this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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obligatory firearm safety reminder:
only by holding each other accountable can we make sure that everyone stays safe and has fun.
My grandpa who takes me shooting was going over the firearm safety rules and with rule two I was like “that seems extreme” and his response it’s supposed to be, a gun killing or injuring or damaging isn’t as vivid as the word destroy
And yeah for me the other rules kinda seemed a given, bullets move fast and possibly through our hanging rubber targets, the gun probably can’t fire if you don’t give it a squeeze, and as for loaded better safe than sorry.
These rules seemed almost obvious to me, and yet there’s all these guys at the range behaving like absolute idiots
My friend's dad stopped us just in time before we tried skeet shooting with a handgun and a rifle. We were on their property, which spanned miles. His dad said, "I don't know what the maximum range is on those, but is that really how you want to find out?"
Thanks. I've never owned, fired, or even held a gun.
I have no intention to. I knew most of these, but I'm glad to see it officially written out like this.
If I'm ever in the position where I need to handle a gun, I can do so more safely then I would have before.
Good work. Keep that shit up.
My ccw class taught updated rules that I think are better:
1: always keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire.
2: always keep your weapon pointed in a safe direction. (In a defense situation, the bad guy is a safe direction)
3: always treat as loaded until verified otherwise.(Some firearms need to be dry fired to be cleaned)
4: know your target and it's surroundings. You are responsible for every bullet that leaves your weapon.
(Formatting edit)
Calling a firearm "fun" is already part of the problem
Firearms are fun. Knives are fun. Martial arts are fun. At least to a decently large number of people. That doesn't mean that their roles in society don't suck.
One might say that the danger (to people, to society...) outweighs the benefits of allowing target shooting as a sport. Maybe, I'd still disagree, but that's an opinion we can argue about. We don't allow people to build their own nuclear reactors for fun, for example. But saying something isn't "fun" is ignoring that a lot of people perceive the world differently.
Disagree. I’m not from the US, so maybe guns being seen as fun is more of a cultural issue in not aware of, but plenty of weapons are seen as fun here in the UK. And while we do have gun crime, I think firearms are seen differently here vs the US.
People will go axe throwing for fun. With Scouts, we shot air rifles on camp a number of times (supervised by people who knew what they were doing). Knife throwing is also a thing. Clay Pigeon shooting is also not uncommon here.
I genuinely believe using a weapon on a (non-living) target is fun for a lot of normal, well adjusted people.
You are talking about activities.
Sure you can have fun like that. But that doesn't mean that these things should be sold as "fun" like toys are marketed.
They should be marketed to make clear these are dangerous weapons that require training and responsibility, not sold as toys to play around with.
Have you ever tried it?
There's nothing quite so uniquely irritating as someone intensely critical of something they know very little about.
Not wanting to to call the private ownership of deadly weapons fun is hardly "intense". Of anything it undersells the point.
Speaking as someone who enjoyed regular target rifle practice and competitions for the best part of a decade since you insist that matters.
Get a BB-gun. Firearms are for killing people.
I'm not American, and this kind of absolute is completely unacceptable.
You're basically fun-shaming.
There's plenty of stuff that's universally disliked, like... Idk, murder.... But that's not the whole reason guns exist. Sport shooting, hunting, event target practice, can be lots of fun to people, and they all involve guns, and no person is harmed, if done correctly.
Stop being so hateful.
I don't even like guns. I've never held, nor fired one. And I wouldn't ever, even slightly, say that there is no "fun" to be had with firearms.
You're a dick.
Guns should be marketed as dangerous goods that require training and responsibility in owning them.
There is nothing wrong with having fun with firearms, but marketing them like toys is messed up in all kinds of ways.
So yeah, if people want to sell these like they sell candy to children, I am shaming them.
You missed the point. Saying that calling it "fun" is problematic doesn't imply that you can't have fun, of course you can (I have, a tonne). I assume the above comment called it problematic because they weighed the "fun" of gun owners against 40k dead Americans a year and decided maybe we shouldn't be focusing on the entertainment.
You can absolutely have more gun control and not really inhibit firearm sports or hunting BTW. The USA ought to have a monopoly on Olympic shooting medals if that weren't the case 😅
If they had IDPA or USPSA events they probably would, to be fair. The Olympics only have like four shooting events (coincidentally the ones less popular in America) there's way more shooting sports than that.
Besides, if you look at the wiki's medal table like I just did after you made me curious, it seems to indicate the US has 121 medals (incl all metals) for shooting, and the next highest China has 77, so, I mean, I guess we kinda do anyway?
Across all sports the US has over 3 times china's all time medal totals in both summer and winter games. Not even having double is a pretty significant underperformance.
Maybe we should conclude gun culture makes a nation better at track and field because people get more practice running away 😂
Lmao ok bud, call me when someone catches up. Cute try though.
Yeah you expect the American public to abide by the rules and make smart choices?
To quote K from Men In Black: "a person, can be smart. but people, are dumb."
also yes. I do.
I don’t and it shows in our gun deaths compared to every other developed country.
Once you subtract suicides, self-defense, justifiable homicides, officer involved shootings, and accidents, what you're left with is a statistic that indicates 100% of gun violence is caused by less than 1% of gun owners.
Overall, the vast, VAST majority of gun owners in the US are safe and do make good choices.
The justifiable homicides would contain the officer involved shootings (presuming they were legal). Those are still violent acts compared to suicides and accidents which make up the overwhelming majority of gun deaths.
We shouldn't discount suicides imo. It's tempting to say that a person who wants to kill themself will find a way, but the reality is that when you take away the quickest, easiest route, most people end up not committing suicide
Yeah fuck suicidal people and anyone killed by cops they had it coming. Jesus christ.
As for "justifiable homicide", you mean like... when the other guy had a gun... You want to discount those deaths why?
If we take your number at face value. This is kind of a trolley problem thing right. Should 99 people get to have a nice day out at the range once a month, which they could easily replace with any other leisure activity, if it means one person has to die violently. If you honestly like those odds then fair play mad max.
Worlds largest prison population with highest murder rate of any developed country wants guns to be available like candy… lol
I'm a member of the American public. I abide by the rules, make smart choices, and don't tolerate those who don't. All my friends are the same way.
Less than 1% of American gun owners commit 100% of gun violence in the US.
Over half of Americans read at a 6th grade level. The culture promotes violence and individualism. You think this populace deserves easily accessible guns? People can turn at any moment due to mental health issues or resort to criminal activity.
And we are getting less educated not more.
People are a whole lot better about firearm safety than they are pretty much anything else here (driving laws, workplace safety, building codes...). The US has a whole fuckload of problems because of guns, but their ubiquity has given rise to a culture of gun safety that's pretty universal here. It's why we have so few accidental firearm deaths (... relative to the absurd number of guns in the country, that is)
I would argue that they do follow those rules. They're just willing to destroy other kids at school with hopefully more kids behind them. Same goes for muslims in mosques, etc
About 80 percent of the time yes. Even the dumbest slack jawed hick knows not to fuck around with guns, doesn't make them not twitchy but that's a different issue. It's white trash and rich yuppy types who are generally the threat.
-"It’s white trash" Why are you assigning race to shootings?
I'm assigning race to common gun safety violations that I have seen. Not shootings.
Yeah the ones that want to be like the rest of the world and not have the entire populace be gun obsessed morons. They are the issue 😆
I was referring to folks who generally speaking were progressive yuppies back in the day but melted their brains on fox news then Facebook before going out to buy a gun without any training whatsoever. The type who when a protest happens are in their front yard swinging around their gun like their lives are on the line. Mind you that grouping is generally overlapped with white trash.
If you don't want a gun do your own thing. I frankly would kill to get mandatory gun licensing requirements.
Ah I see. I don’t disagree.
Yeah kinda forgot that most folks aren't half feral hicks where the term yuppy very specifically refers to shitstains who moved to the city back in the 80s and 90s only to move back in the 2010s and 2020s to gentrify everything. How I wish to bleed the condescending ones in particular.