Always Check For A Round In The Chamber

[Desperado]

Originally Posted by Eugen

Just to be picky, they are not accidents. They are best described as "negligent" discharges, at least as I have been taught.

Wondered when someone would bring this "minor" point up. Back in 1970, I taught rural youth (4-H) hunter and gun safety. These were kids growing up on the farm, ranch, and small towns where they would be handling and around firearms.

Rule #1 was, "Treat every gun as if it were loaded until you personally knew otherwise". You hand one of those youth a firearm and the first thing he or she would do was to open the chamber to see for themselves that it wasn't loaded. If you told them it was unloaded, they would still open the chamber because they did not personally know that it was unloaded. (Side point: I've never known anyone to be injured or killed with a "loaded" gun. It always seems to be the unloaded ones that do the job just like I've never been kicked by a "kicking" horse. Its always been the ones that won't kick that have gotten me.)

If the youth didn't know how to open the chamber of a particular firearm they would hand it back to the owner and ask the owner to open the chamber so that the youth could personally see that it was unloaded.

Rule #2 incidentally was, "Always maintain proper muzzle control". Make it a habit to always keep a firearm pointed in a safe direction (down range, directly up or directly down depending upon the construction of a building, away from all persons, etc) even when you know it to be unloaded. It was a great habit to form. It was so ingrained that it was done instinctively.

Following those two rules, as those rural youth did, would eliminate most if not all negligent discharges.

Add in rule #3, "Always know your target and what's beyond your target" and you've eliminated most "hunting accidents". Obviously implied was if you could not positively identify your target and were not able to see where your round would go if you were to miss - and that was a safe place - you passed up the shot.

To paraphrase a slogan from the boating industry, "Safe gun handling is no Accident".

The real purpose of the "geladen", I believe was not gun safety. I read somewhere that for safety reasons, the Luger was often carried without a round in the chamber. Before going into action, the pistol was "charged". The "Geladen" tab allowed a soldier to easily tell by feel whether there was a round in the chamber. In the dark or in a situation where the slightest noise might get you shot, being able to tell the status of the chamber by feel without moving anything might be the difference between surviving the encounter or not surviving.