Veep Fails on NRA Rules 1 and 4.

[Cruiser]

One beer with Lunch! Doesn't everyone do that?

[Shadow]

There's been several previous discussions on Colonel Cooper's Rules and their place in shooting sports. As an old Marine, myself, I have a lot of respect for Colonel Cooper. His original work on combat pistol and his participation in founding organizations dedicated to pistol shooting are legendary.

That being said, his rules set is not correct and they are incomplete.

For example, his rule one, 'All guns are always loaded' is a declarative statement, not a rule, and contains an absurd contradiction. This continually presents a problem for instructors trying to tell students there are times when it's OK to look down the barrel of a gun.

After you've demonstrated unloading the gun and proceed to demonstrate checking the bore, some bright lad will always pipe up and say, "But aren't all guns always loaded? Aren't you looking down the barrel of a loaded gun?"

Then the instructor has to explain to the student that Cooper's rule is not a rule but a 'maxim' or an 'old saw', and is designed to have an emotional impact, and is indeed not factual.

The truth is that a loaded gun is loaded and an unloaded gun is unloaded and the two are not the same.

Anyway, NRA rules are designed as an overlapping safety system in which breaking one rule will not result in a tragedy.

For example, if you have you have your gun pointed downrange (rule one) and begin to slip and fall and squeeze the trigger because you violated rule two, your round should land somewhere else than on someone.

Anyhow, no one disputes Colonel Cooper is a great man. Making sure a gun is unloaded when you peek down the barrel is a real good idea and that's the concept he was trying to get across. Don't take someone's word a gun is unloaded, check it for yourself.

Lastly, I was incorrect in stating that the NRA 10 rules are numbered in the Gun Safety Brochure. They are not. The first four are numbered and the last are simple bullets. My apologies, I try to be correct. On other material they are often listed with the first three numbered...

http://materials.nrahq.org/go/product.a ... ES%2014240

and on some posters seven are numbered and on others all ten are numbered. (See NRA trainers catalog for more item numbers and descriptions).

Thanks,

Philip

[Petrovich]

Obviously written by someone with an intimate knowledge of firearms and hunting:

Hunting quail isn't like tracking large game, where there is one target shot with a single bullet from a rifle, often at a great distance. Flushing a covey of quail can send a dozen or more birds flying in all directions, tempting a hunter to shoot outside his safe range. And bird hunting is usually done with shotguns, which spread hundreds of pellets of birdshot in a pattern wider than the barrel of the gun—increasing the chance that someone could be unintentionally hit if the shooter, concentrating on his quarry, swings too wide when he takes aim.

This is REALLY good:

If any good comes from all this, it may be that Cheney's misadventure will serve as a lesson to other hunters. It will be "used as part of the teaching of hunting and gun-safety courses for new hunters all across the country," says Todd Sieben, a hunter and Republican state senator in Illinois. In New York, several Republicans are trying to capitalize on the incident by naming a proposed hunting regulation after him. "Cheney's law" would make it a crime to leave the scene of a hunting accident—something Cheney didn't do.

That makes sense. Create a law and name it after someone who had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Do you sense the frustration? The media wants so badly to nail VP Cheney to the barn door....and they can't. Isn't it hilarious? These people are so transparent it's laughable.

You gotta read this...it's a hoot. The subliminals are everywhere.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11434876/site/newsweek/