Safety Rules (AS Is Always Safe)
Appleseed shooting activities always carefully follow the 4 Rules. The 4 Rules, as taught by the Appleseed Project, are:
- Always keep the muzzle in a safe direction.
- Do not load until given the load command.
- Keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target.
- Make sure those around you follow the safety rules.
These rules are slightly different than Jeff Cooper's 4 Rules, causing some longtime shooting experts such as Massad Ayoob to have slight cognitive dissonance when participating in Appleseeds. Cooper's four basic rules of gun safety are:
- All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are.
- Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.)
- Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges.
- Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified.
Read more about this topic: Project Appleseed
Famous quotes containing the words safety and/or rules:
“The Declaration [of Independence] was not a protest against government, but against the excess of government. It prescribed the proper role of government, to secure the rights of individuals and to effect their safety and happiness. In modern society, no individual can do this alone. So government is not a necessary evil but a necessary good.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
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—Mabel Smith Douglass (1877–1933)