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Rule Number One: All Guns are always loaded
- Thread starter SubicWarrior1988
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All right, you like to argue over silly minutia. I can't get back to sleep, so what the ****. Let's argue over silly minutia.
What makes it a silly argument is that you're trying to make into something more important than it is. That's my opinion. Every thread that casually mentions rule #1, you or one of the other zealots divert the topic to preach the folly of rule #1. I'll back off a little bit though. I think I said it was the silliest. It does come in a short second in silliness to the vaccine debates.
Do you honestly think Cooper is responsible for ND's? Do you honestly think that not telling noobs that rule will magically reduce accidental shootings? I think it's fine to tell noobs that all guns are always loaded. I give people credit enough for figuring out what that means. And, if you'd rather, I also think it's fine to not tell them rule #1. Because either way, it doesn't matter. It's not going to ruin them whichever set of rules you teach. People have "accidents" for all kinds of reasons that distill into some form of negligence. So how about that? Maybe we should just make rule #1, "don't be negligent." Would that help? No.
What's the common thing everyone says after they've had a ND? "I didn't know it was loaded." Why do they say that? Was that really why they fired the gun unexpectedly? No. That's just an excuse covering for negligence.
And no. I don't care about this silly topic. But I'll tell you how you can get me to care more. Produce some data that definitively shows that people who've been taught Cooper's rule #1 have more ND's than not. Show me that data and I promise I'll care more.
Yay!
Well, we didn't deflate the concealed-only crowd in one or two threads, sometimes you dig in for the long battle.
Fortunately, INGO open carriers are not all John Waynes giving up the element of surprise, flaunting their guns like they're in Texas, begging to be the first one shot in a convenience store robbery anymore (as ridiculously incorrect as those assertions were, they were once widespread and cropped up at least weekly.)
It took some whack-a-moling to purge that nonsense and that is what's going on here. Wherever it rears its head ...whack.
If my purpose is to share with people the knowledge, skills and attitude to safely and effectively use guns, why would I give them cryptic fallacies that are reworded by nearly everyone that adopts them, must be figured out on their own or via follow-up explanations and disclaimers, and contain portions which may or may not be rationally dismissed if they triple-check the chamber with their pinky?
If you never teach anyone else, I guess it wouldn't matter to you, but I want to give them the best instruction available, the best tools to succeed.
Who can blame them for trying that excuse? The popular method seems to be to teach people how to handle loaded guns that are always loaded. Then they are told to check to make sure the gun is unloaded. Well, how do you handle a gun that's unloaded? They don't exist; just handle it as if it's loaded. So, there is a way to handle unloaded guns, you're just not telling me, right?
NO! They're always loaded so handle them like they're loaded even when they're not.
But I checked the chamber with my pinky! I'm going to handle it like it's unloaded now. I think that means I can skip the loaded handgun rules that followed.
Ouch. No, those were just gun handling rules, not loaded gun handling rules. Sorry about all that stuff I started with that didn't make sense and couldn't be reconciled in your wee human brain - if you were Col. Cooper or a high-speed beard operator it would have made perfect sense to you (or so you would claim on the internets). Those rules that followed are just safe gun handling rules, we don't treat loaded and unloaded guns differently.
You wait for the data, I'll be out there changing the world, creating data and skewing it in our favor.
So, there is no data that show a direct correlation between rule #1 and ND? If there is, I would love to see it so that we can justify the many, many opinions that have been stated as facts in this thread about Rule #1 and it's association with ND.
Thanks in advance.
Thanks in advance.
I have no idea. According to your anecdotal youtube references, everyone everywhere teaches and supports the Cooper method so I'd say that all NDs in the last 60 years or so are directly owned by him.
I'm doing my part to provide alternative data points but I don't know if they'll ever show up in ND reports since I teach them simply and concisely how to safely handle guns.
I have no idea. According to your anecdotal youtube references, everyone everywhere teaches and supports the Cooper method so I'd say that all NDs in the last 60 years or so are directly owned by him.
I'm doing my part to provide alternative data points but I don't know if they'll ever show up in ND reports since I teach them simply and concisely how to safely handle guns.
ok, so no data linking ND with rule#1, just opinion. Thank you.
Yay!
Well, we didn't deflate the concealed-only crowd in one or two threads, sometimes you dig in for the long battle.
Fortunately, INGO open carriers are not all John Waynes giving up the element of surprise, flaunting their guns like they're in Texas, begging to be the first one shot in a convenience store robbery anymore (as ridiculously incorrect as those assertions were, they were once widespread and cropped up at least weekly.)
It took some whack-a-moling to purge that nonsense and that is what's going on here. Wherever it rears its head ...whack.
If my purpose is to share with people the knowledge, skills and attitude to safely and effectively use guns, why would I give them cryptic fallacies that are reworded by nearly everyone that adopts them, must be figured out on their own or via follow-up explanations and disclaimers, and contain portions which may or may not be rationally dismissed if they triple-check the chamber with their pinky?
If you never teach anyone else, I guess it wouldn't matter to you, but I want to give them the best instruction available, the best tools to succeed.
Who can blame them for trying that excuse? The popular method seems to be to teach people how to handle loaded guns that are always loaded. Then they are told to check to make sure the gun is unloaded. Well, how do you handle a gun that's unloaded? They don't exist; just handle it as if it's loaded. So, there is a way to handle unloaded guns, you're just not telling me, right?
NO! They're always loaded so handle them like they're loaded even when they're not.
But I checked the chamber with my pinky! I'm going to handle it like it's unloaded now. I think that means I can skip the loaded handgun rules that followed.
Ouch. No, those were just gun handling rules, not loaded gun handling rules. Sorry about all that stuff I started with that didn't make sense and couldn't be reconciled in your wee human brain - if you were Col. Cooper or a high-speed beard operator it would have made perfect sense to you (or so you would claim on the internets). Those rules that followed are just safe gun handling rules, we don't treat loaded and unloaded guns differently.
You wait for the data, I'll be out there changing the world, creating data and skewing it in our favor.
All that bluster. So little reason. Show me the data. Give me a reason. If changing the world is worth all your vim and angst, surely you can produce data proportionate in amplitude to all the bluster.
You teach your way. By all means. Please do that. It won't matter except that your students were taught *some* gun safety. The people who say, "I didn't know it was loaded" have heard it both ways, or even neither way. Prove me wrong. Show me the data.
If striking #1 from the list of rules is all that vital to actual gun safety, you'll change the world quicker if you have more than vim and angst as an argument. As I said, go out upon all the interwebz, produce ye some data, and then I'll join your marry crusade to nix #1. Until then, every time I see you guys threadjack onto this silly topic, I'm going to be there saying, "so what?"
On the OC/CC debate, I have pretty much the same response. So what? I don't care how you carry yours as long as you're not being an asshat about it. I expect reciprocity.
Thanks for the thought. I don't smoke, and I'm still
over the line I wrote that ATM quoted. To me, a parallel would be that if there's a rule "don't speed while driving", you're on a straight road without intersections or crossings, and you know for a fact that the only cop on duty is 15 miles away, if your sole reason not to speed is "I might get a ticket", and that possibility is presently moot, are you gonna speed? Probably. If, however, your reason not to speed is, "It's unsafe, because I never know what's going to unexpectedly be in the road", it doesn't matter if the cop is there or not, you aren't going to speed.
Likewise, if the reason you handle the gun safely is only because "it's loaded" and now you know it's not, you might be less diligent of, and shirk the responsibility to be aware of your hand position and muzzle direction
Well... not EVERYONE likes me. Admittedly, many of those who don't aren't members here anymore.
I would be pleased to meet for this discussion.
Blessings,
Bill
I don't need data to expose an unnecessary fallacy being included as a safe gun handling rule.
Your data may be out there but I am not going to gather it for you, I am not relying on the metric you seek to prove or disprove any positions here. I'm not trying to coax you to the tipping point so that you'll join in, I'm just tipping things over and noting who squeals the loudest.
There were several who did that throughout the INGO anti-OC purge. They didn't really bother anyone involved and neither will you.
No problem. Don't suggest unnecessary or dangerous fallacies as safety rules and I won't refute them.
Arguing online is a guilty pleasure for me ...that and Kung Fu.
You said that because you knew I was watching. That was like bro knuckles through the internet. You also kept this argument going because you knew I was never able to discern any reason other than tradition and hero worship for Cooper's first rule. Actually that last part isn't true, you kept it going because you believe in breaking down concepts to lowest common denominators and applying logic against an idea's motivation. You're a scientist. A scion, really, if I had to pin it down. Have I found my own hero worship? *bats eyelashes*
Can I come too? Pleeeeeeeeze???
I like root beer, good debate, and want to meet BoR.
Seriously, is there's one person on INGO I'd like to meet, shake hands with and buy a drink for, BoR would be at or very near the top of that list.
I'm not a teacher. I'm not even a Coope-rite per se. I'm an idealistic pragmatist. I find the mindset helpful. It doesn't cause me to treat firearms unsafely. The way you want to teach it, as long as it's helpful and not harmful? Teach it. So what? Other teachers who want to teach Cooper's rules, as long as it's helpful and not harmful? So what? And if you think it's not helpful and actually harmful, then prove it. Most people will listen to hard facts. I would.
Consistently meeting these silly rants with "so what?" isn't squealing. The silly rants meet the loose definition of squealing much better. And, I don't care about how or what you teach. If it makes someone a better person than they were before, good for you. My only objection is every thread that touches on the subject gets jacked into this silly discussion about making people conform to your way. And, then all you offer as a reason to change is a facile argument along with some implicit ridicule.
The only foes in an argument over ideas is harmful ideas. The people who promote the ideas are not the foes. They are just people. People don't become foes until they mean to do physical harm. So there's no actual person to tip over here. Some of your rhetoric makes me think that was necessary to say.
On the OC/CC debates, I read through some of that but I wasn't involved. It mostly happened before I started posting regularly. The thing I objected to in that debate most is similar to what I object to here. An element of human nature that I've always found distasteful is that people seem to instinctively expect everyone to do things the same. I object to people trying to tell people how they must do stuff. If you don't think OC is a good idea. Don't OC. Same with CC. But don't sit here and tell people they must CC or OC.
Same for Cooper's rules, if you think rule #1 is unnecessary, don't teach it, don't follow it. If you find that rule is helpful, teach it, follow it. The only reason to tell people what they shouldn't do is if it's actually harmful. You've not shown that it is. And until you do, I'll continue to say so what?
Actually, every single video he posted they changed rule #1. Every single one. So no one teaches Rule #1 as Jeff Cooper intended.
He claims to follow it judiciously but then he says "Treating all guns as if they are loaded prompts me to safety check every single firearm that i handle."
So he's not really arguing the REAL rule #1 but his own version of it. How can you argue anything if his version changes with every post?
If everyone did this, there would be a lot fewer accidents. Nice job!
I'm an electrical engineer and I think of guns very much like electrical circuits, live until proven otherwise. Back in September of 1985 I had just started a new job. My frist day on the job we had a terrible accident. An journeyman electrician were assigned to some maintenance on a 4160 volt switchgear. The boss had to make a stop, but the journeyman, eager to make a good impression, started setting up. The first problem was that he entered the wrong switchgear room. The gear he was working on was still live. That would not have been a problem if he had just checked it with a meter - standard procedure. But being in a hurry, he bypassed that step and started cranking open the copper link disconnects on the bus which was under load. There was a huge arc that engulfed him and basically burned all the clothing off his body except for his belt and his shoes, all of his hair was gone too. He died before the ambulance got there.
I'm an electrical engineer and I think of guns very much like electrical circuits, live until proven otherwise. Back in September of 1985 I had just started a new job. My frist day on the job we had a terrible accident. An journeyman electrician were assigned to some maintenance on a 4160 volt switchgear. The boss had to make a stop, but the journeyman, eager to make a good impression, started setting up. The first problem was that he entered the wrong switchgear room. The gear he was working on was still live. That would not have been a problem if he had just checked it with a meter - standard procedure. But being in a hurry, he bypassed that step and started cranking open the copper link disconnects on the bus which was under load. There was a huge arc that engulfed him and basically burned all the clothing off his body except for his belt and his shoes, all of his hair was gone too. He died before the ambulance got there.
Wrong again, each video 100% affirmed the mindset that is established by rule #1.
Explain how a safety check is incongruent with rule#1
thank you in advance.
Went to the LGS this morning to fondle a few handguns, as I had today off. When the owner pulled out the first handgun I want to see, he checked to ensure that it was unloaded then handed it to me. I immediatly dropped the magazine, racked the slide back and checked the handgun myself to ensure that there was nothing in the chamber. The owner stood there with a shocked look on his face and thanked me for checking the weapon myself. This led to a long discussion and a longer than planned visit to his store. He told me to come back when I wanted to purchase and ask for him (if he was not out front) and he would "hook me up" with a great price on anything I wanted.
It pays to follow the rules I learned 40 +years ago
It pays to follow the rules I learned 40 +years ago
Yes sir, the rules are just as important today as they have always been. Well done.
Wrong. Each video does what Jeff Cooper himself says is CONTRARY to Rule #1. (See below)
Its fine if you want to create your own Rule #1. But you're not following Jeff Cooper's rule.
Here it is again. I bolded the relevant part for you.
I will agree with your intent. YOUR Rule #1 is fine by me. I follow it myself. But you folks need to let go of this "Jeff Cooper is infallible" mindset.
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