Rick Sapp - The NRA Step-by-Step Guide to Gun Safety: How to Care For, Use, and Store Your Firearms

Copyright 2016 National Rifle Association of America.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-535-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-536-9

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CONTENTS

I NTRODUCTION

Welcome to a Lifetime of Fun

I believe in shooting and hunting, in owning and using firearms. I enjoy and promote this citizens right and hope you will also and that you will do so safely.

Safe shooting provides a lifetime of fun, and so much more. We only need to pay attention to a few simple practices, principles that once learned become automatic.

The five million members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) are at the forefront of shooting and promoting shooting safety. And they have a proud record of achievement as well as activism. Perhaps you were not aware that:

More than 120,000 certified NRA instructors train about 750,000 gun owners every year.

Courses are available to teach the fundamentals of basic rifle, pistol, shotgun, and muzzleloading firearms, personal protection, ammunition reloading, and much more.

Nearly 7,200 certified coaches are specially trained to work with young competitive shooters.

Since the establishment of the lifesaving Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program in 1988, more than twenty-eight million pre-kindergarten to fourth-grade children have learned what to do if they see a firearm in an unsupervised situation.

During the past seven years, Refuse to Be a Victim seminars have helped more than fifteen thousand men and women develop their own personal safety plan using common-sense strategies.

Thats the broad picture of the NRAs commitment to firearms safety. As far as you and I are concerned, on a personal level, the NRA safety program can be summarized by a few relatively simple principles. Follow these and I can just about guarantee you a lifetime of fun.

1. ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.

This is the primary rule of gun safety. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed so that even if it were to go off it would not hurt anyone or damage something nearby. The key to this rule is to control where the muzzle or front end of the barrel is pointed all the time. And common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on the circumstances.

2. ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot.

When youre holding a gun, rest your finger on the trigger guard or along the side of the gun. Until youre actually ready to fire, dont touch the trigger.

3. ALWAYS keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Whenever you pick up a gun, immediately engage the safety and, if the gun has a magazine, remove it before opening the action and looking into the chamber(s), which should be clear of ammunition. If you do not know how to open the action or inspect the chamber(s), leave the gun alone and get help from somebody who does.

Ensure your firearm is unloaded and pointing in a safe direction.

We live in an unusual time and place. With the world in turmoil, America has generally managed to honor its egalitarian principles and, though some people might disagree, to maintain the basic rights guaranteed to citizens in its founding documents. Freedom to worship as one pleases. Freedom to speak ones mind. Freedom against unreasonable searches and seizures. Freedom to own a firearm. These are precious liberties, ones that are rare in the world. Freedom together with other promises--such as freedom of assembly and of the pressis standard nowhere else.

Always keep your finger off the trigger until youre ready to shoot.

It is not the responsibility of our governmentlocal to nationalto ensure our liberty, to maintain our rights as citizens. This responsibility belongs to us, to the citizens of the United States. It cannot be delegated or assigned, and it must not be ignored. It is our living entitlement to keep our freedoms alive, for us, for our children, and for their children. And every generation has to pay its dues.

These freedoms are a package deal. By allowing one of them to be hedged about by government and its agents, we endanger them all. A minor infringement here to ensure our safety, a small encroachment there to promote the common good. Whatever the reason given, these minor adjustments to our liberties soon become wholesale opportunities to dismember our rights as citizens. And so I wholeheartedly support the Second Amendment, and the First and the Thirteenth, as well all of the other twenty-four.

Nevertheless, because it is entirely up to us to protect and promote our freedoms, we have to exercise what I like to think of as a freedom opportunity. We can do this in a lot of ways: by considering the issues and the candidates for elective office, and then voting intelligently, and by speaking our minds with firmness, facts, and even passion. We can also protect our freedom by remembering that at every level, we the citizens created government, we are its masters; government did not create us and must not be allowed to define us.

In the case of the Second Amendment, our right to possess firearms, if we do not engage, do not own firearms, do not shoot and hunt, those who wish to remove this freedom from the Bill of Rights may do so at their leisureand they will. Then, at some point, they may wish to eliminate freedom of assembly or our right to speak our mind.

In my experience, once these rights become abridged, the people dont get them back without a very long and unpleasant fight, if ever.

One of the principal ways we preserve and protect our opportunities to shoot and enjoy the outdoors with firearms is by safe shootingpracticing conscious safety at all times around guns. Mindfulness begins at the sales counter where dozens of firearms are on display. From the moment you first pick up your gun, it is crucial that you understand the responsibility and that you practice awareness. Begin your firearms handling or ownership with the end in minda lifetime of funand you will go a long way toward achieving that end.