I
am judging her on habits -- the habits that led to the accidental discharge. If she had gone into a government building and waved a weapon around with her finger on the trigger with no discharge, I'd have the same reaction.
And I do not think every gun owner who has never had an accidental discharge is responsible. I judge on habits among people I know, too. And yes, I do draw a big black line between the people who handle guns safely (the vast,
vast majority of people I know) and the people I know who don't (who should be in jail).
All the people I am friends with and shoot with regularly are very attentive to safety. And if I saw them accidentally do something unsafe or inattentive I would call them out. They would do the same for me. One of the places I teach, one of our rules is that "safety belongs to everybody" -- we enforce upon the students that
they are supposed to call
us out too if they see an instructor violating a safety rule. Because, again, we know anyone can have moments of human error or inattention. We're very, very conscious of that. And we therefore do our damnedest to plan for it.
Do the people I consider responsible ever make a mistake? Of course. Rarely, but it happens. But because they were being safe in all other ways, everything was fine. And if a responsible gun owner makes any accidental safety mistake, they're really goddamn grateful to the person who points it out and they take it
really fucking seriously.
And yes, people's safety rules sometimes differ -- I said "four" not because I personally think that but because the "four rules of gun safety" is basically the gold standard, but some people differ (I was actually originally taught a different set myself, but close enough to make no practical difference). But yes, I would say any "responsible" gun owner follows a very similar set of rules in their gun-handling habits.
Does that mean nothing bad can ever happen ever? Of course not. Like I said, I buy that there is a perfect storm of circumstance that would lead to tragedy, because guns are dangerous. I mean, say you're an electrician -- it's possible something bad could happen, because you're dealing with
electricity, but (I hope) you take that fact goddamn seriously and you follow whatever safety procedures electricians have, because you
know that you aren't going to get second chances on someone getting hurt. (I mean, I assume
-- I don't know anything about that type of electrician, but I hope they would!)
And sure -- it's useful for gun owners to remember that they can have moments of inattention and that circumstances can conspire and bad things can happen, and yes, I think it's useful to remind people of that, but
this is not the incident to hang that hat on.
This is the incident I point to when I'm teaching people and say that it should
never happen, that it was totally and entirely preventable. To go back to people's car analogies for a second -- this isn't akin to a moment of inattention that led to a fender bender. This is akin to pointing a vehicle at a building, putting it in drive, and flooring the gas. And then, when you wreck the building, saying, "Haha, I thought the car was broken!" when you had no reason at all to assume that, and telling the building's owner, "Well, sh!t happens!" I mean, yes, sometimes shit happens in cars, but
certain shit takes a phenomenal level of stupidity and disregard for
basic automobile safety!
Bad things can happen. But they shouldn't happen
this way. And they
certainly shouldn't be capped with a cavalier attitude of, "Oh, well, it happens!"
You may think it's a dangerous attitude for gun owners to feel they're responsible -- but I think the much more dangerous attitude for gun owners would be to believe that this sort of thing isn't preventable. I would never espouse to a student what you're saying (with regards to this particular incident) because I don't want that student to enter a mindset of "oh, human error, we'll all do that eventually." I want the student instead to have the mindset of "this is
why we have the safety rules -- this is why they're
important -- this is why I'm going to follow them
all the time with no exceptions -- so this sort of thing NEVER happens, not on my watch." Could something bad still happen? Yes, but it becomes much, much less likely. Also, in many gun communities, not only is everyone very safety-conscious, but there is intense cultural pressure to continue to be (which I consider an excellent thing), and I would never, ever, ever want to see that change.
In other words, I
want there to continue to be a "no true Scotsman puts his finger on the trigger unless he's ready to fire" and "every true Scotsman always treats a gun as if it's loaded" and "every true Scotsman always points a gun in safe direction" etc., and "if you violate any of these habits you are not being a TRUE SCOTSMAN" attitude.
I consider that a good thing.
