keep it safe keep it clean
Familiarize yourself with the Rules
Whether you are an experienced shooter or brand new to the sport, to keep our community safe and enjoyable for everyone there are important rules and guidelines for outdoor target shooting which you should frequently reacquaint yourself with. we have condensed some of that information here to give you a head start.
firearm safety
A Mindset and a Rule
If you haven’t heard of the firearm safety rules before, we highly recommend taking an intro class from one of our recommended trainers. That being said, let’s take a fresh look at an old hat and see if we can gain something new from it.
Click each rule for a more in-depth perspective from a professional trainer.
RULE # 1
ALL FIREARMS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
Being safe with firearms is all about muscle memory. Your brain will tend to automatically do the actions it performs most often and we are at its mercy. When you perform the same actions repeatedly (habitual reflex), such as holding things, pushing, pulling or even talking, your brain reinforces those nerve pathways – kind of like tire ruts on a dirt road. Attempting to drive down that road on a regular basis (especially while distracted) means the chances are 100% that at some point your tires will get pulled into the rut.
So what does this mean for firearm safety? Alot actually – maybe everything. Let’s look at an example of why we say all firearms are always loaded:
You are getting ready to clean your gun at home, which is loaded because it is your home defense weapon. You sit down and first, you remove the magazine. Next, you are going to eject the round from the chamber…you reach for it…you touch it — and your phone rings. You talk to your hysterical sibling for 30 minutes and then return to your work table. Seeing the unloaded magazine and remembering that you ejected the round from the chamber (you did, right?) you automatically go into disassembling your firearm (you practiced like 50 times with YouTube!) the first step of which is to press the trigger to release the firing block and remove the slide and… BANG. There’s a new hole in your table and in your leg.
This is the typical scenario. When something like this happens it is always called negligence and we are always at fault. But wait you say — Didn’t you say I am at the mercy of my habitual reflex actions? Yes, yes I did. WHICH IS WHY – If I haven’t made eye-contact with my firearm for more than about 30 seconds and I am about to touch it, I ALWAYS check the chamber regardless of how impossible it seems that a fairy has flown by and deposited a magic round in the chamber. I ALWAYS do it, because that develops a strong neural pathway in my brain and gives me a counter-reflex that could save my life. Now, when my hands touch a gun, they automatically eject the chamber even if I am distracted. NOT building that reflex habit is what is known as negligence AND breaking rule #1 : Treat all firearms as if they’re always loaded.
rule 1
Treat All Firearms as if They’re Always Loaded
RULE # 2
NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER (POINT YOUR GUN AT) ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY
As we discussed in Rule 1, firearm safety is all about muscle memory (you are going to hear this alot). But let’s think of it another way…
Can you afford to (yay! another poll!):
A) Die or be seriously injured
B) Negligently murder another human being or cause them serious injury
C) Go to prison for a long, long time or end up in the morgue
So, like most of us, if you can’t afford to have those things happen then we also can’t afford to take even the smallest risk that they would.
And now I’m going to tell you that, unfortunately, the risk is NOT small. It’s actually quite large and the longer I am in this industry the more I realize how much respect and responsibility a firearm demands.
Let’s look at another example:
You are out target shooting with some friends. Each of you has very different levels of experience with firearms. You are very aware that you must treat all firearms as if they’re always loaded, must not point at anything you’re not willing to destroy, must not touch the trigger until you’re on target and ready to fire, etc etc… however your friend Edward does not know these things. Edward is brand new to guns. You’ve told him the rules twice already but you’re still keeping an extra eyeball on Ed today.
Edward walks to the shooting table, picks up your rifle and safely points it down range. He seems to be following everything you taught him. Right up until the moment that your other buddy Ricky shows up and yells “Hey Ed!” from his truck. Ed, following his body’s prescribed habitual reflex actions, turns toward the sound of someone calling his name and because he is startled, also reflexively squeezes his right hand and the trigger. BANG. You have a new hole in your F150. It could have been worse.
Let’s re-think this rule as “Always point the gun at the ground, away from feet and body parts.” But what about over the shoulder or in the air like in the movies? Pointing the muzzle in the air is dangerous because rounds shot into the air can still be lethal when they return to the ground. Bullets can penetrate most materials, such as walls, wooden doors, multiple car doors, tables, refrigerators, brick walls, cinderblock walls… the list goes on. Because of this, most of the time you are ALWAYS pointing in an unsafe direction if you have the gun level to the horizon or above. I also tell clients – if you live on the second or third floor, then you need a 5-gallon bucket of sand on the floor in your apartment to point your loaded gun if the need should arise, such as unloading for cleaning.
But let’s get back to Edward. His accident happened because of the muscle-memory response of turning when someone calls his name. If he had practiced a new habit – ALWAYS pointing guns at the ground when you aren’t actively shooting them, then the accident might have been prevented.
As a final note – Let’s have a thought experiment: What would happen if we ignored Rule #1 but always followed Rule #2? In other words, I always point guns at the ground IF THEY’RE LOADED, but the rest of the time who cares? Would I be more likely to reflexively point my loaded gun in an unsafe direction (oops) if MOST of the time that’s what I did with unloaded guns? The key word is “reflexively”.
Rule 2
Never point your gun at anything you are not willing to destroy
RULE # 3
KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON TARGET AND YOU HAVE MADE THE DECISION TO SHOOT
If you’ve been following along with the last two rules, you know that our body’s habitual reflex actions (muscle memory) play a huge role in firearm safety. By now, it should be pretty obvious why having a habit of placing your finger on the trigger is extremely dangerous.
What do we do with guns most of the time? We shoot them, building up that nerve pathway to the finger. Every trigger press reinforces the liklihood that at any given time while holding something, your brain might decide to fire that reflex. Want a real mind bend? We trigger-press spray bottles, power tools, toy guns…even fishing rods. That’s alot of built-up muscle memory and habit.
Now, I’m going to throw you a curveball: the sympathetic reflex. It’s what makes it difficult to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time and it’s dangerous. In your body the nerves that go from your brain to your fingers pass through something called the sympathetic nervous system, which branches along your spine. Because the nerves are all connected, the signal that your brain sends to your right hand to squeeze a ball has a little “feedback” that sends a slightly weaker copy of that signal to your left hand simultaneously.
Have you ever held something in your left hand, like a cup of coffee, and tripped – bracing yourself from falling by grabbing something with your right hand? It’s an automatic reflex – and guess what happens to the coffee in your left hand? SQUUEEEEEZE – coffee everywhere because of the sympathetic signal that branched over when your right hand was told to grab for dear life. It’s not something you can turn off – it’s built in to our body’s systems.
Now, let’s picture that same scenario but with a live firearm. I have a loaded gun in my right hand and I’m not really paying attention to my trigger finger because hey, I’m at the range aren’t I? What could go wrong? Until a piece of hot brass gets ejected right into my shirt. In a moment of instant panic, I try to grab the scalding brass casing with my left hand and pull it out of my shirt — which sends a simultaneous sympathetic reflex to my right hand and makes me press the trigger. I shoot a hole in the ceiling and the range officer says I’m banned until I take some safety classes. It could have been worse.
I keep my finger straight and away from the trigger whenever I am holding a firearm, ALWAYS, until I am actually pointed at a target and ready to shoot. As soon as I finish firing, my finger comes back off the trigger and goes straight again BEFORE the gun pulls back and returns to my bench or holster. My finger is straight when I reach for a holstered weapon, when I pick up a gun off the table, when I’m cleaning my firearm… I want to build up a lot of muscle memory to counteract the habitual trigger-presses I’m going to do when I’m actually shooting.
If you really want to drive the habit home – I carry spray bottles and power tools with my finger straight as well. Don’t laugh – you will too.
Rule 3
Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on target and you have made the decision to shoot
RULE # 4
BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT IS BEHIND IT, IN FRONT OF IT, AND AROUND IT
While this rule isn’t specifically about muscle memory, we can say that all of the rules are about HABIT. Do the same thing the same way every time and you will succeed.
I break this rule down into two parts:
1. Target Shooting
2. Self Defense
TARGET SHOOTING
When target shooting, this rule is about making sure that even though you put a target out there in the desert to shoot at, are you really pointing in a safe direction?
Fun fact: A 9mm round fired from a handgun can, under the right circumstances, travel up to a mile and can still be lethal at that range.
If you cannot see what is standing a mile or two behind your target, and there is no backstop, hill, mountain, or berm behind your target to stop that round you fired — well, it just keeps on going. I need to be certain that what’s behind my target is something that stops bullets safely.
Why do I need to check in front of my target and around it? Hikers, 4-wheelers, ATVs, dogs, children, irresponsible range officers, and my dumb friend Ed. They can all pass in front of my muzzle while I am focused on zeroing in on my target. Make sure the space is clear before you get behind your sights.
SELF DEFENSE
Now I’m going to bring up something I mentioned earlier – bullets can penetrate a lot more objects and materials than we generally realize (wait.. Hollywood lied to me? No way?!). A 9mm round fired from a handgun will penetrate drywall, doors, tables, furniture, appliances (unless they are made of at least a 1/4 inch of steel), multiple car doors (thin metal and plastic), brick walls, cinderblock, and bad guys – to name a few. Typically if you want to hide behind something (cover) you’ll need to find concrete or thick steel. Unless you can levitate behind your engine block, cars aren’t a great choice for cover in a gunfight.
So what does this mean for the “be sure of your target and what is behind it” rule? First, I am responsible for every round that leaves my gun and where it ends up, no matter the circumstances. That is why I carry a good tactical light. If you cannot identify your target (in the dark, for example) you cannot fire. Second, if I shoot a bad-guy and my round pentrates and hits an innocent person behind him – then I am at fault. Even if my round hits the cash register and not the pregnant cashier who was being held at gunpoint, I am still at fault and how might it play out in court when her family testifies about how close I came to killing their baby girl?
If you carry a gun for self defense, it is your responsibility to play a constant mindfulness game called “where are all the people in this room, and if I have to use my firearm in self defense, which direction can I safely shoot and should I draw my gun at all or just retreat for the safety of all these people?”
Some additional tips specifically about ricochets: If you are shooting at a material (like steel) that is harder than the bullet you are firing, there are special precautions you need to take. Steel targets should be angled forward slightly tilted toward the ground to deflect projectiles to the ground and not back toward the shooter. Rocks can also cause ricochets, and rocks have odd shapes. It is a complete gamble which way that bullet might go after it hits a rock. DO NOT SHOOT AT ROCKS INTENTIONALLY. At one of my favorite outdoor spots, I find people shooting towards the top of a hill of rocks where more people are down on the other side. I have had rounds zing past my head after ricocheting off the top of that first hill being fired by irresponsible shooters.
Rule 4
Be sure of your target and what is behind it, in front of it, and around it
RANGE RULES
Keep It Safe For Everybody
Every range has their own rules which are always posted in clear view. Right now we’re going to discuss OUR rules as a community for target shooting outdoors.
1. Follow the Firearm Safety Rules at all times.
2. Pick up your trash, brass, target pieces. Leaving nothing behind.
3. Do not drink and operate a firearm.
4. Be aware of the laws and regulations (Fire Restrictions!!!) in your shooting loation. If you aren’t sure, then don’t go.
5. Cease fire immediately when any people, animals or vehicles cross in front of or behind your target no matter how far away they are.
6. Don’t be a dick. We all have guns. Don’t start fights.
Click the button below for additional resources, guidelines, laws and regulations from the State of Arizona.
Armory EXPO is paving the way for the creation of a non-profit organization dedicated to cleaning up and attempting to maintain public outdoor target shooting locations. If you would like to be involved, please contact us below.
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IMPORTANT
Armory EXPO has taken custodianship of this list of outdoor shooting locations, but we do not make any claims as to the accuracy of this list or to the legality of target shooting on these locations. ALWAYS double check with the proper state and county agencies before traveling to a location. We are not responsible for misuse of the properties contained in this directory.