The safety curriculum.

1. Sit where you can see the front. It makes asking questions easier, and the questions are the point.
2. Know that there is no live fire in this room, today or any day. Everything practical is done with inert trainers, or with a real firearm that is unloaded, checked unloaded, and locked before anybody touches it.
3. You do not have to own a gun, you do not have to shoot, and you do not have to tell us anything about what is in your house. Nobody is asked what they own.
4. Learn the one phrase that runs the whole class: the muzzle points where it is pointed, and the finger decides when. Say it back to yourself once before the next lesson.
5. Ask anything at any point. The instructor will stop and answer it, because the question you ask in public is the question somebody else was too embarrassed to ask.

If you remember nothing else: the gun is always loaded, the muzzle is aimed at what the barrel is over, and the trigger only moves when you decide to move it.

1. A firearm is a machine that stores energy and releases it all at once, in one direction, faster than a person can think. That is why the rules are about position and timing rather than about care.
2. Three parts do the work. The muzzle is the front, where the projectile leaves. The chamber is the closed end of the barrel where a round waits, and it is the part you cannot see. The trigger is the only thing that lets the machine fire.
3. The magazine is the part you load. On most handguns a round in the magazine and a round in the chamber are two different rounds, so "the magazine is out" does not mean "the gun is empty".
4. Firearms make noise and they make things move fast. The hearing damage from one shot is done before you notice it, and it is the shot after that one that does the most damage. Ear protection first, and eye protection, always, even for the dry-fire parts of the class.
5. There is no such thing as a gun that is safe because of where it points right now. A firearm on a shelf is a stored firearm, and the storage module is about exactly that.

1. Start from the assumption that the gun you are holding has a round in the chamber. Even the one you unloaded this morning, and even the one that has been in the safe since Tuesday.
2. Why: because you cannot see the chamber, and because a gun is not empty because it was empty. It was empty yesterday and it is not empty today, and nothing in between changed that except a round being chambered.
3. What it buys you: the habit of checking. Checking is the single behaviour that turns a gun from a thing that might go off into a thing you know the state of.
4. Say it in your own words so it sticks. A good version is: until I have checked it myself, I treat it as loaded, no matter what anybody told me.
5. Note the exception and keep it small: a firearm you have just cleared, with the action open, the chamber visibly empty and your own hands on it, is a different situation. Everything else is rule one.

1. Rule two is short enough to say in one breath: never point the muzzle at anything you do not want to kill.
2. The reason is geometry. The round leaves the muzzle and keeps going in a straight line, and it does not stop for a wall, a door, a car, a pet or the person behind the wall. The gun is not aimed at what you are looking at, it is aimed at whatever the barrel is over.
3. Before you pick a firearm up, decide where the muzzle will go: down at the floor, or at a backstop you have checked. Point first, then pick it up — never the other way round.
4. Low ready, high ready, and holstered: all three are positions, and all three exist to keep the muzzle in a place that cannot hurt anybody while you are walking, talking, or putting your coat on.
5. The part people forget: your hand follows your eyes. Look away, and the muzzle swings. Look at where you are going, and the muzzle comes with you.
6. Muzzle discipline is the whole of rule two, and Drill A is where you practise it.

This lesson carries a five-minute stretch break. Stand up, move around, and look at the room from the door. It is a small habit, and it is worth more than it sounds.

1. Rule three: keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot. You are never ready to shoot in a classroom, so in a classroom your finger stays out of the trigger guard entirely.
2. The trigger does not know the difference between a decision and a reflex. It moves when it is moved, and a squeezed hand is a squeezed hand.
3. The safe place for your finger is the frame, outside the trigger guard, with the trigger finger straight. Practice this until it stops feeling like a strange position and starts feeling like where your finger lives.
4. There is a second rule hiding in the first: never put your finger inside the trigger guard, not even to pull the trigger on an unloaded gun, not even to check that it is unloaded, not even for a second.
5. Every accident where a gun went off in a house involved a finger on a trigger that was meant to be somewhere else. That is why this rule is the hardest one to hold and the most worth practising.
6. Drill B is where you practise it, with a trainer that has no trigger at all, so the drill cannot be failed by accident.

1. Rule four: be sure of your target, and of what is beyond it. Two things to know, not one.
2. The target is the thing you have decided to shoot at. The backstop is what stops anything that misses. At a range, the backstop is a wall you have checked; in a field, it might be nothing at all, and “nothing at all” is the answer that stops people shooting.
3. The third thing is the bystander: the person standing next to you, the child in the field of fire, the friend behind you. At a class, everyone stands behind the line and everyone knows where the line is.
4. Rule four is the rule that gets people hurt in the wrong place, so it is the rule where “maybe I can see it” is never good enough. If you cannot see the target clearly, the shot does not happen.

1. Do not touch it. Not to check it, not to move it, not to put it somewhere safer. A gun you did not put there is a crime scene and a hazard at the same time, and your hands are not the answer to either.
2. Back away. Put other people behind you, not between you and the gun.
3. Call the police on the non-emergency line, unless somebody has been hurt, in which case call the emergency number. Say plainly that you have found a firearm and where it is. The dispatcher will tell you what to do next, and you should stay on the line.
4. If a child found it, the same procedure, faster. An adult takes control of the room, the gun is not touched, and the police are called.
5. The same procedure applies to a gun that is loaded, a gun that is not loaded, and a gun you are not sure about. You are not being asked to judge the gun. You are being asked to keep everybody away from it and to call.

1. Write down the three habits you are taking out of the room: where the muzzle goes, where the finger goes, and what you do when you find a gun.
2. Write down the one change you will make in your house this month. One.
3. Questions. Anything you did not want to ask in front of the room, ask now, in the room, with the instructor looking at you.

1. Before a firearm is touched, two things are decided: where the muzzle is going, and where the finger is going. Not after. Before.
2. Muzzle down at the floor, or at a backstop you have checked and announced. High ready, low ready, or holstered — the position matters less than the habit of picking one on purpose.
3. The finger goes on the frame, outside the trigger guard, and stays there until you are actually shooting, which in a classroom is never.
4. Pick the gun up with two hands, with the grip and the frame, not with the muzzle end, and do not lean it against anything while you do it.
5. Owners, and only owners, may handle a firearm in the class — unloaded, checked, and with the instructor saying so out loud first. If it is not yours, your hands stay off it.

1. Clearing a firearm means finding out, with your own eyes, that it is unloaded. It is a procedure, and it is done the same way every time, whatever the make and model.
2. Point the muzzle somewhere safe: down at the floor, or at a backstop you have checked. Keep the finger outside the trigger guard for the whole sequence.
3. Remove the magazine and put it down, out of reach, in one place. It is the first thing out and the last thing you touch.
4. Open the action and look into the chamber. Not at the ejection port, and not “at the gun”. At the chamber, with light on it, until you can see the empty space where the round would be.
5. Check the magazine and the chamber separately. Two places, two checks.
6. Do it again, slowly, before you do anything else with the firearm. The second check is not paranoia; it is the check that catches the first one being done in a hurry.
7. If the firearm is a revolver, the sequence is different: the cylinder swings out, every chamber is looked at, and the cylinder is closed with the ejection gate down. Learn the one you own, and if you own more than one, learn each one.

I am going to check this gun, and I am going to look into the chamber. I am doing it the same way I have done it two hundred times, and I am doing it slowly.

1. Unloading is the reverse of loading, in the same order, and it is worth learning as one motion rather than two.
2. The muzzle never leaves the safe direction. It goes down, or to the backstop, and it stays there while your hands do the work.
3. The magazine goes in with a firm push, guided by the hand, not thrown and not pushed with the heel of your palm. The fingers stay outside the trigger guard the entire time.
4. After the magazine is seated, the chamber is still empty until you pull the slide or work the action yourself. A firearm with a magazine in it and a round in the chamber is loaded, and a firearm with a magazine in it and no round in the chamber is still, to everybody who matters, a loaded-looking firearm.
5. Chambering a round means pulling the action back with the muzzle pointed somewhere safe, letting it go forward, and keeping your hands clear of the ejection port. Your hand does not go near that port. Ever.
6. Any safety on the firearm is a mechanical device, not a promise. A safety can be off, a trigger can be touched, and a safety does not make a gun safe to leave lying on a table.
7. When you are done, unload it. A firearm that is put down loaded is the start of nearly every accident story you will ever hear.

1. A jam is a mechanical problem, and it is a routine one. Rounds are designed to be fed from a magazine thousands of times, and a bad feed happens to everybody.
2. First: keep the muzzle pointed somewhere safe and keep your finger off the trigger. A jam that is worked on with a finger on the trigger becomes a discharge.
3. Open the action and look. Most jams are visible: a round is stuck, or the round has tipped over, or the magazine did not seat. You cannot see it if you do not look.
4. Release the magazine, drop it, and let the action close fully under control with the muzzle pointed down. A firearm that will not close is telling you something.
5. Do not dig with a finger, do not shake it hard, and do not try to force the round. If it will not clear in a couple of attempts, stop, set the firearm down pointed away from people, and get help.
6. The instructor shows you the clear for the make and model you own, and you practise it on a trainer that is set up to jam on purpose. That is what the trainer is for.

1. Transport a firearm cased, unloaded, and with the ammunition separate. Cased so nobody can see it or touch it, unloaded so the case is not the only thing between you and a discharge, separate so a case that comes open is not a loaded gun.
2. In a vehicle: locked, out of sight, never in a seat next to a passenger, and never in the hand of somebody who is not the owner. A glove box is a locked box for the length of the drive and not one minute longer.
3. Check the transport and storage law where you live before you cross a state line. The rules are not the same everywhere, and a gun lock does not make an unlawful trip lawful.
4. Never transport a firearm in a bag you are not also carrying yourself, and never leave one in a vehicle, even for five minutes. A vehicle is the easiest gun theft in the world.

1. This is the habit that makes the rest of it work, and it takes five minutes at a kitchen table with an inert trainer or an empty, locked firearm.
2. Minute one: point. Pick it up with the muzzle going somewhere safe, and say where that is out loud.
3. Minute two: finger. Trigger finger straight on the frame, outside the guard, and say “outside” each time.
4. Minute three: clear. Run the clearing sequence, out loud, every time.
5. Minute four: reload. Put the magazine in, work the action, and unload it again. The point is the hands learning the order, not the magazine.
6. Minute five: put it away. Lock it, put the key somewhere else, and check the storage checklist.
7. Do it three times a week for a month and the class is finished. That is the whole secret.

1. Any instructor, any student, any moment: stop means the finger comes off and the muzzle comes down. Nothing else.
2. Nobody has ever been made to feel small for using it, and the instructor who is told to stop will thank you afterwards, in private, where it belongs.
3. Say the word out loud in this class, at least once, so that you know you can. Most people discover they can, and then never need to.
4. It works on yourself too. If your own hands are doing something you did not plan, stop talking and stop moving first.

1. If you brought your own firearm, this is where the instructor checks it with you, unloaded, and answers the questions that are specific to your make and model. Nobody else handles it.
2. Bring the manual if you have it. The manual is where the manufacturer puts the clearing steps, and it is better than anybody's memory, including mine.
3. Ask about the gun you actually own, not the one you are thinking about buying. The answer is different for every model, and the class is free, so there is no reason to guess.

This lesson includes the class break. Ten minutes, and the room stays as it is: firearms cased and locked, trainers on the table.

1. Locked means locked. The test we teach is simple: a child cannot get it open, and a determined adult will move on to the next house.
2. What counts: a cable lock through the trigger guard, a lock box that is bolted to a stud, a gun safe with a real lock on it, a snap-lock ammunition case, and a storage chest that is fastened to something.
3. What does not count: a drawer, a bedside table, a shelf, a hollowed-out book, a lockbox with the key in it, or any place a twelve-year-old could open in under a minute.
4. Most local safe-storage laws talk about a lockbox, a lock, or a gun safe. Check the law where you live, because the definition is local, and because that definition is what a police officer will use if it ever matters.
5. Lock the storage, not just the gun. A locked safe in a walk-in wardrobe with a key in the same room is a locked safe with a delay.

1. Store it unloaded, and check that it is unloaded when you put it away. A locked, loaded firearm is one click away from being an unlocked, loaded firearm.
2. The check is the module two sequence, done one more time: magazine out, action open, look in the chamber, look in the magazine.
3. Keep a chamber flag or a cable lock through the action on the firearms you store. It is not a substitute for checking, and it is a very good second thing.
4. Store it in a way that the person who finds it cannot get it out quickly. This is not about burglars with equipment; it is about the four-year-old and the curious twelve-year-old, and they are the realistic case.
5. Do not store a firearm loaded because you “might need it in a hurry”. That is the most common storage mistake we hear, and it is the one the law class will talk about.

1. Ammunition is the thing that turns a curiosity into an accident. A firearm with no ammunition in it is much less dangerous than a firearm with a cartridge in the chamber, and a magazine on its own is still a dangerous object.
2. Store it separately: a different room, a different building, a different lock. “Separate” means somebody would have to find two things in two places.
3. Ammo in a locked case, in a place nobody would guess, with a key or a code that is not next to the firearm. A tin in the same drawer is not separate.
4. Count it, write it down, and check the count twice a year. It takes an afternoon, and it is the only way you will ever know.
5. Do not keep loose ammunition in a drawer with anything that a child would pick up and eat. Cartridges are not food and they are not a toy, and some places have specific rules about how ammunition is stored.

1. Out of sight is the default. Not on a bedside table, not in a drawer in the hall, not in a glove box, not on a shelf in an open-plan room.
2. Somewhere ordinary-looking is better than somewhere clever. A guest looks in the obvious places; the best storage is the storage nobody thinks to look in. You do not need a hidden compartment — you need a locked box in an unlikely room.
3. There is an argument for a display safe: a locked, mounted safe in the room you are in, so the firearm is not in a drawer in the hall with the children. That is a reasonable choice, and it is a locked choice, not an open one.
4. Whatever you choose, the test is the same one from lesson 3.1: a child cannot get it open.

1. The key, the code and the combination are storage too. A gun safe whose key hangs on the same hook as the coats is a gun safe that a fifteen-year-old can open.
2. Keep the key or code in a different room, or with somebody who is not at home all day, or in a locked place that is not near the firearm. Some people use a lockbox, some a phone, some a second safe. All of them work.
3. Do not write the code on a sticky note on the safe, and do not keep it in the notes app on the same phone the safe is on.
4. Tell exactly one other adult where the key is, or where the code is, and make sure they know the whole procedure. A key nobody can find is a gun nobody can get to when it is needed, and that is a different kind of trouble.
5. Change the combination when you change the people who live in the house.

1. Tell the adults who live with you that there is a gun, and that it is stored unlocked nowhere. Most home firearm accidents involve a firearm the household knew about and a person in the house who had not been told where it was.
2. Tell the children, in plain words, at their level: if you find a gun, do not touch it, do not pick it up, walk away and tell an adult. A child who knows that is a child who runs.
3. Tell the guest who stays over, and the friend whose children are in the house this weekend. Adults are the ones who usually pick the gun up.
4. Tell the person who is thinking about suicide in your house, too: put anything that can be used to kill yourself out of reach, and tell your doctor and a crisis line. In the United States the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is 988; in Canada it is 9-8-8. Both answer at any hour and neither needs an account.
5. If there is violence in your home, the safest step is distance and the police. There are also lawful programmes in most places that let somebody in a violent household hand a firearm over for a cooling-off period without losing it, and the law class will point you at the one for your jurisdiction.

1. In a vehicle, treat it as a locked box, not as a compartment. Cased, unloaded, ammunition separate, out of sight, and not in a seat next to a passenger.
2. Never leave a firearm in a vehicle, even for five minutes, and never in a vehicle that is unlocked. It is the most common gun theft in the country.
3. Write the serial number down and keep the paper with your important documents. It is what makes a stolen firearm recoverable, and it costs nothing.
4. If a firearm goes missing: tell the police, give them the serial number, and do not go looking for it yourself. The police are the people paid and trained for that, and a person searching for their own gun in the dark is how a search becomes a second accident.

1. A firearm may not be sold to anyone under 18 by a licensed dealer, and a dealer may not sell to anybody without a background check and the required waiting period before the sale is completed.
2. There is no federal registry of gun owners. The records that exist are dealer and transfer records, not a list of who owns what.
3. Certain firearms and parts are restricted by federal law for everybody, whoever you are and wherever you live — machine guns, silencers and short-barreled rifles are the well-known examples, and the rules around them are strict.
4. Federally licensed firearms dealers have to follow federal record-keeping and conduct rules, and the ATF is the office that enforces them.
5. This is the floor, not the whole picture. Everything in the next four lessons sits on top of it, and the top of it is where you live.

1. Many states require a licence or permit to buy, or require a background check on private sales as well as dealer sales, or both. Some do not.
2. A “permit to purchase” is not the same thing as a licence to carry, and neither one is the same thing as the certificate you get for finishing a safety course. Ask which one you are actually buying.
3. Private sales between neighbours, at a gun show, or through a family member are the places where the state rules bite hardest, and where people are most often surprised.
4. Bring your identification and anything the state asks for, and check the current list before you go. Requirements change, and the list on the internet is often older than the law.

1. Most states have a licence or permit to carry a handgun, and some require a training course before you can get one. Our class is not a certification course and does not make you eligible for a permit.
2. Some states have what is called permitless carry, some require you to be at least 18, some at 21, and some still issue a licence.
3. Where you carry matters as much as whether you may. There are rules about vehicles, about workplaces, about schools, about bars, about hospitals, and about private property, and a firearm that is legal to own can be illegal to carry in the place you are standing.
4. Firearms are restricted or banned outright in sensitive places in most states, and federal law prohibits them in federal courthouses. Schools, hospitals, government buildings and private businesses have their own rules.
5. Every class we run ends with the same line: this is general information about the shape of the law, not legal advice, and if you want to know what the law means for you, that is a conversation with a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.

1. Many states now have a safe-storage law, and the terms vary: a lock, a locked container, or the firearm out of reach of a child.
2. Some of these laws are about children, some are about theft, and the penalties differ. Some carry a duty to report a lost or stolen firearm.
3. The law may also say something about ammunition, about the person who is allowed to be near the firearm, or about a temporary transfer for a medical emergency or a mental-health crisis.
4. Check the law where you live, because the definition of “locked” in a storage law is a legal definition, not the one from module three. They are usually similar and they are not always the same.

1. What you may do in a vehicle, what you must do at a state line, and what an airline will accept are three different rules, and each of them has its own paperwork.
2. Most states have a reciprocity rule for a handgun licence, and the exceptions are where people get stopped. Read your own state's list; do not rely on somebody's story about it.
3. A gun lock does not make an unlawful trip lawful, and a permit does not make a forbidden place legal.
4. Air travel has its own rules about what can be checked and what can be carried on, and they are published by the airline. Read them before you go to the airport, not at the counter.

1. Go to the official source: the state legislature's website, the state attorney-general's office, or the state police or firearms regulatory agency. Those are the places the law actually lives.
2. Write down the date you checked it. Laws change, and “I read it in 2019” is not a legal opinion.
3. If you want an answer that applies to your situation, that is a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction, or a legal aid clinic if you cannot afford one. Ask your question there, in person, and keep the answer.
4. Never with a forum post, and never with a video. We are serious about that, because people get hurt relying on them.

1. Stop the shooting. If a firearm is still going to fire, that is the first problem, and it is the only one you can fix yourself.
2. Put the firearm down, pointed away from people, and do not pick it up again to look at it. If you are not sure it is safe, treat it as live and stay away from it.
3. Split the room. If there is a second person, one of you handles the firearm and the other handles the person who is hurt. One job each.
4. Get the people who are not hurt out of the way, and keep the crowd back. A scene with ten people in it is harder to work in and harder to describe.
5. Do not move anything, do not tidy, and do not start cleaning. A scene that has been tidied is a scene nobody can read.

1. Call the emergency number if somebody is hurt. If nobody is hurt and you are not sure whether a report is required, call the non-emergency line and ask.
2. Say what happened, say exactly where you are, and say plainly that a gun is involved. The dispatcher needs to know before anybody walks through the door, and they will send the right thing faster.
3. Stay on the line until they tell you to hang up. They will ask you to keep the line open while they send somebody.
4. If it is not your country, use the local emergency number and the local non-emergency number, and write both down before you ever need them. The emergency number on your phone is not the same thing in every country.
5. Put the number of the emergency line, the non-emergency line, and the crisis line (988, or 9-8-8 in Canada) on the fridge, in your phone, and in the car.

1. Bleeding is the thing that kills people fastest in the first minutes, and it is the thing you can do something about. Anyone can do this. The trainer will show you, and you will practise on a pad.
2. Find the wound, and put a clean cloth or gauze on it. Press down, hard, with the palm of your hand, and keep pressing.
3. Do not lift the cloth to look. If it soaks through, put another one on top and keep pressing. Every time you lift it, you lose the clotting that has started.
4. Add more pressure if the bleeding is heavy, and if you are trained, add more hands. The person who was shot may be able to press on the wound themselves; ask them to, and tell them exactly where.
5. Keep the person warm and lying down, and talk to them. Somebody who is frightened and talking does better than somebody who is frightened and silent.
6. Nothing here is a substitute for the ambulance. It is what you do between the moment it happens and the moment they arrive.

1. Shock is the body going quiet. Keep the person lying down, keep them warm, and keep talking to them.
2. Do not give anything to eat or drink. Do not let them walk around, and do not let them drive.
3. Do not move them unless they are in more danger where they are — a building on fire, a road, a crowd.
4. Do not clean up, do not search the person, and do not decide that a wound is not serious. Somebody who is talking to you can bleed out quietly.

1. A discharge that hits nobody is still an event. There may be a property damage, a noise complaint, a neighbour, and a report that is required in your jurisdiction.
2. Call the non-emergency line and ask. It costs nothing to ask, and the answer is on the record, so it protects you later.
3. If a child found the gun and fired it, the child is not in trouble. The adult who stored it the wrong way is the one who has to fix it. Say that out loud to the child, and then do the storage work.
4. Check the people in the room, not only the person you are worried about. People are shot by accident at a distance, and sometimes the injury is not where everybody is looking.

1. Stay with the police, tell the truth, and let them take the firearm if they need to. You have done nothing wrong by calling them, and cooperating is the fastest way through it.
2. Keep your serial numbers, your receipts and your storage records. If the firearm is not returned, you will need them.
3. Tell the people who live with you what happened, in plain words. The near miss is the moment the household changes what it does.
4. Come back to the storage module. Almost every bad night in this class started as a normal minute with a firearm that was stored the easy way.