Treat All Guns As If They Were Loaded!
By Gregory Kielma
Why do I have to check if a gun is armed with bullets even if I just saw another person check the same firearm and prove that it isn't armed?
Why do I have to check if a gun is armed with bullets even if I just saw another person check the same firearm and prove that it isn't armed?
Allen Bob
In high school a good friend was given an old 22 pump action by his uncle. It had been sitting in his closet for 30 years or so.
There were half a dozen guys over at his house and he was showing it off. I had the most hunting and gun experience, but we all had experience. “Is it unloaded? …Yeah, it’s unloaded, I don’t even have any bullets for it yet”
Pass to guy one, rack the slide, dry fire…. pass to the next person rack the slide, dry fire.
Well, it got to me. I pulled back the slide and noticed no follower. I whacked the magazine and then the butt a few times…. Racked it twice and a round popped out.
All faces went white…. “That round must have been in there for 30 years!”
For those of you who don’t understand a pump rifle has a magazine under the barrel…. Basically, a long tube is slightly larger than the round. The rounds are all in their end to end. There is a spring that pushes on a “follower”, which pushes the rounds all to the end where they can be loaded. Well one got twisted just right and lodged in the magazine. The spring was not strong enough to push it down. When I hit the magazine a few times it dislodged it, and it was able to be pushed down to where it could be chambered.
If I ever hand you a gun it will be cleared, but if you don’t check it yourself you are put in the category of someone who is (likely) unsafe with a gun.