lgf: Don't Go Shooting With John F. Kerry

J. F. Kerry Loves Guns:

Little Green Footballs is pretty much right on this occasion: this is a violation of almost every rule of safe-handling a firearm. Well, depending on who you ask. As they were taught to me:

1) Treat every weapon as if it is loaded at all times. The only exception is while cleaning a weapon, after you have yourself, right now, checked to be certain it is unloaded.

2) Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.

3) Always be sure where your weapon is pointed, knowing both your target and what is behind it.

The National Rifle Association teaches them differently:

1) Always keep the Gun pointed in a Safe Direction.

2) Always Keep your Finger Off the Trigger Until Ready to Shoot.

3) Always Keep the Gun Unloaded Until Ready to Use.

Curiously, he's breaking all three of my rules, and just one of the NRA's. :) The weapon isn't loaded, because he's just shot the load--the caption says it was after missing a shot, and the weapon is a single shot break action shotgun, which you can see clearly in some of the other photographs. Under the NRA's rules, that weapon could be called unloaded; and as it's pointed downrange, you could argue that it was pointed in a "safe direction."

The rules I learned are better. They don't excuse clowning around (as LGF calls it) with a weapon just because it is unloaded, and they don't permit you to point the weapon in a direction you're not looking (with your finger on the trigger!) just because you've shot your load.

Still, under the right circumstances, all it takes is one broken rule to kill somebody. This reminds me of one of my father's stories of being a Drill Sergeant.

Where he was stationed, they had a lot of inductees from Puerto Rico, which in those days had a lot of tough neighborhoods. This being the days of the draft, a lot of these kids were pretty sour about being in the Army. They tended to be tough, accustomed to violence, and disrespectful of authority. The Drill Sergeants had their hands full with them.

It happened that, as was occasionally the case, a Marine D.I. got tasked to go train Army recruits for a while. He wasn't with my father's unit, but their units happened to be firing at the same range one day.

After the range was supposed to be clear--but wait, let me explain. I know some of my readers aren't familiar with firearms. Declaring a range clear and safe is a big deal. For one thing, lives depend on it, as people may go downrange once the range is called clear. For another thing, it's a matter of unit discipline. This is one of those occasions when the safety of the military unit depends on people obeying orders. That is, in turn, one of the key disciplines of military life. If you don't obey orders on this occasion, and the range gets called clear when it isn't clear, you have broken faith with your unit and betrayed the discipline you're sworn to obey.

So anyway, the range was called clear, which means that everyone's weapons should have been unloaded, breaches locked open. This one kid from Puerto Rico had held back some ammo, though--I'm not sure why, as it's been years since I heard the story. Most likely he was planning to keep it as a souvenir. In any event, he didn't obey the rule about keeping your finger clear of the trigger either (*ahem*, Mr. Kerry), and ended up discharging his weapon.

He also wasn't looking where it was pointed. The round hit a rock, and richochet'd (a ricochet is every bit as dangerous as a direct-fire attack). The round went wizzing through the Marine D.I.'s area.

My father happened to be standing off while one of the junior Drill Instructors chewed the kid out. It wasn't having much of an effect on this tough island kid, though, who knew he was headed to 'Nam no matter what anyone said or did.

My father said, "And then I saw the Marine headed his way. He came jumping over barricades, stalking straight up to the kid. The Drill Sergeant stepped aside without being asked, just feeling the Marine coming. And the Marine took a breath, and started to yell.

"At first the kid didn't change expression. He just stood there. But a moment passed, and another, and another, and the Marine was still yelling. He never took another breath. And long before he was done, tears were running down this kid's face. After that, he was never a moment's trouble to anybody."

Ooh-rah. Out.