Firearms Safety Rules (Airsoft, too!)

[Orwell]

I'm going to stress what's been said but not rebutted: These are about principle and training. If you never pick up a true firearm, that's fine. For those of us that have a lifetime of weapons safety training and (in some cases, myself excluded) carry or use firearms daily, weapons safety is more than something you do sometimes.

If you don't like it, don't practice it. People will still jump on you, but you'll be safe in your security, knowing that you have the right of it. You aren't one of those crazy safety-heads.

[Ivan Daylovich™]

That's nice, but not mentioned anywhere in your first post.
It literally says "4 rules of firearm (AEG, GBB, etc.) safety:"
Look, here is a quote.

EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THESE:
4 rules of firearm (AEG, GBB, etc.) safety:
1) Every gun is always loaded, even when it's not.
2) Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot.
3) Never point your gun (AEG, GBB, etc.) at something you don't intend to kill or destroy.
4) Be sure of your target and its backstop.

[Orwell]

Yes, Ivan, there it is. And what followed was a debate about whether they should be followed or not. I didn't say I was going to stress what I'd said, I said I was stressing what was said, but not rebutted. Look! Here's a quote!

I'm going to stress what's been said but not rebutted:

[Ivan Daylovich™]

Well I'll rebut then. Airsoft safety rules are about safety of airsoft, not training for real steel. You wanna train for real steel by practicing safe real steel procedures during airsoft go ahead, but don't pass it off as airsoft safety.

This is the vibe I am getting from your posts in this thread. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Orwell]

You're not entirely incorrect. My actual intent comes from the same place I think most of the supporters of these rules are coming from. Practicing these rules in airsoft is not difficult. It does not require any significant effort. All the complaints about having to switch safeties in dangerous situations, etc., can be easily rebutted. Here's how:
You turn off your safety in a combat zone or, if you prefer, in the AO. You turn it on when you're in parking lots, etc. You can turn it on in spawn, but as spawn is usually yards from combat this is not essential.
See? Teensy effort. Remember to switch your safety off as you begin playing. That eliminates your complaints about how long it takes and the required finesse. If you can't remember that single act then I understand your griping about having to remember where your gun is pointed; life is hard.

Everything you do in life is training. Practice makes perfect. If this was paintball or lasertag I'd feel differently, but the replicas we handle are just that: Replicas. They aren't plastic orange Han Solo lasers like I played with as a kid. They mimic real firearms in as many ways as possible. If you can't respect that, I understand. I said it before, and I'll repeat it here for clarity: You needn't respect these rules, but I expect courtesy when others enforce them, even if they're gruff and grumpy 40 year-old men who you think can't put their pants on straight without help. Fact is, effortless caution is always better. It costs you nothing, and might provide you or someone else some semblance of safety some day.

[Ivan Daylovich™]

It's not difficult, it's inefficient.
Keeping the safety off during play is what I was saying and Jerm was disagreeing with.
Practice makes perfect is a bullshit saying.

M point is this. Airsoft is airsoft. It's safety rules are its own. What's safe in airsoft is may not be safe with real guns. In airsoft you are not dealing with long range lethal weaponry. Treat things as what they are, not what they are similar to.

[Jerm_G]

If that is the stance of this community, I then need to make this statement very clear. If one decides to toss out the basic safety rules for airsoft, then they have zero buisness owning, posessing, or even handling real firearms period. The liablitiy of attempting to transition between two very simular peices of equipment while blatently disreguarding the most fundimental of safety rules, is a garenteed path to disaster. So much so, that the most dangerous students I teach are not first time shooters, but airsofters. In most, but not all cases, the years of discustingly negligent disreguard for any form of basic safety has in almost every case built a slew of mussle memory issues and a total lack of awareness in reguard to the potential lethality of what they are working with.

Ivan, you are wrong on every reason you have stated in reguards to manipulating the safety. However I dont blame you for that, it's obvious someone has passed false info down to you. Infact, it's a common beleif with many SWAT teams around the country. In several cases, it was found that the disengaging of the safety prior to entry was one of the critical factors that resulted in the wrongfull death of the subject, subject's family member, and in more than just a few cases, the resident of a home that was not the intended target or even in the intended target house. When PROPERLY manipulating the trigger and safety on a AK platform, your time differences are negligable. (0.03-0.08 seconds difference in my case) The proper technique involes sweeping the safety as the trigger finger moves to the trigger in one complete motoin.

Secondly, your statement of requiring fine motor control to ensure the safety lever ends up in the center position is also a fail. Im not sure about your airsoft gun, but I have owned a few AKs, and all have positive clicks for the center position. That being said, Im not sure why you would need full auto. In your previously given example of waiting for a person to "pop" around a corner, two well placed shots in semi will obtain the same result in airsoft as one long burst. The player is hit, if you hit them, he walks off the field. However a burst of full auto inflicts more pain than needed to meet the same goal. Not to mention that you have no clue who that person is that is comming around the corner. It might be an OPFOR, or it could by an admin. The latter is not going to be happy when you spray him down with a hail of BBs because you decided not to take time to KNOW YOUR TARGET, and then toss out every other rule along with rule number 3.

I have found with this community though that you could have one of the top NBA basket ball players telling someone how to throw a free throw and still be told he is wrong. Or you could have a former specail forces guy teaching how to clear a room and you will still hear how he is wrong. Hell I had one individual in this very community tell a 20+ year veterian JTAC (10 years with ODA teams, and current instructor for NSW on close air support) he did not know how to read a map! Now there is an individual who is having an arguement with a professional firearms instructor, who does teach people how to handle AKs, on how he is wrong in reguarding the manipulation of the AK's safety.

[Evil Zergling137]

Meh, I own, possess and operate real handguns fairly often.

Needed safety rules for airsoft and real guns are DIFFERENT.

They are not the same and do not need to be treated anywhere near the same.

If you want to treat them the same that is your choice but don't tell us it has anything to do with safety.

[Icepick]

If that is the stance of this community, I then need to make this statement very clear. If one decides to toss out the basic safety rules for airsoft, then they have zero buisness owning, posessing, or even handling real firearms period. The liablitiy of attempting to transition between two very simular peices of equipment while blatently disreguarding the most fundimental of safety rules, is a garenteed path to disaster. So much so, that the most dangerous students I teach are not first time shooters, but airsofters. In most, but not all cases, the years of discustingly negligent disreguard for any form of basic safety has in almost every case built a slew of mussle memory issues and a total lack of awareness in reguard to the potential lethality of what they are working with.

I agree with this exactly. There are firearms in my home (they aren't actually owned by me) but nonetheless I still go shooting every now and then. Applying the real steel rules to airsoft really doesn't take much effort if you think about it... Learning to manipulate the safety on your rifle, and being aware of where the end of your muzzle is pointed are both very simple and easy things to do.

[Ivan Daylovich™]

They are not the same and do not need to be treated anywhere near the same.

I shoot real guns from time to time, and I never treat them like I do airsoft guns. Never seemed difficult to me to treat them separately.

I've stopped blindly trusting experts when I realized that they can be wrong just like anyone else.

Jerm, if you ever see me at a game lemme know. I'd love to run some drills to see if you (trained) can shoot faster with your method than I (untrained) can. (On an AK)

Applying the real steel rules to airsoft really doesn't take much effort if you think about it... Learning to manipulate the safety on your rifle, and being aware of where the end of your muzzle is pointed are both very simple and easy things to do.

It doesn't take much effort, but we are saying it's not helping in airsoft.

[Jester316]

Lets look at the rules and how they can apply to airsoft:

1: Treat all firearms as if they are always loaded.
-This is important with airsoft due to the fact that when you remove the magazine, there is usually one round left in hop up ready to fire. This is why we dry fire after removing the magazine to remove all possible rounds from the gun. With some newer hop ups, an O-ring is used to retain 4-5 bb's which could still be fired days/weeks/months after the event.

2: never point a firearm at anything you are not willing, and justified to shoot.
-We are all familiar with the "friendly fire isn't" saying. Know your target so you don't shoot your own teammate.

3: keep your firearm on safe untill you are on target, ready, and justified to fire.
-This will keep down friendly fire incidents, as well as incidents of shooting admins and other non-combatants.

4: keep your finger straight, off the trigger and out of the trigger guard in untill you are on target, willing, and justified to fire.
-Again, helps prevent situations where you might be tempted to shoot the first thing that moves, even through it may be an admin, actor, non-combatant.

5: know your target, what is in front of your target, and behind your target.
-Don't shoot your teammate who went through the door before you, and don't shoot the group of school kids behind your target.




Also, Zergling, you are an unsafe person who should not be allowed at airsoft games. Safety rules are not about minimizing pain. They are about maintaining a persons level of health that they started the day at. I've seen bb's embedded in skin, teeth chipped, eyes injured, and other injuries resulting from airsoft guns. Airsoft guns are more dangerous than nerf guns (and even those can cause significant damage). If you don't believe airsoft guns can hurt someone, you need to leave now.

[Evil Zergling137]

Also, Zergling, you are an unsafe person who should not be allowed at airsoft games. Safety rules are not about minimizing pain. They are about maintaining a persons level of health that they started the day at. I've seen bb's embedded in skin, teeth chipped, eyes injured, and other injuries resulting from airsoft guns. Airsoft guns are more dangerous than nerf guns (and even those can cause significant damage). If you don't believe airsoft guns can hurt someone, you need to leave now.

Jester, this is a thread about applying gun safety when not in battle and off the field - not about FPS rules during games. If you think that the current FPS limits are too high then post that towards somewhere else. I do not set FPS limits - I follow them.

a) I don't consider flesh wounds to be a safety issue. They require no cleanup and heal naturally over 1-2 weeks. They are a pain issue, not a safety issue. FPS limits on different weapons platforms impact this category of injury. This are the types of injuries that are covered in the waivers you sign.

b) Injuries to the face I've mentioned several times this thread. Face protection is the one real safety rule in airsoft.

[Jester316]

I made no mention of FPS. I've seen 215 embed bb's in skin. I've seen 300fps chip a tooth. Applying all of Jerm's gun safety rules to those instances would have negated those risks.

[ogrejager]

a) I don't consider flesh wounds to be a safety issue. They require no cleanup and heal naturally over 1-2 weeks. They are a pain issue, not a safety issue.

Wow. Just wow.

Tell that to the Mom of the 14-year-old.

Oh, and warn me if you're ever handling real guns anywhere in the state of Oregon, please.

I can't wait for the timed Jer/Ivan match.

[Evil Zergling137]

I made no mention of FPS. I've seen 215 embed bb's in skin. I've seen 300fps chip a tooth. Applying all of Jerm's gun safety rules to those instances would have negated those risks.

1: Treat all firearms as if they are always loaded.
2: never point a firearm at anything you are not willing, and justified to shoot.
3: keep your firearm on safe untill you are on target, ready, and justified to fire.
4: keep your finger straight, off the trigger and out of the trigger guard in untill you are on target, willing, and justified to fire.
5: know your target, what is in front of your target, and behind your target.

Jester, please explain how these rules negate those circumstances.

a) I don't consider flesh wounds to be a safety issue. They require no cleanup and heal naturally over 1-2 weeks. They are a pain issue, not a safety issue.

Wow. Just wow.

Tell that to the Mom of the 14-year-old.

Who's Mom? Which 14 year old? What are you talking about? If you don't think that occasional welts and blood are acceptable you need another hobby. I get multiple welts every airsoft game, some of which bleed.

Oh, and warn me if you're ever handling real guns anywhere in the state of Oregon, please.

No.