Mistakes: Silly, Sloppy and Serious
Shooting guns makes me think of a quote from The Lord of the Rings: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
Yes, when practicing at the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office range, or anywhere else, shooting is a sport that can be dangerous. If you’re not extremely careful, there’s no knowing what can happen. Sometimes it’s silly. Sometimes it’s sloppy. And sometimes, it’s downright serious.
One day, I’m talking to an intelligent friend at the range. For some reason, she doesn’t put her handgun down at the shooting bench. Instead, she turns and faces me, gun still in her hands. The gun is now pointing directly at me.
Yikes. Do I hit the floor? No. Run? No. Afraid to move, I do my utmost to sound calm. “Darla, let’s make sure the muzzle is pointing downrange.” Of course, inside I’m shrieking: “Put that blankety blank gun down Now!”
That incident was both very serious and frightening at the same time. Darla put her gun down immediately and apologized profusely, understanding the gravity of what she had just done.
The most serious happenings I’ve observed occurred with well-seasoned shooters. You’d think that newbies would make errors, and they do, but these serious happenings were not from newbies. Two friends accidentally shot themselves while cleaning their guns. One had serious damage to a finger, the other man hurt himself high in the leg. Fortunately, while neither man was critically injured, one has lasting troubles with his hand.
Like Frodo not keeping his feet on the road, a moment of inattention when dealing with guns can cause bigtime after effects.
Another incident could have turned dangerous was when a friend put a 9mm round into his .40 S&W Springfield. Well, the diameter is the same, right? Easy mistake to make!
These mistakes could be serious, but other mistakes can be sloppy and make for inconsistent shooting.
How about the guy who leaves his ramrod in his black powder gun, and then shoots? We all make stupid mistakes, but we sure hope they are simply errors and not dangerous ones.
Let’s get real, here. We all make sloppy errors when we first practice shooting. One is in the grip. If you don’t hold the gun high into the beavertail (that swooping indentation at the top of the grip), it can cause the muzzle to flip. Slide your hand all the way up into the grip. Getting a good grip helps with consistent shooting.
Do you see someone standing up straight as they shoot? Notice that with each shot, they rock backwards some because of the recoil. If you move your head slightly forward and bend a bit forward at the waist, you can adjust your center of gravity to help combat the recoil. This is important because someday, you might need to make an accurate second shot. A strong stance can help you stay on target.
Beginning shooters are warned to “squeeze that trigger,” and to have a steady trigger pull. Slapping the trigger instead causes the gun’s sights to move when the shot breaks. So control your trigger pull. Squeeze, squeeze, and give a smooth, consistent shot. Again, you may need a second accurate shot one day. A smooth trigger pull can help you to stay on target.
Sights. “How do I aim?” is a question new shooters often wonder. Standing at the shooting bench, picking up your gun and looking at the target isn’t enough. It takes a while, if you have two rear dots and one front dot sight, to learn how to align them.
Usually, making the top of all three dots (front and back) form a straight line begins a good sight alignment. With this straight line, you’ll find your shot will hit the target’s center just above that front (center) of the three dots. Sometimes, depending on your particular handgun, the center sight will need to be directly covering the center of the target.
Either way, you first make that straight line with front and back sights, then discover if your gun aims best with that front dot above or on the center of the target. Lining up your sights helps you to have consistent shooting.
OK, some of us might leave washing dishes until the morning, or scatter our clothes on the bed or the floor, but we can’t be sloppy by leaving our handguns anywhere in the house.
Are children present? Do you have other members of the family? Do friends and neighbors visit?
Guns need to be stored in locked, safe places.
Do you have a safe for your gun? How about a lockable room where you locate your safe? To go even further, how about a locked safe attached to a cement floor in a locked room?
Some of us (ahem) might have sloppy tendencies, but there is no room for sloppy when storing your gun.
We have a well-organized and neat friend who was careful to lock up her handgun. She kept it in a locked closet. However, when she took out her gun to go to the range, she found it was covered in rust-colored spots. What do you know, but it was actual rust?
It’s not sufficient just to have your gun locked up: it needs to be safe from humidity too. This friend was certainly not intentionally sloppy and you can bet when she discovered the rust, she sure found a new dry place to store her handgun.
So some errors have the potential to be serious and some are sloppy. Some are just plain silly, and you’d think “that will never happen to me.”
But it does.
Truthfully, both Joe and I have gone to the range with our guns. Silly thing is: we forgot to bring the ammunition. Not much good to have a gun with no ammo!
We were recently at the range, and the range was “hot.” A friend placed his gun on the shooting bench. Then he looked around. Sure enough, he had no ammo! He ended up returning home and then coming back to the range. What a waste of time!
You never know where, like Frodo, “you step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
When you own a gun, newbies and oldies alike have to be super careful. Even with care, mistakes happen. I’d never make the mistake of saying: “This will never happen.”
Hopefully, the errors we make will be simply silly or sloppy, but not end up to be serious.
Marj Law is the former director of Keep Wakulla County Beautiful who has become an avid shooter in retirement.
