{"id":13230,"date":"2016-03-16T17:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T22:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13230"},"modified":"2016-03-16T17:00:51","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T22:00:51","slug":"the-abcs-of-gun-safety-from-an-emts-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/16\/the-abcs-of-gun-safety-from-an-emts-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The ABC’s of Gun Safety from an EMT’s Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

Really Excellent Article on Gun Safety from a Perspective I thing we all can Appreciate..the Guy you call to Patch you up when a Band-Aid won’t suffice!-SF<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"desperate
desperate gestures with gun in hands at work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

To begin, let me tell you why you need to read this article and absorb what I have to say. In just my small town, and just this\u00a0 week, I was involved in the care of three gunshot victims. Two of them died. One of those I took in a body bag to a morgue, the other I pronounced dead at the scene (let the coroner take care of that clean-up) and tried my damnedest to console a wife-to-be as she asked me \u201cwhy?\u201d\u00a0 The third survived, but with grievous and life-changing injury.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the worst part:\u00a0 all three of these were preventable.<\/p>\n

*DISCLAIMER*<\/strong>: I am not a firearms instructor, expert witness, or any other authority on guns. I am, however, an EMT, a lifelong gun enthusiast, and a man of integrity. I do not intend to publish anything that I know to be misleading, harmful, or untrue. Feel free to call me out if you believe I\u2019ve failed with this. I don\u2019t think I have, and I don\u2019t think you will either.In every case I can pinpoint exactly where gun safety broke down. Then due to one circumstance or another, the firearm performed exactly as it was designed to \u2013 sear breaks, firing pin crushes primer, gunpowder burns, pressure builds, and projectile flies. I don\u2019t want any of you to have to bear the things I have this week, and so I present my ABC\u2019s of gun safety.<\/p>\n

The ABC\u2019s are something any medically minded person can recognize immediately. The acronym, fully ABCD, stands for: Airway Breathing Circulation Disability.<\/p>\n

These are the steps of resuscitation and are listed in order of importance, beginning with airway. Without an airway, you can\u2019t breathe (really bad). If you don\u2019t breathe, your heart can\u2019t circulate oxygenated blood (extra bad). Without oxygenated blood your brain and heart will die (insanely bad). Finally, If there\u2019s some significant disability, you might be pumping your oxygenated blood all over the world (super bad). Realistically you need to have all four to sustain life, but you especially need an airway first or you\u2019ll quickly lose the rest. Then you need breathing, then circulation, then [lack of] disability, in that order, to have life.<\/p>\n

Gun safety, in my opinion, is similar. There are basics that you must have in order for any other efforts to be effective. Every gun manual with every gun I\u2019ve ever purchased favors the \u201cten commandments of gun safety\u201d. I\u2019ll explain in another article why I despise this analogy, and why I believe it may have killed three people last week. For now, I\u2019ll give you my version of gun safety, and if followed it may not only save your life or a loved one\u2019s, but could have saved the lives of three other good Americans.<\/p>\n

Airway. Treat every gun like it is loaded.<\/strong> Sounds simple enough, but this is incredibly important. It is the lynchpin of all other gun safety, and despite its simplicity must not be taken lightly. Let\u2019s dissect this more to find out why. The word treat, as opposed to handle, or load, or use, implies that all weapons (not just the ones we\u2019re going to handle, or load, or use) must be dealt with the same way: safely. It also implies that safety is all of our responsibility. Your wife\u2019s gun, that antique in the picture frame at your buddy\u2019s house, the guy down line on the range, the gun you or a shop keep is inspecting at the gun show, must all be treated like they are loaded. The consequences of not doing so are dire.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cevery\u201d is covered somewhat already, but I mean EVERY gun. It also implies an aspect of constant vigilance. Once a gun is cleared, you do not get to stop treating it safely. Vice versa if you clear a weapon and hand it to someone else, you wouldn\u2019t let them point it at your eyeball to inspect the barrel. Treat EVERY gun, all the time, like it\u2019s loaded. I insist on using the word \u201clike\u201d instead of \u201cas if\u201d because people tend to treat loaded weapons differently (usually more safely), and this isn\u2019t a fantasy world we live in. I don\u2019t want anyone \u201cpfft, as if<\/em>it\u2019s loade**BANG!**\u201d. Treat that weapon like it\u2019s loaded, even if you know it\u2019s not. Where we tend to forget this rule is with loaded weapons, an every-day carry for example. However, safety especially applies loaded weapons. Do not get complacent. Treat it like it is loaded, BECAUSE IT IS.<\/p>\n

Take it out of your holster carefully and clear it safely, THEN take your pants\/holster\/coat off. The word \u201cloaded\u201d portends to a weapon that is ready to fire i.e. it will discharge if you allow it to. That\u2019s what is designed to do, go bang! \u201cSo when the safety is on, since what it\u2019s designed to do is keep that firearm from discharging, it\u2019s safe, right?\u201d WRONG. Every firearm is simply a mechanical device and can fail which can lead to discharge. Ammo could fail, and no bang happen, but why take the chance? Every gun can fire, intentionally or not, if conditions that are not obvious to an external observer are met. If these impossible to know conditions are met, the gun is deadly if used incorrectly. Therefore, treat every gun like it is loaded.<\/strong> Do this, and you have your airway. Other gun safety can now follow.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Havok Journal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Really Excellent Article on Gun Safety from a Perspective I thing we all can Appreciate..the Guy you call to Patch you up when a Band-Aid won’t suffice!-SF   To begin, let me tell you why you need to read this article and absorb what I have to say. In just my small town, and just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3631,4579,24],"tags":[10339,719,10340,2789],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}