“Treat all guns as if they are loaded until you check them for yourself.”
I’ll add, even if they are not loaded, treat them if they are. What does this mean? It’s not always easy to tell if a firearm is loaded, so anytime you handle it, you MUST check it to be sure. Most people when they handle firearms break this rule. They handle their firearm for various reasons or just hand it to someone who wishes to see it without checking to see if it’s unloaded.
As a firearms instructor, I have folks hand me their firearm all the time. When someone does this, I ask, “Is it loaded?” The usual answer is no, so I’ll accept the firearm. Because, I’m not sure it’s unloaded (because I haven’t checked it), I remove the magazine to check. Yes, the magazine is empty 99.99% of the time, so far so good. Then I’ll open the action, around 50% of the time, out pops a cartridge that was loaded in the chamber. You should see the surprise on their face when they realize they handed me a loaded gun and broken a cardinal rule of firearms safety!
Whenever I pick up one of my guns, even when I’ve just taken it out of the safe, I always fully check to be sure it’s unloaded by removing the magazine and then opening the action to be assured there isn’t round in the chamber. Only then can I safely handle the firearm or hand it to someone to look at. I also make sure the action is open when I do hand it to someone so that they can easily inspect it and assure themselves, it’s unloaded.
So how do you treat a firearm as it’s loaded when they’re not, well that’s a future blog post.