| Show TO HANDLE A GUN i Dont Play Monkey Tricks With Firearms tCIDENT INCIDENT IN A GUN STORE How to Climb a Fence With a GunSome Things Not to DoState Camps and Sham Battles NEW YORK May 13 l891ISpeclnl correspondence cor-respondence of THE HERALDA bronzed and bearded sportsman of seventy walked into a big gun store on Broadway and asked for some tiventytwocallbre cat ridges A box was handed out to him and be examined them leisurely with the eye of an expert The last I bought didnt fit very well he observed I think Ill try these and With the familiarity of an old customer he t preached to take a gun down from tho rack v Dont sir please said the proprietor xoure an oia customer ana a good ono but its tho rule of the store never to let a gun or a pistol be loaded in it Bosh said the sportsman a trifle testily tes-tily your clerks were born I only want to see if they will fit The last ones I had were a trifle too tight to work easily in my target rifle which is this make And the old sportsman opened the breech of the rifle io had taken down and shook two or three cartridges out of the box he had just bought Perhaps he did it a trifle more hastily because of the gun sellers protestations protesta-tions Its against the rule repeated the latter lat-ter hastily I really cant Bang I Thud He never finished the sentence The man had dropped the cartridge into the gun and closed the breech and something had inexplicably gone wrong for the first time in his half century of experience The gun Went off the little bullet whizzed the length of the store and hurried itself in the woodwork wood-work about the door not half a yard from where a man sat loading cartridges My God said the old sportsman HI never had a thing like that happen before His cheek Was white and his hnnrl trnrn bled like a leaf in the wind The man who bad been loading cartridges showed a sudden sud-den pallor and all the clerks came running up with consternation in their faces After toe trouble was well over the pro ietorhe was Mr Henry C Squires iJias in a mood to talk about the safe hand ling of guns Yes he said its the rule of the store to let no arm be loaded in it We simply wont load a gun or a pistol for a man and let him take it away The fool who didnt know it was loaded isnt a patch to some of the people who come in here They will grab the guns off the racks or counters and point them at each other and play all sorts of monkey tricks Of course theyre never loaded but it isnt safe to presume upon that People come In herewith here-with pistols to be repaired Is It loaded we always ask Oh no will be the reply But we dont take it for granted It is the invariable rule in receiving an arm tolook first for cartridges and youd be surprised to see how often we find them all rusted sometimes sure not to go off when burg Jars are around and quite apt to explode When theyre not wanted to VCant you give me a few sensible rules about handling a guns I asked III The one important rule is never under any circumstances to point the muzzle of a gun or pistol at yourself or anybody else It makes no difference whether its loaded or not Everyone who has anything to do with firearms ought to make this a sort of second nature so that he will without thinking about it always observe this rule When carrying a gun in the field most sportmen either carry it over the left arm with the muzzle pointing up and to the left or under the right arm with the muzzle muz-zle forward and down The second position posi-tion is the more convenient for quick firing and on the whole better 1 3UU dos rr l v 1 1 ilcr sM C J 1000 yRRaw 1C t POSITIONS OF THE DIFFERENT RANGES How would you get over fence carry ing a guns That depends on the fence I wouldnt sotiho gun over the fence with the muzzle up ana get over on top of it and I wouldnt crawl through and pull the gun after me by the muzzle Anything but a barbed wire fence I would climb over carefully holding the gun in my hand and always aimed away from any human being preferably at the ground How early is it proper to give guns to boysUnder Under careful instruction any time after they are 12 years old boys can carry light 16guage or 22calibre guns but it is wrong to arm them with heavy rifles whose balls carry a longdistance Of course any boy should be taught to handle a gun properly The + season is just begipning when militiamen are practicing rifle shooting at numbers of field ranges and in a few weeks the state camps will be under way with sham battles and field work of all sorts Usually some men cet hurt during this mimic warfare and I wont from the gun store to ask a Creed moor marksman who has won lots of badges for rifle shbotin if i there was any way of avoiding such accidents ac-cidents The military rule he said Is always to hold the piece with the muzzle elevated The men are so close together that if a man were to carry his rifle muzzle down like a hunter hea be plugging the legs of the mon ahead of him full of lead The safest mili tary pose is tho familiar one with the rifle over the shoulder muzzle slanting up Of course you know the four shooting positions posi-tions standing at 100 yards sitting or kneeling at 200 lying l down at 300 to 600 Then in the long range matches they some times lie flat on their backs with the gun resting upon the legs That hardly a military posture though Now when I won the marksmans How would you got over a fence with a gun I The marksman seemed a little staggered and didnt return a very satisfactory answer ans-wer He seemed to think however that it would be a pretty good plan to carry a gun over a fence precisely as if on parade I am myself of opinion that this wouldnt al be easy Imagine a man going over a high barbed fence with his rifle in prime mili tary posture Probably it would be a good plan for militiamen to remember Mr Squires rule of not pointing a gun at any body while struggling with the barbs and uttering appropriate remarks I Its the disregard of this rule that ac counts for the accidents at sham fights l How A blank cartridges got mixed up with loaded ones is a mystery but they do some times Perhaps the armorer is in too great a hurry and makes a mistake or perhaps one or two of the men happen to have Loaded shellsin their pockets and put them in by mistake in the excitement which even a sham light always causes Then when the opposing forces get at close quarters and there is a tremendous racket in the air and guns are going off at close range and with deadly aim some one is apt to get hurt This happens even with the blank cartridges sometimes the mere blaze and shock of the report making ugly burns at close quarters Making it the invariable rule to fire in the air would obviate any possibility of accident fz I r J lb y Ili fill r t i r DONT DO THIS Two ladies once lived as close neighbors Both had cherished sons until one day the son of Mrs A got bold of a gun on the sly and by careless management blew his brains put So soon as Mrs B learned of the accident she fd bought her son a gun and arranged to have him taught to use it prop erly The horrified remonstrance of the entire neighborhood brought out the very sensible reply that it was better for a boy to have a gun and learn to use it than to be loft to got hold of ono surreptitiously with out knowing how to keep his skin whole Very different mothers must have had two young men whom I knew once who were hunting squirrels one day When they were ready to go home one of them holding his gun carelessly by his side pulled the trigger and discharged it not wishing to carry it home loaded Just at that moment he looked up and was frozen with horror to see his companion standing in direct line of fire But the gun didnt go off Miraculous as it may seem the flap of the shooters open vest had strayed be tween the hammer and the cap It was an oldfashioned muzzleloading shotgun ana if it had gone off the other fellows chest would have looked like a colander What a vivid recollection of assisting one hot summer afternoon to extract a 22 calibre revolver bullet from the small of the back of an associate who had come into possession of it in a very silly piece of boy play with another acquaintance it strikes me thata little care in handling ss weapons would be wise and might save some folks lots of trouble DAVID WECHSLEB |
