Archive for July, 2009

“Remember everything America has, its prosperity and riches, its freedoms and liberties, its magnificent beauty and natural resources are all a gift from God and the United States Military Services”. Nick D. Bacon, Army, Vietnam-

    The word ‘squib’ is used in other applications, but for the purpose of this article the term is known and used in relation to firearms. A typical round of ammunition is made up of four components, the outer casing or ‘shell‘, the primer, the gun powder, and the projectile or ‘bullet‘. This will only be a general outline of production; When these components are assembled at the factory in mass production, the primer goes into the casing, the casing moves to the next step where a measured charge of gun powder is funneled into the casing, then the casing is moved to the next position where the bullet is seated. Next they are all boxed and sent to the store for you , the consumer.

   In the event of a squib load, the casing goes through the same steps mentioned above, but when it gets to the position where the gun powder is supposed to be funneled into the casing, there is a glitch or malfunction, the automated powder drop does not work properly and very little, or no gun powder is put into the casing. (This is more apt to happen to people that reload their own bullets at home by not paying proper attention to detail). But for the purpose of this example we are at the ammunition factory. So now, with no gunpowder in the casing it is automatically moved to the next position where a bullet is seated. The ammunition is boxed up and sent to various locations for sale.

   Now you enter the store, looking to buy a box of ammo, you buy a box of .38 caliber ammo for your revolver and off you go to the range. The round without the gunpowder just happens to be in that box, but you don’t know that, how could you, you just want to do a little target practice. All the rounds look the same from the outside to you. You set up your targets load the gun with six rounds, (unknown to you one of them is the squib load) you start shooting, BANG!, BANG!, pop! What the heck was that you think? What you just heard was an audible ‘pop’, it was the primer detonating, but with no gun powder in the casing you do not hear the loud bang that you would normally hear. DO NOT TAKE ANOTHER SHOT!! The primer, (that ‘pop’) can generate just enough pressure within the shell casing to ‘push’ the bullet into the barrel of your gun, this creates a blockage in the barrel, this can be a very dangerous situation if you attempt another shot. With such a blockage in the barrel, the next bullet you might fire, with all of the pressure generated going down the barrel, (for a .38 caliber around 52,000 psi, or 26 tons!) you could easily kill yourself and others around you. The firearm is not rated to contain that kind of pressure and will violently come apart at the seams like a grenade. All that pressure needs to escape ‘yesterday’ and will take the path of least resistance, back at you, not good. All that energy will be transferred to the shrapnel going in every direction at 900 + feet per second!

  NOTE: You may hear a ‘pop’ sound, but not in all cases, (initially you may think it is a misfire so treat it like one) you know that ‘pop’ sound is not typical, or now you should know, in all cases stop what you are doing , if you think its a misfire count to ten, unload the gun, check it twice, now you can put a cleaning rod down the barrel, chances are that you will not be able to push it through to the other side due to the bullet lodged in the barrel. Take the cleaning rod and tap the bullet gently out of the barrel, once that this is done you now have a rare, but also harmless squib load souvenir, set it aside, reload , and resume shooting. You may have just saved your own life and the lives of those nearby. It is the follow-up shot that makes this situation so dangerous, and is what we must avoid.

    We must all be alert for abnormalities while shooting, it is all part of staying safe. My reason for telling you about squib loads, misfires, and hang fires is not to make you paranoid, it is simply to give you the knowledge that will help keep you safe.

  I have been shooting on formal range settings since the age of 8, I have been a member of many gun clubs, rifle and pistol teams, I also like to hunt. In my work as a Nuclear Security Officer since 1987 I have been required to qualify at the gun range many times with different types of weapons/ammo. My point is this, I personally, with all that shooting, have only encountered a squib load once, no hangfires yet but I know that they do exist, and now you will know how to handle one with confidence if it occurs.

    Remember, Firearm Education Will Save Lives, Firearm Ignorance Can Take Lives. Please shoot safe, firearm safety is no accident, sincerely,

Mark Shean, NRA Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor, 

www.mafirearmsafety.com  written 7-8-2009

Your comments/insights are welcomed.

Quote: {No clause in the Constitution could, by any rule of construction, be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the People}. William Rawle

    Some of you may already know what a misfire is, it is caused by a faulty primer at the back of a bullet casing, that when struck by the gun’s firing pin will not detonate, thus failing to send a spark into the main powder charge of the casing, that would have, in turn, sent the bullet on it’s way down the gun’s barrel. So here is a little scenario: Let’s say that you load 6 rounds into your revolver at the gun range, take careful aim at your target, BANG!, BANG!, BANG!, click! You know you have taken three shots of the six you loaded, so you don’t necessarily have to be a NASA rocket scientist to realize that there should be at least three shots left. So what just happened is known as a misfire. What should you do?

     Do not try to squeeze off another shot.  When you hear that ‘click’ instead of the usual BANG, keep the barrel of your gun pointing DOWN RANGE, that will be your safest direction. Start a slow count to 10. When you reach 10 the danger will be over, unload the gun. You will notice that there will be an unfired round that falls from the cylinder, on closer inspection of the round you should notice a dent in the primer where it had been struck by the gun’s firing pin. The primer was a dud, faulty from the factory, it happens from time to time, the main thing is to handle the situation properly and safely when it does happen. You can now throw it away and resume your shooting practice.

    Your next question will probably be; why did I have to count to 10 while pointing the gun down range? It is a wise precaution that can protect you and others from what is known as a hang fire. A hang fire starts out as a misfire but can actually go off after a few seconds, the primer is faulty but not quite a dud, the spark gets ‘hung up’ that is where the danger lays. If while you are pointing down range counting , the gun fires, it will give you a start, but will do no harm because you handled it the correct way. Hang fires are rare, but they do exist, and now you know how to safely guard against them. Misfires are far more common and should always be treated as if they could become a hang fire. A misfire and a hang fire are not the same thing, a hang fire cannot become a misfire. 

If you want to see a misfire that becomes a hangfire then google:  ’Stupid people with guns’   and look at the video of the guy wearing the orange hunting vest shooting the pump shotgun at bottles ten feet away, (a real Davy Crocket). Only God will ever know why he looked down the barrel, and it was only God that saved the fool.

    Remember, Firearm Education Will Save Lives, Firearm Ignorance Can Take Lives.

Be safe, Sincerely, Mark Shean, NRA Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor, 

 www.mafirearmsafety.com  written 7-8-2009

Your comments/insights are welcomed.

    I can hear them now; ‘what do you mean all guns are loaded all the time?!’ ‘That’s stupid!’ ‘I have guns at home right now that are not loaded’! ‘Hell, I was at the gun store the other day, none of them guns behind the counter and on the wall rack were loaded’! I say, yes they are, they are all loaded, every gun at your house, every gun in that store, and everywhere else, they are all loaded. ‘Your Crazy, They Are Not’!…. If you don’t have the mindset that they are all loaded, and ready to fire, you are a prime candidate for a firearm accident, you assume too much, take to much for granted.

  Even people with a high level of firearm experience can get ‘lazy’, over confident, are even more susceptible to accidents, when that happens they become ripe for an accident. And I will go so far as to say they don’t take firearms as seriously as they once did, they need to pause and ’regroup’. They have become a distinct danger to themselves and others with that lackadaisical mindset. To make the point, even police can accidentally shoot themselves, for stats see these links:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-535071/Gun-injuries-soar-police-experts-blast-colleagues-mistake.html#ixzz1ulAaBTqE   http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0411061foot1.html

    The NRA now says the first rule in firearm safety is: Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction,(muzzle discipline). That was not always so, and I will never agree with that change. As a kid, I distinctly remember the first rule being: Treat all firearms as loaded at all times. It conveys a far sterner, and implies a much stronger sense of urgency to safe firearm handling. And I still have my little red Jr. Rifle Handbook from the mid 1960s to prove it. Even though I will agree that pointing the gun in a safe direction is a key to safety, if you treat every single gun you come into contact with as loaded, you had better point that muzzle in a safe direction! No exceptions! That will, and should, naturally, always follow suit. Just handling a gun and keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction does not lend to the situation the same grave responsibilities as having the mindset of handling a loaded gun will impart.

   All additional gun safety rules revert back to the number one rule: Treat them all as loaded. If you live by this you should never do anything unsafe with a firearm, that is why this is the most important rule. It governs all my actions with firearms, as it should yours. So, from this moment forward, for the rest of your life, all guns that you ever come into contact with will always, with no exceptions, be loaded (proper mindset) and treated accordingly.

   A safety on a firearm does not give you license to carelessly handle that firearm, , you are the best safety on any firearm. NEVER trust anyone that tells you a gun is unloaded while trying to hand it to you! Make that person show you that it is unloaded before you will accept it from them. Then, you must still handle it exactly like it is loaded! EVERYONE must show you the gun is unloaded, from your mother, to the gun shop owner, to the head of the NRA. Agreed? If all people did this, firearm accidents would damned near cease to exist, we can all live with that. If anyone has a problem with that, it is not your problem, but theirs, they obviously treat firearms far to nonchalantly, assume too much, and are accidents waiting to happen…..

   Maybe you think that I am to ‘hard line’ on this issue? No. Firearms are very unforgiving of careless people, your first mistake could be your last breath on this Earth, or maybe someone else’s last breath due to your negligence. I do not believe there can be such a thing as to ‘hard line’ in regards too firearm safety.

{Note, If you agree, and I sincerely hope you do, please pass this on to the people in your life.} Thank you. And remember, Firearm Education Will Save Lives, Firearm Ignorance Can Take Lives.

Sincerely, Mark Shean, NRA Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor, NOTE: Please read add-on, a recent story below, (sent to me by one of my past students) to reinforce my meaning.

www.mafirearmsafety.com   written 7-3-2009

Your comments/insights are welcomed.

    How many of you have children? How many of you know someone with children? They are everywhere, and because they are everywhere they can get into mischief just about anyplace. Where guns are concerned there can be no room for mischief.

     I am originally from the state of Maine where the gun culture was quite a bit different from where I live now, in Massachusetts. People seem more savvy about firearms and firearm safety generally in Maine, this is what I have observed in my experiences within both states. Growing up I had a lot of supervised exposure to firearms, that was the key, and I learned early-on how to safely handle and use firearms, it was encouraged. Knowledge kept me safer than someone without firearm knowledge. If that makes sense to you, as I hope it should, than I will share a bit of advice designed to keep your little ones safer than they were moments before you started reading this. Children, we all want them safe.

    When it comes to firearms I believe there is a wrong way, (based on wishful thinking) and a right way, based initially, on very simple, rudimentary education. You may think you are able to insulate your child from harm and from knowledge of firearms in your home, but what about when your child is old enough to visit and play with the next door neighbors children, in their home? How things are done in the house next door may be quite different than how you prefer to do things in respect to firearms. You cannot insulate your child from the world. Do you think it may be wiser to impart to your child the danger that can be, and is, associated with firearms?

    Education, it is like a form of preventive maintenance. If you own a firearm and believe that by keeping the gun well hidden and a secret, that the child will be safer, that line of thought is only good to a point….until the child, caught up in the spirit of exploration, inadvertently finds the gun while you are mowing the lawn or taking a nap, etc. I like to call this the Easter egg syndrome, children are very curious about everything around them, their whole mission in life at a young age is to dig around looking for/at things. If you have kids you know exactly what I am talking about. If you don’t yet have kids, when you do, you will see soon enough that I do not speak with forked tongue. Would you rather the child find a gun while you are busy? I hope not.

    I feel that the very best way is to take the mystery out of firearms where children, (or adults) are concerned, is to show the child the unloaded firearm. Explain the danger, let the child hold and look at it, let him know he will be in big trouble if he ever touches it without your permission or supervision, but the main thing is to take the mystery out of it. Once you do that, you will have taken the right step towards a child that will be safer around firearms. That is the first correct step on a long trail of steps where firearm safety is concerned. Let the child know that you are accessible, if he/she wants to see the gun in the future to come to you, and that you will drop what your doing to look at the firearm together, this accessibility is very important and should keep your child from going behind your back to look at the gun(s).

    The ammo should always be kept separate from guns, and the unattended guns should, at a minimum, have trigger locks on them. Firearms should never be left laying around loaded. You probably are saying; that is just plain common sense! Do you think we are all idiots!? Well folks, if it is such plain common sense, why are children involved in accidental and tragic shootings in the home? That is not common sense at work, that is irresponsible gun ownership and parenting. I am not talking about gang bangers who burglarize homes, steal guns, and go out into the street intentionally and idiotically trying to murder one another, no.  I am referring to young children finding a parents loaded gun in a night stand, and through curiosity, they accidentally shoot themselves or a sibling. Not only tragic, but unacceptable!!

    You can begin teaching a child at the tender age of 3 or 4, a very simple message; if they ever see a gun they…1. Stop,…2. Don’t Touch,…3. Go Tell An Adult. Children are very smart, don’t short change them, they can easily learn this with gentle reinforcement and incentive, make a big deal out of it when they repeat those words to you when they find the toy gun you put down as a training aid, because it is a big deal, it could save a life one day.

    If you own guns, or want to own guns, you owe it to yourself and your entire family to be proactively responsible in the safety of that ownership. For every body’s safety, and for years of  family enjoyment, being involved in a great American heritage and birthright.

{Note; Please feel free to comment on the content of any of these articles.} Remember, Firearm Education Will Save Lives, Firearm Ignorance Can Take Lives.

Sincerely, Mark Shean, NRA Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor, 

www.mafirearmsafety.com  written 7-2-2009

   How do people get killed by so called unloaded guns? Have you ever thought that this was possible? It is possible and happens, sadly, on a fairly frequent basis, it is in the news from time to time, but it does not have to happen. People are quite often killed by ‘unloaded’ guns.

  It can go something like this….. One day Jon buys a .38 caliber revolver at the local gun shop, he has always wanted to buy a handgun, and this one just feels right in his hand, the price is right also, so what the heck. Next Jon brings it out to a dirt pit in the woods behind his house with a friend, they run quite a few rounds through it, they have a good time. Jon puts it away in the house and forgets about it for awhile……. A couple of months go by and Jon has invited a group of friends over for a house party, no special occasion, just a get together.

  When people get together like this, oftentimes the ‘toys’ will come out of the woodwork. We may want to show something off that is kind of unusual, that is simple human nature. Guns easily fall into this category. People are particularly drawn to firearms, they appear to be excellent “show and tell” material. Jon gets the .38 caliber revolver out of his bedroom and takes it into the backyard where the grill and music are in full swing, the beer is flowing, and the party is underway. Hey, he says, anyone want to check out my new handgun? Hey Scott, check it out, its unloaded…..and the safety is on, here take it Scott, take it! Everyone in the backyard heard this, as Jon had to speak loudly over the music, and now they are all looking directly at Scott, some egging him on to take the gun. The peer pressure is real, and starting to effect the situation. Scott thinks, what the heck, I will take a look at it, Ive never held a real gun before, this could be cool. Then Scott thinks, Jon said it was unloaded, even said the safety is on, what could be the harm? So he takes it from Jon.

  Now, it is inevitable, that once a gun is in the hands of someone that has never had any sort of  firearm training, the first thing they seem overwhelmingly, inexplicably, inclined to do, is to put their finger on the trigger, next they want to test the ‘theory’ that the safety is on, and to test the ‘theory that the gun is unloaded, simultaneously. Scott  points the gun playfully at someone in the group to test these two ’theorys’. Susan sees Scott pointing it at her and says to Scott not to do that! Scott laughs, “its not even loaded”  he says, and pulls the trigger, BANG! Susan drops to the ground with a hole in her chest, the gun hits the dirt immediately afterward, dropped by a stunned and confused Scott! The first thing out of Scott’s mouth is, I thought it was unloaded! Jon says, oh my God! I thought it was unloaded! All this combined wisdom from Jon and Scott will never change the fact that Susan is now tragically dead, killed by an “unloaded” gun,  she will be dead for a very long time. Jon evidently did not even understand the fact that a common revolver has no external safety. Jon and Scott will now have to pay the legal consequences for this ‘accident’. Susan’s family and friends will never fully recover emotionally from the loss of Susan.

    How do you avoid a terrible scene like this? Firearm education is the first critical step. Common sense plays a huge roll, I like to think that we all have common sense, the key is to engage it before you act, think about what your doing before you do anything with a firearm. Take your common sense for a walk around the block once in awhile, exercise it! You NEVER take anyone’s word that a firearm is unloaded, EVER!     THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN UNLOADED GUN!!  Treat them all as LOADED!!

    Think about it this way; pretend that your very own mother comes home one day with a handgun, a revolver for instance. Now we all know that our mothers love us dearly and would never want to see any of their children ever get hurt, they would do anything in their power for their kids, mothers are ‘hard wired’ that way. With that in mind, your mother comes home with that handgun and wants you to see it, she is quite proud of it. Look what I bought she says, check it out , as she tries to hand it to you. (I’m sure we can all picture our mothers doing something like this right?….) Well for the sake of making my point we will all pretend that she comes home and says exactly that. Should you take the gun from her and look at it?  No, you should not. You should say to your very own dear mother, whom you know loves you, look ma, could you please just show to me that the gun is unloaded first? And because she is your mother, she will not have any problem with that very simple request. She will quickly reach over and push forward the cylinder release button with the thumb of her right hand, and at the same time she will deftly push the cylinder open from right to left with the middle finger of same right hand, openly exposing the now obviously empty cylinder for your inspection. Now that you are satisfied that the gun is indeed empty you may take it from your mother to ‘check it out’, observing muzzle discipline, (pointed in a safe direction) and treating it as being loaded.. 

   The point that I am trying to make by using ‘dear ole ma’ in the example is this; If you are going to make your very own dear mother, whom you love, show you that the gun is unloaded before you will accept it from her,  you will NEVER give anyone else privilege’s that you would not give your own mother! Not Joe Blow who you hardly even know, nor anyone else in this entire world would you ever give that privilege! Understand? If someone is not willing to show you that a gun is unloaded, then you are not willing to take it from that person, period!

   Remember, there is no such thing as an unloaded gun! Have I mentioned that yet? That is the mindset you must always have to handle them safely!

   {Note: I will continue with some more ‘Gun Sense’ in my next few blogs for your awareness, please pass this information on to those you know and/or love. Remember: Firearm Education Will Save Lives, Firearm Ignorance Can Take Lives. Sincerely,

  Mark Shean, NRA Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor-

www.mafirearmsafety.com  written 7-1-2009

Your comments/insight are welcomed.