(July 27, 2015 at 12:48 pm)Minimalist Wrote: I wonder which rule in the "safety manual" tells you to check what is behind your target?
That would be basic rule number 1, and safety rules related to your target number 2.
Quote:"Oh, there's a highway over there...."
That would be basic rule number 1, and safety rules related to your target numbers 2 and 6.
Quote:The three basic general rules of safe gun handling.
1. Always point the muzzle in a safe direction; never point a firearm at anyone or anything you don't want to shoot.
2. Keep your finger off the trigger and outside the trigger guard until you are ready to shoot.
3. Keep the action open and the gun unloaded until you are ready to use it.
Safety Rules Related to Your Target.
1. Positively identify your target.
2. What's behind your target? Always make sure that a stray shot, or a bullet which penetrates its intended target through and through, will be safely stopped.
3. Never shoot at a hard surface, or at water -- your shot may glance off, ricochet and injure someone.
4. Never shoot at glass bottles, living trees, or inappropriate targets which would create a hazard for other persons or damage the environment.
5. Never shoot a rifle or handgun directly upwards, or at a high angle of elevation. Even a rimfire .22 bullet fired at an angle into the air can have enough energy a mile and a half away to accidentally kill someone!
6. Never shoot across a highway or other roadway.
When my grandfather, an uneducated hillbilly from the mountains of southeast Tennessee, was teaching me to hunt in the early 70's he wouldn't let me shoot a squirrel off a tree limb with a .22 because there was no backstop and I couldn't tell where the bullet would come down. This despite the fact that we were hunting in one of the least populated areas of a county that at the time had an average population density of about 1 person every 18 acres.
Save a life. Adopt a greyhound.