Some Gun Safety Features and Techniques: A Guide to the Uninitiated

Gun safety is a hot topic in the news these days. But to paraphrase a quote from The Princess Bride, it may not mean what you think it means. Gun control organizations have been trying to co-opt the expression, although their stock in trade seems to be the equivalent of abstinence-based sex education. In my opinion, telling people to minimize risks involving firearms by avoiding them completely is no more useful than telling them to avoid STDs and pregnancy by completely abstaining from sex.

What does empower people to make safe choices is honest, frank information which is technically accurate.

Good News
The good news. which you are unlikely to receive from the media and politically motivated parties, is that firearms accidents are a very small percentage of fatal accidents. You're 5 times more likely to drown than be killed accidentally with a gun. You're FIFTY times more likely to be killed in an automobile accident. So convincing drivers to focus on driving instead of their cell phones is much more likely to keep you safe that worrying excessively about firearms accidents.

Also, accidental firearm fatalities are at an 80+ year LOW right now.

Further Improvement
Clearly, the trend here is very good. Yet, there are things that can be done to further reduce firearm accident rates. In the remainder of this article, I will describe some options and my considered opinion regarding their usefulness. My background for doing so is several decades of safe firearms ownership and use. I was also certified to teach basic handgun and rifle classes for about 15 years, classes covering both safety and basic marksmanship. 

I invite anybody with technical knowledge of the field to respond, positively OR negatively, to any of the information that I present in this post. Any and all errors WILL be immediately corrected.


I'll be breaking down firearm safety options into three basic categories: 

• safety training - learning how to own and use guns safely

• firearms safety technologies - firearm features intended to improve safety

• storage - how to store a firearm safely (Spoiler alert: trigger locks are AWFUL but there are excellent options)

Safety Training
There is good news here too, for firearms safety is much easier to learn than automobile safety. Operating a vehicle is a complex task, particularly where interacting with other drivers, traffic conditions and laws. There are three basic rules for safe gun handling (cleaning, transport), with additional rules that come into play when you're actually going to be shooting.

The three paramount gun safety rules are

• ALWAYS keep guns pointed in a safe direction, a direction where if they accidentally fires they will not injure a person or animal. NEVER play around by pointing a gun at a person or a pet even if you are "sure" it is unloaded. The consequences of being wrong are just too awful.

• Keep your finger off the trigger (and outside of the trigger guard) until you are ready to shoot. When you see experienced shooters handling firearms, you will not see them touching the trigger...typically, they will have their trigger finger indexed along the frame, like this.

• Keep the gun unloaded until ready to use.

Obeying these three simple rules at all times makes firearms accidents virtually impossible. Schools should be teaching these rules. These rules save lives!

Firearms Safety Technologies
The primary intent of these features is to reduce the likelihood of a firearm accidentally discharging and injuring someone. Some features are also mentioned to make guns safer around the untrained but going too far in that direction will result in them being less reliable. In a gun whose purpose is self defense, that will be unappealing to the firearm community.

N.B. The presence of any of these features is not intended to make violation of the three safety rules mentioned above OK. They do not mitigate unsafe behavior.

Drop safety (GOOD) - Modern handguns are, as a rule, engineered in such a way that they will not fire if dropped while loaded. Rifles and shotguns may not be.

External safety switches (SOMETIMES GOOD) - A safety on a rifle or shotgun helps to compensate for the fact that they are less drop-safe than a handgun. A handgun used for competitions can also be made a bit safer with an external safety because they will be handled extensively and possibly drawn from a holster.

On a handgun intended for self defense, their usefulness is more subjective. A very good argument can be made for openly carried guns (e.g., in a police officer's holster) being equipped with an external safety. A bad guy gaining control of it will be unlikely to shoot quickly because he won't know for a few vital seconds why the gun won't fire and how to disengage the safety. On a gun being carried concealed, it is unlikely that the gun's presence will be known by assailants and under stress present the disadvantage of being one more thing you have to remember.

Magazine disconnect (POSSIBLY BAD) - Some handguns, such as the Browning Hi-Power are equipped with a magazine disconnect. This means that even when a round is chambered, if the magazine is removed the gun theoretically cannot fire.

Most firearms are manufactured without magazine disconnects because in some circumstances, that feature can be an impediment to defensive use. Given that the technology for magazine disconnects has existed since the early 20th century, the likelihood of their use increasing is low. Unlike drop safety technology, any perceived gain in safety is overshadowed by decreased usefulness.

Loaded chamber indicators (GENERALLY OK) - Many modern handguns have the top of their extractor colored a bright red. This means that if a cartridge is loaded into the gun, the gun's loaded status is somewhat visible. Since this doesn't affect reliability there is not much reason to oppose it. However, thinking that a gun is unloaded does not make violating safety rules acceptable.

Storage
There are a number of ways to secure a gun from unauthorized use

Trigger locks (AWFUL) - People without technical understanding of guns love trigger locks but most people who do have technical knowledge dislike them. The most serious objection to them is that they violate the safety rule about not touching the trigger and can still allow the gun to be fired. I have been in a class where a training counselor worked the trigger lock loose enough that he was able to activate the trigger of a revolver very well. In this photo, the trigger lock is in front of the trigger of a semi-automatic with a very short trigger pull. I would NOT have this in my house.

Cable locks (VERY GOOD) - Here is where some technical knowledge can be used to create a very safe, very inexpensive solution. A modern consumer firearm cannot be fired with the action open. This is because the cartridge being fired must be completely enclosed within metal containment until pressure drops when the bullet has exited the muzzle or is about to do so. Most guns lock the chamber and deactivate the trigger until the action is locked. By feeding a cable lock through the mechanism in such a way that it cannot fully close like this, the gun can be rendered very secure.

Safes / lock boxes / locked containers (EXCELLENT) - These may not be cheap but they are the best option for safe storage of firearms because they completely contain them. You can obtain a locking container or lock box from most sporting goods stores for as little as $30-$60. A full gun locker can be had for a little over $100. A gun safe is more expensive but can be fire resistant and theft resistant.

Some states like Washington state exempt gun safes from sales tax, thus encouraging safe storage.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope that the information contained in it will be useful to you and assist you in either safely enjoying firearm use or understanding some of the technical considerations relating to their safe use.