Wives, friends, peers must be familiar w/ your guns.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

Recently I read an article in one of the latest gun magazines
(the paper kind, not the metal kind) that LEO's have had potentially
fatal problems when they need to arm themselves with the weapons
of another LEO during incidents.

Some safeties are different in their operation. Glocks have no manual safeties.
Some departments carry "safety on" while others carry "safety off."
Some departments carry with one in the pipe, others may not.

The manual of arms for any particular weapon is not necessarily known
by the user of the borrowed weapon.

This issue should also be addressed by non-LEO's as well. I have talked to
several men and some women who have guns in the house, but the man is
the only one who has shot them. There's an assumption that if the man is
not home, or disabled, that the wife will be able to defend herself successfully
just because she knows where the gun is.

If you had never driven a stick shift car, would you know how to just because
you have the keys to it? Even people who know how to drive a stick will need
a learning curve on a clutch which is not familar to them.

Another case of an assumption that could have gotten a good guy killed is the
case where an Asian family's market had been the victim of robberies. The adult
son armed his father with .40 handgun. The father was robbed and used the .40
to defend himself successfully (in that the GG dad was not shot), but the scary
part of this story was that he had never shot the pistol until the day he had to
use it against the bad guy. He probably needed some adult diapers after he heard
that puppy roar inside the store's confines.

My point here, especially to the husbands on the forum, is to always take your
wives to the range so that she will know exactly what the weapon sounds like,
its recoil characteristics, how to rack the slide if a semi-auto, where the safety is,
and whether or not it has a magazine safety.

Call me Obvious Man, but I'm just trying to raise the specter of a wife who knows
where the gun is, but can't use it successfully in the case of a home invasion.

Stay alert, armed, and with spare ammo out there.

SIA

[Oldgringo]

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:

...My point here, especially to the husbands on the forum, is to always take your
wives to the range so that she will know exactly what the weapon sounds like,
its recoil characteristics, how to rack the slide if a semi-auto, where the safety is,
and whether or not it has a magazine safety.

Call me Obvious Man, but I'm just trying to raise the specter of a wife who knows
where the gun is, but can't use it successfully in the case of a home invasion.

Absolutely! I wish Mrs. Oldgringo, a CH licensee, had more interest in shooting. I insist (kinda') that she goes with me every now and then and does shoot the various sidearms so that if, heaven forbid, she does have to defend herself or us, she'll know how the gun works and where to point it. Whether she'll 'drop the hammer' or not on a BG, remains to be seen.

[BobCat]

Your point is well taken, and ideally everyone would be familiar with whatever weapons are available in the house, but your admonition to "take your wives to the range so that she will know..." made me laugh out loud. My wife is as familiar as she wishes to be (not as familiar as I would please me) with her little Smith, and with the Marlin lever gun. I can not "take" her to the range - she does not wish to go.

My wife is probably more emotionally prepared to shoot in self defense than I am. She is smaller than, and not as strong as, most men; aware of disparity of force, and not willing to be a victim. I am to more likely to keep trying to de-escalate when I ought to have realized that the fat is in the fire and it is past time to start shooting.

So, I applaud your sentiment and completely agree with you about this, but "taking" someone to the range happens with children, not adult spouses. Inviting, yes - but if the invitation is refused, one must accept the situation. Nobody wins an argument between two married people. If you argue with your wife and think you've won, you simply don't understand how badly you've lost.

Hang in there.

Regards,
Andrew

[CompVest]

Great post except for the obvious assumption that MEN need to take the WIVES to the range. Please keep in mind that while that may tend to be the norm; there are several cases I know personally of and I'll bet a good percentage more where the wives need to take the husbands to the range.

I would have liked the post to have read - Please take your family to the range and familiarize them with the guns in their households - and left the gender out of it.

Thank you guys - rant off!

[yerasimos]

Or perhaps substitute the word "Wives" with "Spouses" or "Domestic Partners". (Must be inclusive now with the imminent change of leadership in Houston.)

[srothstein]

Compvest has a good point but doesn't go far enough. Take the age bias out too. Take the family to the range, including the kids, parents, grandparents, etc. Everyone in the house who is old enough to understand the safety rules should be familiar with the firearms. We have read in here before about young (teen-age) kids saving parents by being able to get the guns. I am sure the same applies to elderly in the house. The basic safety rule of making sure everyone who live sin the house can operate the guns is a good one.

But even more important, shooting is fun. The whole family needs to go together for some fun activities.

[chabouk]

Just to counter-balance the discussion: don't overwhelm those who aren't really "into guns".

An immediate circle who are only likely to encounter DAO guns really don't need to know 1911-fu or Highpower How-to. (On the other hand, if you have a very traditional person who is accustomed to operating safeties, it wouldn't hurt to impress upon them that there are guns out there that are "point-and-bang".

Pump shotguns are pretty generic in operation. No need to cover the SPAS-12 drill manual, they all have a safety (cross-bar or tang), action slide, and action bar release button.

I guess my point is this: the gunnies in your life can probably figure out most guns (with the exception of the old traditionalist mentioned above). The non-gunnies can be easily overwhelmed, but of course you should take every opportunity to educate them. When they are ready to learn, that is.

My wife and daughter support guns rights, and they both know how to shoot and enjoy trips to the range, but they're otherwise gun-neutral. They don't think about guns, read gun forums, or study the subtleties of the law. Neither dreams of what gun they might get for Christmas. That said, every handgun in the house (except for the Ruger Standard .22) is kept in the same condition: grab, point, pull the trigger. The only defensive long gun (Winchester 1300 Defender) has a similar manual-of-arms: grab, point, rack, shoot.

My new daughter-in-law thinks it's "cool" that we're getting her a home defense shotgun for Christmas, but she doesn't have much gun experience beyond her Army training. We'll spend a day of personal instruction out at the range and burn through a couple of boxes of 7-1/2 birdshot, then send her home with six in the tube of 00 Buck.

For grins, we actually wrapped the shotgun up for our son, and wrapped the ammo up for her.

[lawrnk]

Wife has no interest in guns. Was adjusting my IWB holster and my wife looks over and says, wow, is that loaded??
Then she says she is not sure she could even pull one, unless it was to scare someone away.
Then I tried to explain brandishing, and that " showing" it to someone will get you shot. No response.

[HighVelocity]

I have often thought about what might happen if I were to become incapacitated while armed. Would my friend (s) or spouse, girlfriend, etc, know how to safely secure my firearm? We cannot possibly know who will be with us when/if this need arises.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

CompVest:

Well, I confess that I was not appropriately gender neutral in my OP
about WIVES.

It's great that you know some well-armed women who need to take their
men to the range.

I will now flail myself with thorns for being unfair in my thread title. :-)

SIA

[MadMonkey]

I've actually been thinking about this myself. Not only getting others comfortable with my own weapons but also familiarizing myself with as many different ones as I can. I've owned many guns but there are still thousands out there I haven't touched...

[Oldgringo]

Wife has no interest in guns. Was adjusting my IWB holster and my wife looks over and says, wow, is that loaded??
Then she says she is not sure she could even pull one, unless it was to scare someone away.
Then I tried to explain brandishing, and that " showing" it to someone will get you shot. No response.

As I said earlier, I wish Mrs. Oldgringo was more interested in guns, shooting, etc. On a somewhat bright note, I'll sometimes ask her, as she's going out the door, if she's got her "heater" and she'll reply it's in the car OR, if we're together she'll reply, "you've got yours, don't you? She's of the mindset that she hasn't needed one for three score and some years, so why do I need one now? She ignores the "seatbelt comeback".

OTOH, if she did share my interest, we'd probably spend more of what we ain't got on guns. At least, I have a few and the worst I get when I acquire another is an .

[drjoker]

Wife has no interest in guns. Was adjusting my IWB holster and my wife looks over and says, wow, is that loaded??
Then she says she is not sure she could even pull one, unless it was to scare someone away.
Then I tried to explain brandishing, and that " showing" it to someone will get you shot. No response.

Hey, your wife is 10x better than mine. Mine SOLD all my guns one day while I was at work.

My advice, try to make shooting and guns pleasurable to her. Cook a nice dinner for her and after you go shooting, clean the house and give her a massage. If she sees guns as something foreign and scary, then you may meet up with my scenario one day if you get into a fight and make her mad. If she sees herself as a fellow sportsman (sportswoman), then you may get a pass....



P.S. Feel free to substitute the word wife with significant other, domestic partner, life partner, buddy, spouse, husband, etc.

[marksiwel]

Hey, your wife is 10x better than mine. Mine SOLD all my guns one day while I was at work.

how are you still married?

[Oldgringo]

Hey, your wife is 10x better than mine. Mine SOLD all my guns one day while I was at work.

how are you still married?

{SIGH}