At What Point Does Safety Become Overkill?

[Treo]

I was watching a sit com on T.V. the other night. In one scene the main character was shown holding an M1911A1. The pistol was clearly shown and the hammer was down. Rendering the firearm incapable of firing.

The next day I looked on facebook and sure enough some "Gun Guru" was raising Hell because the actor violated rule three (for the NRA purists among us I am refering to Jeff Cooper's four rules not the NRA's)

Frequently I see people raising Hell on THR because some one takes a picture of a weapon in which the weapon is pointed straight at the camera (Rule two)

IMO the rules were never meant to take the place of your thinking and they can be taken too far (If you don't believe me start a thread on rule one and see how many posts you get before someone states rule one applies to disassembled firearms.)

Am I wrong? must the rules be followed to the letter at all times?

What say you?

[Phillip Gain]

I was watching a sit com on T.V. the other night. In one scene the main character was shown holding an M1911A1. The pistol was clearly shown and the hammer was down. Rendering the firearm incapable of firing.

The next day I looked on facebook and sure enough some "Gun Guru" was raising Hell because the actor violated rule three (for the NRA purists among us I am refering to Jeff Cooper's four rules not the NRA's)

Frequently I see people raising Hell on THR because some one takes a picture of a weapon in which the weapon is pointed straight at the camera (Rule two)

IMO the rules were never meant to take the place of your thinking and they can be taken too far (If you don't believe me start a thread on rule one and see how many posts you get before someone states rule one applies to disassembled firearms.)

Am I wrong? must the rules be followed to the letter at all times?

What say you?

In the case of movie props - I would hope they were rendered inoperative, say, by removal of the firing pin and blocking of the chamber. OR that they were replica arms, designed to shoot only blanks (in which case the barrel would be blocked anyway, to allow the blowback action to operate the gun.) Factual accuracy does not have to be sacrificed for safety; you just need a director or consultant or whoever, to be knowledgeable about how guns work.

As to photography - I've griped at a few people on Facebook etc (mostly girls posing with their bf's guns) who posed with finger on trigger. But again, for movie posters or whatever...INOPERATIVE PROPS so you don't have to sacrifice the dramatic effect in the name of safety.

Now, back to real life. There are plenty of situations where common sense just has to prevail, and the rules should be obeyed in spirit if not in letter. Here are a couple of examples:

1) If you are staying in a large hotel, in an interior room (ie no outside-facing walls) and on a middle floor (ie rooms above and below you)...then there literally is NO safe direction to point your firearm. So when you are handling it, particularly loading or unloading, you have to consider your surroundings, and decide what is the SAFEST direction to point.

2) If you are in a crowded and well-staffed gun store, looking at a gun you are considering purchasing, it once again may be difficult to find a safe direction. Make sure to double and triple check that the firearm is unloaded. Then there's the issue of inspecting the bore if you're buying a used gun. Obviously you need to LOOK down the barrel, which according to the rules is not safe. So you triple check that the firearm is unloaded, and stick a bore light in the chamber, before you look.

3) When a gun is disassembled for cleaning (with firing pin completely separated from chamber), it is obviously not going to magically go off. But I maintain that it is still good practice to keep it pointed in a safe direction.

4) When a gun is carried in a horizontal shoulder holster - technically it is never pointed in a safe direction. Some would therefore argue that horizontal shoulder rigs are unsafe. Others would argue that when the gun is holstered, it is static and not being handled, so the "safe handling rules" do not apply. Then it becomes a question of which is safer - to holster and unholster the gun while wearing the shoulder rig? Or before donning it / after removing the shoulder rig? (I'm not sure of the answer; and I bet it could be argued both ways.)

I could go on. But others will have examples too.

[cato35]

I believe the exception to the rule is exactly the example you gave, someone pointing at the camera, assuming no camera operator. Hollywood is full of examples of bad behavior being shown as the norm. Equally, the internet is full of examples of people scouring videos, blogs and forums ready to pounce on just about any comment that doesn't jive with their view of the world. Conflict makes the world go round.

[KCD1974]

Well I see your point, and yes there are times when you can ignore the rules, such as a non-functional firearm made so by you, no internals etc.

But otherwise you should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS follow the rules to the letter and here is why, the one time you don't, may be your last. If you don't always follow them, you may forget to at a key moment. It's like putting on your seat belt, pretty soon, you don't even realize you've put it on. It should be the same way with firearm safety.

[Treo]

One of the firearms mistakes I notice most on T.V. is some one pointing a 1911 at someone else w/ the hammer down. The damn gun won’t shoot like that and the person holding it should know that.

One of the Directors of the T.V. show “Rookie Blue” is a face book friend of mine. I mentioned the above to him once and he offered this input which I think fits in w/ this topic.

On any film set w/ firearms they are kept locked up under the care of the armorer until needed, when a gun is needed for a scene there is a protocol they have to follow. The armorer gets the gun from lock up he verifies that it is unloaded, then he takes it to the actor who will be using the gun in the scene. Once the armorer takes the gun to the actor the actor verifies that the gun is unloaded and if the gun will be pointed at some one in the scene they( the person who the gun will be pointed at) verify that it is unloaded and then the gun is dry fired as a final precaution. Hence all the uncocked 1911s (I also noted that in season 2 every 1911 I saw on RB was cocked)

Anyway after going through all that I’d be less concerned that I was going to shoot someone how much less would some DA actor, who is proably and anti anyway care?

[Keykutter]

I have a friend who is the armorer and resident expert on Army Wives and Homeland. We were talking the other night and he said that as hard as he tries, as many retakes they do to try and make things correct, it all goes to hell once the film editors get hold of the clips and it's whatever they say looks best goes in them in the end.

He says it's very frustrating.

I don't watch Army wives but I do watch Homeland. I asked him about some of the SNAFU's and he knew about everyone I mentioned and he really tried to get them right.

KK

[Hoganbeg]

Brandon Lee was killed with a supposedly unloaded movie prop gun.

[jg1967]

Oh boy, he's picking a fight again ;-)

No, I don't think safety rules can replace thinking.

[jg1967]

Brandon Lee was killed with a supposedly unloaded movie prop gun.

The way I heard it the gun was known to be loaded with blanks. But he didn't know the pressure would be enough to still kill when fired close to your head. I am sure somebody here has the full story?

[FN1910]

Safety rules or any other type of rule should never override common sense. It is easy to develop rules for people to follow but impossible develop common sense in some people. Rules are for people who can't realize that what they are doing is dangerous. I much prefer common sense over rules but we have to settle for rules.