MA Firearm Safety

By Mark Shean Sr. author of #GUN SENSE, on Amazon.

Common sense used to mean to me, in an overall general way, the prevailing notion of what was the right, proper or safe thing to do throughout many varied real life situations. These days I view the term ‘common sense’ as a misnomer. I don’t want to be associated with the ‘common’, as in generally accepted ‘sensible’ notions of today.

What is common sense today? I don’t believe that common sense, intended in any good way, exists much anymore. It now defines a whole new concept in the overall social mentality. Using good sense now is actually very uncommon behaviour. For instance, someone who pulls off to the side of the road to call or text is using uncommon sense, as in ‘good’, ask yourself, do you see that happening very often? ‘Common ignorance’ more aptly describes, and has completely eclipsed the ‘common sense’ of old, especially with the advent of cell phones, used on our public   roadways.

Driving distractedly/ ignorantly is now the norm, not the exception where cell phones are concerned. Vast numbers of people, everywhere you care to look, appear oblivious to the necessity of paying undivided attention to their surroundings as that one ton (or more) missile they are behind the wheel of, hurtles blindly along. Blindly? Sure, ask yourself,… while your texting, who is driving? Texting behind the wheel must be more important to people than life itself,… theirs, or anyone elses. FACT; People are dieing on the roadways all across the country due to driving and texting, or are victims of it. Depending on your speed, when you take your eyes off the road to text, your vehicle can travel anywhere from 50 to 300 feet in one second before you look back at the road! On some unconscious level I guess many people are in a hurry to go to the ‘bone yard’, sadly, they can bring innocent people with them in many cases!  ‘Common sense’, now translated, is really ‘common ignorance’, and it is prevailing. For it to be said that you have ‘uncommon sense’ would be a compliment, your not being part of the ‘herd’.

When I notice a vehicle moving along erratically, (which is often) invariably the driver will be texting or yapping on a cell phone.  How in the world did we ever make it from point  A to point B  before cell phones were invented? I guess maybe we just had to pay attention to the road. When/if we  make it to our destinations today, it is much less safely now than it was in the shaky past, your surrounded by what is now the prevailing ‘common sense’, that’s spooky. The drunks are still out there, as they were in the past, but they now are also yapping/texting on cell phones as they weave happily along, double jeopardy for you and I !! Pedestrians, cyclist’s, children, motorcyclist’s, their lives are in your hands….are your hands on the wheel… and your mind on the road?

On the political front, when I hear a politician exclaim that, (this or that bill) is the common sense thing to do, I cringe and wonder if any of the clowns will actually read it first before taking a vote. Their collective ideas on what is ‘common sense’  are now leading the nation down the road to financial ruin at this very moment. What we need now are politicians with ‘uncommon’ sense, certainly not the status quo. You cant keep voting for the same buffoons and expect different results! That only means we are not paying attention, or using good sense!

On the topic of  ‘common sense’ in the shooting sports, I will tell people in my class that before they ever fire a gun to be certain of their target and of what is beyond it. Not only at the shooting range but also while hunting, not to get so caught up in the excitement of shooting at a deer that you have ‘tunnel vision’ of what or who may be beyond. That is just common sense someone will usually say. I counter that with, if it is such ‘common sense’ why are we always reading, on a fairly regular basis, about accidental shootings in the woods? Please, don’t use the prevailing ‘common sense’, today, as individuals, we need to start exercising more ‘uncommon sense’.

Mark Shean,

written 7-16-2010

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