PLEASE Keep Your Finger Off the Trigger!

I'm sorry, but if a gun store owner wants to sell me a gun but won't let me put my finger on the trigger, I'm going to go elsewhere.

What's the point of holding the gun in the hand if not to see how it fits? And the most important part of that fit is how it fits with your finger on the trigger, not stuck up alongside the frame. This argument is silly.

This is NOT an unsafe action; the gun should not be loaded in the display case, should be verified as unloaded before handed to the customer, and should again be verified as unloaded by the customer (will be verified if that customer is me), but at that point it is absolutely NOT AN UNSAFE ACTION.

As an aside, on the point above about soldiers, when I was taught in the military, I was taught weapon on safe, thumb on the selector lever, and finger on the trigger. This was for tactical situations, when we expected only enemy to be in front of our muzzles, but that's how I was taught. For garrison situations, we kept our fingers out of the trigger guard except when necessary to fire the weapon on the range, or to drop the hammer for another reason (storage of the weapons, for instance).
 
GM1967 posted
I'm sorry, but if a gun store owner wants to sell me a gun but won't let me put my finger on the trigger, I'm going to go elsewhere.

What's the point of holding the gun in the hand if not to see how it fits? And the most important part of that fit is how it fits with your finger on the trigger, not stuck up alongside the frame. This argument is silly.
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It appears you don't understand the argument, but it's not silly at all.

No one here is talking about shops not letting customers put their finger on the trigger. If you want to put your finger on the trigger or even dry fire the gun we're fine with that. We have targets all along the top of the back wall expressly for that purpose. But if they're just holding the gun with their finger on the trigger, they appear as though they have zero modern firearm training. If they're that casual with putting their finger on the trigger of an unloaded gun, that will most likely translate to how they treat a loaded gun.

Handling a firearm safely and testing the trigger is one thing. Putting your finger on the trigger because you have no idea how to safely handle a firearm is another.
 
I'm sorry, but if a gun store owner wants to sell me a gun but won't let me put my finger on the trigger, I'm going to go elsewhere.
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If you want to pick up a gun with your finger on the trigger, without checking where the thing is pointed, or if you point it at me, I would invite you to go elsewhere. There's a pretty big difference in random handling of the gun with your finger on the trigger and putting your finger on the trigger when you're ready to dry fire after having double checked that it's cleared.

Nobody's saying you can't feel the trigger. You just can't be reckless about it.


Sgt Lumpy
 
He says that all day long, people ask to see a gun in the case, he clears it and hands it to them and the very first thing they do is pull the trigger while pointing it at him.
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Yep. It seems that people are hardwired to point any gun I hand them at my crotch and start pulling the trigger like crazy. Evidently, a layer of glass countertop will protect me from gunshots.

If it's an automatic, I hand it over with the action locked open and the empty magazine still inserted. At least it buys me a few seconds to take a breath and stand to the side before they figure out how to slap the action shut and start pumping imaginary rounds away.

It would be nice if people asked before doing that, like the old days. It really would.

The absolute highlight of my week is the inevitable know-it-all who pulls a gun out of the holster, sweeps me with it, swears it's not loaded, then seems surprised to find a round that the Magic Bullet Fairy teleported a round into the chamber.
 
Unfortunately - that's retail. I'd suggest you either get out now while you still can, or learn to deal with it. I quit retail in 1983 because the level of dumb got too much for me.

I found the following observation just about sums it all up:

"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."

Frank Zappa
 
Tom Servo posted
The absolute highlight of my week is the inevitable know-it-all who pulls a gun out of the holster, sweeps me with it, swears it's not loaded, then seems surprised to find a round that the Magic Bullet Fairy teleported a round into the chamber.
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Yeah, the sad thing is that kind of thing happens often enough that I don't even get angry about it any more.
 
I had a lady parole officer wander into my store once and wanted me to check out her issue firearm and advise her about cleaning it better, as she had evidently been taking flak from someone in her dept.
She proceeded to pull a 3" model 64 S&W from her purse with her finger on the trigger and fired a silvertip into the floor. I reached over the counter and took the gun from her and escorted her to a bathroom where we washed the powder residue from her other hand that had been holding the purse, and bandaged her finger that had been creased by the bullet (luckily the finger was still there). This was early in the morning and there were luckily no other customers in the store.
She called her supervisors and they came in with cameras and everything to investigate the incident, and later called to thank me for handling the situation as tastefully as possible. They said she would be scheduled for further training.
No....I don't necessarily even trust all trained "professionals" to keep their wits about them as far as the finger on the trigger business.
 
Folks - let's stop using profanity - in this thread. Either I see a row of **** or the abbreviation for such.

So keep your fingers off the key sequence that types such.

GEM
 
I go into gun shops all the time with some of my other less gun smart Marine buddies. Normally they are pretty okay about keeping their fingers off the trigger, but they almost never recheck the gun for a loaded chamber/magazine after it is handed to them and they sweep nearly everything with the muzzle. In all honesty, weapons training is a very small part of the job for Marines (other military members as well, I would assume) that aren't part of the infantry. We go to the range once or twice a year to qualify, but that's really about it. I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about firearms from my military training, I learned almost everything I know from civilian instructors & knowledgeable family/friends.

I always recheck the gun after it is handed to me and before I give it back. I also always ask permission before pointing it at anything or dry firing. The clerks at all of the shops I've been to seem to be pretty appreciative of that.
 
SHE3PDOG posted
I go into gun shops all the time with some of my other less gun smart Marine buddies. Normally they are pretty okay about keeping their fingers off the trigger, but they almost never recheck the gun for a loaded chamber/magazine after it is handed to them and they sweep nearly everything with the muzzle. In all honesty, weapons training is a very small part of the job for Marines (other military members as well, I would assume) that aren't part of the infantry.
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That actually surprises me quite a bit. Gun safety is drummed into all Marines in boot camp. I thought all Marines were fairly competent with firearm safety and fairly proficient with their weapons.

Having been active duty infantry, I'm sure I have a somewhat skewed view (pretty much all you do in Marine infantry is deploy or train for your next deployment; there were very few days in my four year enlistment that I didn't handle a weapon), but it was my understanding that non-infantry Marines did a fair amount of weapons training also?
 
I handled weapons when transporting and uploading (tapeload startup) classified targeting tapes for Minuteman II weapon system while in the Air Force.

In Basic, we had an eight hour class and a day on the range. I never saw a weapon again until I got to my first permanent base. Cops and code handlers were the only personnel to be issued weapons.

My son was in the Marine Corps for eight years as a satellite communications technician in the Gulf. He still had an M16 he carried on duty and helped out in more than one skirmish.

I worked as a manager at a gun range/retail store for six years and saw every kind of customer talked about in this thread except the gang-bangers who walked into the store one day with their hands under their hoodies with a counter full of armed customers and would not show their hands when asked to do so.

I'll let you guess as to how that incident worked itself out...
 
That actually surprises me quite a bit. Gun safety is drummed into all Marines in boot camp. I thought all Marines were fairly competent with firearm safety and fairly proficient with their weapons.

Having been active duty infantry, I'm sure I have a somewhat skewed view (pretty much all you do in Marine infantry is deploy or train for your next deployment; there were very few days in my four year enlistment that I didn't handle a weapon), but it was my understanding that non-infantry Marines did a fair amount of weapons training also?
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Well, you have to remember that most Marines aren't 03xx (infantry). While a lot of people do help out while deployed, or do some extra training in pre-deployment work ups, most don't handle firearms in their every day jobs. Any military training outside of qualification week is really not up to the Marine; it is up to the command.

Of course, everyone has the option to spend their free time getting civilian marksmanship training, but a lot of people aren't interested in that. I also find it a little funny when people say something like, "My Marine friend said..." or "My friend in the Army said...". As strange as it may seem to some, a lot of military members just simply aren't "gun guys", and they're opinion is not the gold standard.
 
SHE3PDOG posted
I also find it a little funny when people say something like, "My Marine friend said..." or "My friend in the Army said...". As strange as it may seem to some, a lot of military members just simply aren't "gun guys", and they're opinion is not the gold standard.
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Yeah, even most infantry guys aren't gun guys. I hate when people say stuff like that! To me, saying something like, "My friend is a Marine and he says this is a great concealed carry gun." is like saying, "My friend is a bus driver and he says this is the best chainsaw on the market."
 
That's more like saying "My friend is a bus driver and says these are the best brakes on the market! But he's only used the ones that came installed in the bus he was driving and has never used them in a sport sedan on the road"
 
So it's really "Some Marines a Rifleman" instead of "Every Marine a Rifleman". I did not know that.

My dad, a SeaBee in WWII, said they used to shoot at garbage thrown from the ship with their M1 and Mauser bolt action rifles.


Sgt Lumpy
 
Training

I think this has been pretty well covered that this is a training issue. I personally wouldn't be opposed to all states having heavily safety focus training mandatory for weapons purchases. Regardless, people will still be stupid. I have no qualms about abrasively and vigorously correcting a serious safety issue.. If someone takes offense than they should learn a few "minor" things such as muzzle discipline and trigger safety
 
I personally wouldn't be opposed to all states having heavily safety focus training mandatory for weapons purchases.
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Boy, there's a can of worms.

I guess that works pretty well in California, eh?


Sgt Lumpy
 
That basic Mauser bolt action that lots of companies copied. Likely a lot of them in WWII were confiscated from the enemy even though the SeaBees tended to be on the "other" ocean, not near Germany.


Sgt Lumpy
 
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