Safety... third?

OK, this probably makes me a bit of a bad person, but I can't stop laughing at this guy...

Florida man injured while hunting with a .40 cal round taped to the end of a BB gun.

Basically, he "found some cartridges while looking for scrap metal," then taped a live round to the end of his BB gun. The idea was to shoot a squirrel for dinner. The BB hit the primer, the primer set off the round, which - since it wasn't in a chamber - detonated. He was struck by fragments and needed medical care.

Folks, guns are dangerous, I think I've made that perfectly clear. Maybe I haven't made it very clear that ammo is also incredibly dangerous. A loaded cartridge is basically a shaped charge designed to accelerate a chunk of metal out of a tube. The primer is a contact explosive that sets off the powder inside the casing. It needs to be inserted into something designed to act as a firing chamber in order to go off with ANY measure of safety.

  Our hapless protagonist here has a history of poor choices, the LEAST of which may have been taping live ammo to a BB gun. It's hard for me to fathom how this ever sounded like a good idea.

  I often shout "SAFETY THIRD!" when I'm running off to do something of questionable physical outcome, but even this is beyond me.

Gun safety - it's not a theoretical subject, it's a skill.

I was going to get to this topic eventually, but now seems like a perfectly cromulent time to do so.

  Last week, a firearms safety instructor accidentally fired a pistol during a class - fortunately, no one was harmed. The gentleman reportedly retired from firearms training over the incident, and I can imagine that his buddies won't let him live it down. Ever.

  The cold, hard truth that needs to be faced is that guns are dangerous. They aren't toys (in the sense that Tonka trucks and Barbie dolls are toys), they are tools that produce a destructive force. Safe handling isn't a guideline, or a recommendation, or something that poncy little jerks do. Each and every person who interacts with guns needs to be fluent in gun safety - it needs to be as natural as breathing. If I had my way, *everyone* would get gun safety training at a young age.