History and Teachers
While gun safety in different forms has existed since the creation of firearms, Jeff Cooper (1920–2006), an influential figure in modern firearms training, formalized and popularized the above-listed "Four Rules" of safe firearm handling. Prior lists of gun safety rules included as few as three basic safety rules or as many as ten rules including gun safety and sporting etiquette rules.
In 1902, the English politician and game shooting enthusiast Mark Hanbury Beaufoy wrote some much-quoted verses on gun safety, including many salient points. His verses "A Father's Advice" begin with the following:
If a sportsman true you'd be
Listen carefully to me:
Never, never, let your gun
Pointed be at anyone...
Other influential teachers of gun safety include Massad Ayoob, Clint Smith, Chuck Taylor, Jim Crews, Bob Munden and Ignatius Piazza.
Read more about this topic: Weapon Handling
Famous quotes containing the words history and/or teachers:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Ethical and cultural desegregation. It is a contradiction in terms to scream race pride and equality while at the same time spurning Negro teachers and self-association.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)