We have a simple, but important principle at my house. If you want to handle or fire any of our guns, you must be able to recite the four rules and display understanding of our fifth “house rule” before you touch a firearm.
In order to safely and responsibly enjoy our guns, we know these rules were developed to keep everyone safe and to keep safety front and center when handling weapons.
Of course, there are other safety rules that we should always follow. The most important being…
Never handle a firearm when under the influence of any amount of any mind-altering substance!
Of course that’s a general rule for any dangerous or deadly tools and mechanical devices from cars to jackhammers.
The Four Rules (+ a bonus rule) are specific to firearms. Every gun owner should know the four rules by heart. Do you?
Why The Four Rules Matter
The four rules have been developed over generations to mitigate the danger of firearms in order to help anyone, regardless of their experience level, safely operate a gun. The rules provide some safety guide rails which help new and experienced shooters alike feel safer and more confident. It also provides ALL shooters with a set of commonly understood principles. This helps shooters communicate based on a shared understanding which, again, increases safety by mitigating risks.
Rule #1 – Every gun is always loaded all the time.
If shooting has a “first principle,” this is it. If you always assume that every gun is always loaded, you will always handle it that way. In fact, this rule conditions the ground for the other rules. They all follow from the shared understanding that every shooter will always treat every gun as if it could discharge if handled improperly, carelessly, or without regard for where it is pointed.
Even when you are at home alone, if you don’t follow this rule religiously, it is easy to let bad habits creep in, habits you don’t want to repeat where they can create an unsafe environment for others.
To assure your weapon is not hot, always do a proper safety check before ALL transitions whether that is storing it, taking to the range, showing it to someone, cleaning it, etc.
For semi-autos, this means removing the magazine, racking the slide, and locking it. Then visually inspecting the breach, probing it with your finger. Confirm that you can see daylight all the way through.
For a revolver, this means removing the ammo at a safe angle, probing all of the cylinders with your finger, and visually confirm daylight through each cylinder.
NEVER TAKE SOMEONE ELSE’S WORD FOR IT!
Check it yourself. Then check it again.
Rule #2 – Never point a gun at anything you aren’t willing to shoot.
The second rule logically follows from the first. If every gun is always loaded all of the time then you NEVER want to point a firearm in a direction where a discharge could lead to injury or death.
This can be particularly important in multi-unit homes, businesses, or any location where people may be dwelling out of sight, but within the trajectory of an improperly handled weapon.
Much of the time this means keeping the weapon pointed at a downward angle away from your body, but not necessarily. If you are on the top floor of a building, for example, it may be safer to point the weapon up and away. The key is situational awareness, a term that every shooter should understand and apply in every setting.
Rule #3 – Keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you are sited on your target.
Despite what Alec Baldwin’s lawyers may claim, guns don’t fire on their own. A stiff breeze does not cause a discharge. In fact, despite what we see all the time in movies and on TV, dropping almost any gun will not cause it to discharge.
There is one and only one way to discharge a firearm…pulling the trigger!
Therefore one can avoid virtually all accidental discharges by simply keeping your finder outside the trigger guard (or off the trigger for models that lack a trigger guard) until you are sited on the target you wish to shoot.
Whenever I see a photo of someone holding a weapon, the first place I look is at their finger. If it’s straight along the length of the receiver or is it curled into the trigger guard. The former indicates a trained shooter while the later indicates “take that gun away from them right now!”
Rule #4 – Always know what is behind your target before you fire.
While it may be relatively easy to site and hit targets at the range, although most new shooters need a few rounds to get consistent and all shooters need regular range time, the real world is not the range.
Research has repeatedly shown that even the most trained and practiced shooters, active-duty police, miss between 70-85% of their shots during live fire incidents. If they miss 4 out of five times, chances are you will miss even more.
While that may be good news for bad guys, its terrible news for the nice family next door, the jogger passing by, and that above ground swimming pool full of kids just beyond a privacy fence.
Every time we read another story about a toddler killed by a stray bullet…this is why.
If you know what is behind your target, you can respond accordingly to protect innocents and property.
Bonus Rule
When sharing a gun to another person, always DOUBLE safety check and then set it down for them to pick up and recheck.
Never directly hand someone a loaded gun. This is one of the leading scenarios that lead to accidental discharges. The best way to avoid this is to never hand someone ANY gun. Hands slip, fingers snag triggers, we misjudge distances.
It is better for you to safety check the weapon…then check it again…physically put your finger in the breach…and then ask the second person to visually confirm your safety check before setting the gun down pointed in a safe direction. Then ask the second person to pick up the weapon and reconfirm the safety check.
Follow this practice religiously and it will soon be hardwired into your brain, significantly reducing the chances of an accidental discharge.
Conclusion
All of these rules exist for a single purpose, to mitigate risk. By making them universal, all shooters have a shared understanding of safety procedures, to everyone’s benefit.
In an age where our 2nd Amendment rights are under constant attack, these rules also help minimize the rhetorical ammo that gun grabbers can use to justify denying our rights. The safer and more responsible we are, the stronger the case to trust lawful citizen’s peaceful choices.
Researched and written by the American Gun Facts team. We are a group of Americans dedicated to providing factual information on firearms and fighting back against attempts to weaken or discard the Second Amendment. We write on topics ranging from firearm statistics, news, reviews, and more! AGF has been featured in the New York Times, NBC, MSN, Time, & many other publications.