So yesterday, in a single day, we manage to have not one, not two, but THREE IDIOTS shoot themselves or someone else at three different gun shows. Luckily, all the injuries seem relatively minor. If I was more of a conspiracy theorist, I’d be worried about mind control rays about now.
I love gun shows, but the things always worry the hell out of me. There’s more unsafe gun handling going on at one show that I care to see in a lifetime. Everyone just “knows” all those guns are unloaded, so ol’ Rufus feels perfectly free to aim that .300 Win Mag down the aisle at 50 people so he can look through the scope. Hey Rufus–that thing over your head is a ceiling–how about aiming that puppy up there?
Added to that, we’ve had a huge influx of gun owners who aren’t like us old farts who grew up around guns and were taught from an early age how to handle them safely. These new folks are coming in through the concealed carry route, and unfortunately, most of them have but a brief introduction to proper gun handling. Watching some of them, I think that most of what they know they learned from watching the exceptional gun-handling skills we see on TV and in the movies. It will take years to break some of them of those bad habits.
We all need to step our skills up a notch, but right now in particular. These three incidents just set us back a week or more. Wise up, double up on the precautions and let’s keep the momentum going our way.