Four Commandments of Gun Safety Fail

I learned a couple of things this week.  Namely that Jose Canseco is my neighbor and that an adult who owns firearms violated every one of the four basic rules of gun safety, all in the scope of one newspaper article.

When someone blows off their fingers while cleaning a firearm, it is obvious that they disregarded one or more (more likely ALL) of the simple rules of gun safety which include:

1. Watch where the muzzle is pointed.
2. Treat every firearm as if it is loaded even if you are sure it isn't.
3. Be sure of the target and what is in front of and behind it.
4. Keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot.

I figured it would be simple to pull up a YouTube video to show you the proper way to clean a handgun but it turns out that wasn't so.  One guy was waving the pistol all over the place when he was getting started on the process, another guy had a set of pistols pointing AT HIM before he got started so that wouldn't do either.

I came across this video which was OK as it will show you how to strip and clean a pistol however there are a couple of problems I have with the video which you should keep in mind.  First, the guy is correct in keeping the firearm pointed away from himself but when you are pointing the firearm away from yourself you want to make sure of what is in front of where you are pointing the gun (you don't want to be working on your garage workbench and have the firearm pointed towards you kid's bedroom, for example.  Downward is a nice angle.).  And second, after he drops the magazine he then sticks his finger into the trigger guard before making sure that there is not a bullet chambered.  This is bad.  Drop the magazine then pull back the slide to make sure the chamber is empty before even touching the trigger.

Cleaning a firearm shouldn't be a dangerous endeavor if one simply follows a few common sense rules.