Facts Everyone Should Understand About Guns
Keys points everyone should know about firearms, and how to easily identify people who remain clueless about them.
Don’t Lecture Anyone On Gun Safety Until You Understand The Basic Rules
The current trend is for gun control to claim their prohibition efforts are “gun safety.” There are real gun safety rules that every person should understand. Gun owners with even minimal experience understand these basic rules and their use will prevent any unintentional shooting.
Handle all guns as loaded.
Never point the muzzle at anything you don’t intend to destroy.
Keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to shoot.
Always confirm your target and what’s in front, behind, and around it.
Setting aside minor quibbles over semantics, some variant of these rules are universally understood by gun owners with even the most basic understanding of firearms. All unintentional shootings happen when these rules are broken. Any injury requires breaking all of them simultaneously, making each rule a backup for the others. Always assuming a gun is loaded avoids the foolish “Oh, I didn’t know it was loaded.” In breaking the first rule, rule #2 and #4 prevent an unintentional shooting by keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Breaking the first and second rules, rule #3 ensures the firearm is not discharged unintentionally. An unintentional shooting resulting in injury requires breaking all of these rules simultaneously.
These gun safety rules are to be practiced everywhere and at all times, without exception. Jeff Cooper is credited as originating these and they were created in the private sector by individual gun owners, only later being adopted by public sector (military and police) training. Don’t lecture anyone on “gun safety” (the new euphemism for gun control) until these can be effortlessly recited and explained. It’s a simple test: if a gun controller wants to tell you what is or isn’t safe, ask them to tell you the four basic rules of gun safety. If they can’t or won’t, you’ll know they’re not interested in promoting actual safety.
Guns Do Not Just “Go Off”
For a gun to discharge a specific sequence of events must occur, and each event requires human intervention. Firearms do not accidentally or randomly discharge. Even a loaded firearm having a round chambered, all safeties off, and the hammer/striker cocked will not just “go off” by itself. The trigger must still be pressed to release the firing pin or striker. Nearly every firearm designed within the past century has an entire series of safety mechanisms that all must be set and actuated in sequence to discharge a chambered cartridge.
There is a failure in understanding when it’s described that a gun just “went off” as if it’s something firearms spontaneously do. This type of phrasing implies that the gun itself is the hazard, rather than the person handling it. Guns don’t “go off”; they’re loaded and fired by people. This is why the term “accidental shooting” is usually a misnomer. Perhaps unintentional or inadvertent, but guns don’t accidentally end up in a state that allows them to be fired and then discharge on their own.
“Unintentional discharge” is the correct term to denote a discharge that wasn’t deliberate regardless of why. Most unintentional shootings can correctly be termed a “negligent discharge” because negligence is the proper characterization when it reflects when an individual neglected to follow basic gun safety rules (see above). Negligence helps foster the proper mindset for gun handling: if a firearm is discharged, it is because of something a person did, intended or not.
Even in the unlikely case of an extremely rare mechanical failure, following Rules 1, 2, and 4 above will prevent an injury. In nearly every instance, unintentional shootings are due to the negligence of the person with the firearm failing to follow basic safety rules.
Ammunition Determines a Firearm’s Power, Not Appearance
The babble about “high caliber” military firearms (also a misnomer) often claims things like military firearms (or military-style or “assault weapons”) are uniquely powerful. Two firearms of completely different design and appearance but chambered in the same cartridge strike the same blow. An M16/M4 series chambered in 5.56 NATO strikes no harder than a bolt action rifle chambered in the same cartridge.
Current Military Rifles are The Least Powerful Ever Issued
Military rifles became increasingly powerful and effective at further distances with improvements in metallurgy and manufacture through the mid-19th and 20th centuries. There was a push to increase the distance personnel could hit targets. Some “common taters” have poked fun at the ladder sights found on military rifles marked for distances well beyond 1,000 meters from this period.
This demonstrates ignorance of gunnery of that period. The intent was massed plunging fire on enemy formations and positions as fired from a team of riflemen (squad, section, platoon, etc.) not necessarily to engage individual point targets at extravagant distances with single shots. When set as pictured, the rear sight would have a point blank/battle sight zero for individual point targets. In the era before wireless radio, indirect artillery fire that couldn’t be readily called and adjusted, machine guns, and close air support it, was a good tactic to engage as far away as possible with plunging fires directed by fire command from a team/section/platoon leader making good range estimates and directing.
However, the nature of modern maneuver warfare made this unwise in most circumstances. Data from World War 2 found that the number of small arms engagements beyond 100 meters rapidly declined and very few were beyond 300 meters. This led to a push toward intermediate cartridges that would be effective enough at lesser distances; ammunition more powerful than handguns but not as heavy as previous rifle rounds. Those “high caliber military-style assault weapons” some people complain about are chambered in less powerful cartridges than previously issued rifles that nobody (usually) wants to ban.
Military and Law Enforcement are Novices with Firearms (Usually)
Shooting well requires regular practice and discipline. Firearm presentation, sight acquisition and alignment, trigger discipline, followthrough, and shot calling are skills that must be painstakingly developed before one can consider himself an accurate and reliable shooter.
A uniform does not confer magical shooting abilities. Contrary to public opinion, the level of training received by most military and police is just barely enough to pass qualification courses intended for new shooters. Military and department qualification standards are rarely more stringent than the same used for recruits during initial training. People with zero shooting experience can pass most of these qualifications after a single afternoon of quality instruction and practice. I have successfully trained absolute beginners to shoot well enough to pass a military qualification in an hour.
The New York Times wrote about systemic problems with police shooting accuracy:
New York City police statistics show that simply hitting a target, let alone hitting it in a specific spot, is a difficult challenge. In 2006, in cases where police officers intentionally fired a gun at a person, they discharged 364 bullets and hit their target 103 times, for a hit rate of 28.3 percent, according to the department’s Firearms Discharge Report. The police shot and killed 13 people last year.
In 2005, officers fired 472 times in the same circumstances, hitting their mark 82 times, for a 17.4 percent hit rate. They shot and killed nine people that year.
In all shootings — including those against people, animals and in suicides and other situations — New York City officers achieved a 34 percent accuracy rate (182 out of 540), and a 43 percent accuracy rate when the target ranged from zero to six feet away. Nearly half the shots they fired last year were within that distance.
Some police and military are very good shooters but they got that way on their own; military or law enforcement service did little to help them. Good shooters in uniform got that way in spite of their service, not because of it. All good shooters in the service put in the time necessary on their own to develop and maintain their shooting skills.
Differences In Firearm Types Are Small
The shot-to-shot speed difference between all self-loading firearms (military or otherwise) and manual repeaters is about one second or less. The shot-to-shot speed difference when reloading is a few seconds. The time difference between shooting 30 rounds from three 10-round magazines versus one 30-round magazine is about a half dozen seconds or less. The most radical and expensive modifications to “match grade” firearms only adds about 10% to the score when compared to basic issue firearms, and often less.
The United States Already Has “Universal Background Checks” For Most Gun Sales
The 1968 Gun Control Act made it a requirement for all firearm dealers to have a Federal Firearms License, conduct a background check, and keep copies of every transaction. In 1993 the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act added the requirement to further verify the background check for all firearms (not just handguns, despite the name) via the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for every firearm sale. Some states have additional background check requirements on top of the federal law.
Most people complaining that “it’s easier to buy a gun than a <fill_in_the_blank>” have no idea what happens during a firearm sale. There have been incidents of reporters looking to prove that “it’s too easy to buy a gun” by attempting to purchase one only to be denied by a background check process they failed.
The controversy around the so-called “gun show loophole” is a perfect example of basic ignorance about the nation’s gun laws and their effects. The vast majority of gun show sales are conducted by dealers with a Federal Firearms License and all FFL sales are strictly regulated, even at a gun show.
At the federal level, the only type of purchase that doesn’t require a background check is a private transaction between two individuals who reside in the same state; gun shows have nothing to do with it. It’s worth noting that individuals who don’t hold an FFL are not allowed to access NICS. And if you think a federal universal background check is going to keep criminals from buying guns from each other, then please explain why it hasn’t prevented them from buying drugs and other illegal goods from each other.
I do have that FM, however, I could not find the score rankings, just the course chart layout that is on page 7-46. Are you aware of another listing that shows that score rankings?
Do you know what the required scores for rankings are for the U.S. Army Short Range Marksmanship course (SRM)? How many hits on the targets to achieve rankings of Marksman, Sharpshooter, Expert for this course?
I recently read about this course in the "Beyond Expert" book and I am planning on setting this course up myself, but I cannot find the score and level rankings.