at least). Once when comparing pistols with my Son In law my pistol went off accidentally (because I'm human something went wrong in my very human thought process.) But being that the firearm was pointed in a safe direction no one was injured or killed thank God. Redundancy of safety rules is not a bad thing when dealing with potentially hazardous objects and/or situations.

And some of these rules are not totally fool proof. For example, A safety on a firearm is a mechanical device that can fail. It should never be totally relied on. But we use it anyway because it is designed to make the firearm safe. Even though it possibly could fail or we might as humans misuse it, it being in the safe mode is one more step that might prevent an accidental discharge. So I taught my students to always use it but don't rely on it.

Total bullsh**.

I quite agree. The morbidity stats do not support it. If memory serves, the #1 cause is hypothermia. I forget the order of the rest, but the list includes falls, heat-related injuries, drowning, and dehydration. Gun mishaps are near the bottom,

The only stat that is worrisome with gun-related injury is the high mortality rate. Basically, the stats say that if you get shot in the field, you're very likely to die.




EDIT:

As to this finger on the trigger business, let me tell you that it is a real problem. I'm telling on myself here, but when I was a kid, I always had a toy gun in my hand. I did not handle real firearms until I was an adult. The first few times out, I kept catching myself with my finger on the trigger, and it was because of this early experience. I was able to break myself of the habit, but it took a concerted effort.

When I started to teach my sons, I got them started right, even with toy guns-- especially with toy guns. By the time they handled the real thing, they were okay. The other thing I did early on was to impose a no-point rule. When I was a kid, I played Army all the time with the neighbor kids. We were always shooting each other. I told my kids that they had to play cooperatively or not at all. That meant they could play Army together, but they had to be on the same side. It also meant no paintball and no airsoft action with their friends. I never wanted them getting in the habit of firing something at another person unless they meant it.

Bull poop! If we are indeed talking "gun safety and hunting" please show us some data.

Actually statistics across the various states suggest the exact opposite. In the 70's there were hundreds of shooting incidents. Today, many states are down to single digits. I'm most familiar with Oregon. In the early 1970's we averaged around 20 firearms incidents a year. Now number 5 to 7 in the single digits. Pennsylvania over the same interval has gone from about 120 down to around 21 or 22.

I conduct classes, and my method of trigger awareness is to have kids handle some set triggers and one of my Anschutz units with a 1/4 ounce trigger. Touch those with the safety off, and they fire right now.

We mostly harp on muzzle control, with the trigger, target identification, and knowledge of the actions status getting significant focus too.

Same in Colorado and it changed in 1970 when the requirements for blaze orange and hunter education went into effect. Colorado averaged 25 incidents and around 10 fatalities before 1970. Today it's between 1-2 fatalities a year (IIRC) with a lot more hunters afield.

Does that count parking lots...

Can't kill someone with an empty chamber. Thems is facts.


Those that are walking and say they are in complete control of their muzzles are liars at best.

Sure does.

Or an empty chamber can get you killed....

Back on topic, how many hunters are killed in your state each year with firearms vs say falling out of a tree?

My guess is 1 : 4.

Or a loaded chamber can kill someone else. Guessing it depends if your a narcissistic or not.

So you're saying that someone can be shot with an empty chamber?

15 times more deaths due to drivers texting and talking on cell phones while driving.

" his or her wet..."?????

And WTF is this doing in the Africa forum.?

It's spam. Two posts with links to the same website. You been had.

No sh** Sherlock.

As far as "being had" I disagree. The post had erroneous information and stated that "guns are dangerous."

I'll correct that kind of nonsense whenever and wherever I see it.