Letters to Young Shooters - Livres de poche

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER VIII HOW TO SHOOT SAFELY, WITH REMARKS ON LOADERS, AND THE SAFE HANDLING OF A GUN IN THE FIELD ' I Do not propose to lay down a dozen or more rules concerning how to use a gun safely, as such would be quite unnecessary; for using a gun safely merely means that it should never be handled in a careless manner, either in regard to its mechanism or, above all, the direction of its muzzle. The only living thing that should be in danger from the gun is the game the shooter wishes to kill; and, whether a gun is at full-cock or half-cock, or has this or that safety bolt, it is equally safe in the hands of a careful man?one with whom, for the sake of illustration, did the gun fire accidentally a score times a day, it would injure nothing but the earth or ?the moon. It is not, however, from the mere handling of agun, nor yet from wanton stupidity and recklessness, such as crawling through a hedge with the muzzle directed at somebody's back in front, or pointing a gun in joke (save the mark !) or firing it accidentally, that serious accidents are wont to occur, unless with downright idiots, who should shoot together (with a view to their extermination), or not at all. It is more frequently the case that an eye is put out or an injury done in the excitement of shooting; and oftener than not, when an accident does occur, it is caused by the shooter, in his anxiety to kill the game, omitting to notice the presence of his companions and their exact positions. It is curious, when a man does pepper you, how apparently astonished he is at the incident, and how he invariably remarks, he cannot for the life of him understand how such a remarkable accident occurred, as he is so particularly careful with his gun at all times ! 1 I wish to point out that to shoot safely, and to sh...