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Middle Age Russ wrote:
Rule #2: ALWAYS keep a gun empty and unloaded until ready to use -- Subject FAILED to observe this rule.


I am sorry, but I don't remember this as one the gun safety rules. If it is one I missed I violate this rule because all if my guns are always loaded.

This IS one of the NRA's three gun safety rules. I got them out of order -- #2 and #3 should be switched. Folks carrying a gun for defensive purposes, or keeping it "at the ready" for same, are "ready to use", so they do not fail this rule in the slightest. I would argue that if the subject's intent was not to kill himself, he failed to observe this rule.

Rule #1: ALWAYS keep a gun pointed in a safe direction -- Subject FAILED to observe this rule.
Rule #2: ALWAYS keep a gun empty and unloaded until ready to use -- Subject FAILED to observe this rule.
Rule #3: ALWAYS keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target -- Subject FAILED to observe this rule.

OK, there may be a bit of latitude on the last one there since we don't know for a fact that he himself was not the intended target. Even so, the result of the subject's actions was DEATH. Failure to observe one of the rules rarely results in anything catastrophic. Failure to observe two of the rules is a whole lot riskier. Failure to observe any of the rules is a recipe for disaster.