When I’m out and about carrying a gun I leave it in my holster unless a situation arises where I need to utilize it for my defense. As far as I know most people who carry practice the same discipline because so long as you leave your gun in the holster it’s not going to be used to negligently harm anybody. Sadly this man decided to ignore that rule and somebody is now in the hospital because of it:
The pastor’s daughter, 20-year-old Hannah Kelley, was shot in the head and transported to Bayfront Medical Center by ambulance.
Here’s what deputies say happened:
Following the church service, several members of the congregation were gathered in the church’s rec room.
According to detectives, 20-year-old Dustin Bueller approached 48-year-old Moises Zambrana and said that he would soon be turning 21 and was interested in purchasing a gun for himself.
Deputies say Zambrana agreed to show Bueller his firearm, a Ruger 9mm.
Zambrana, Bueller and a third man, 19-year-old John Penu, stepped into a small closet adjacent to the rec room, where Zambrana proceeded to show the men the weapon.
Removing your gun from its holster unnecessarily is a bad idea, but doing in a location where numerous people are present is asking for Murphy to come up and bite you in the ass. The situation was entirely negligent and avoidable. You can easily make a case for all four basic firearm rules being broken although I would certainly say the rule of keeping your finger off of the trigger, being sure of your target and what’s beyond it, and treating the firearm as if it’s loaded at all times were certainly ignored (I would say he also violated the rule of pointing your firearm only at what you intent to destroy but that may be redundant with the violation of not being sure what is beyond his target).
Firearms are not toys, they are weapons and need to be treated as such. So long as you observe the four rules of firearm safety nothing bad will happen. Keeping your gun in its holster while out and about will ensure you don’t violate any safety rules. If you want to show your firearm to somebody do it at home where you have far better control of the environment.