AT HOME WITH GUNS

[Music] home to millions of americans the symbol of security tranquility safety a place to shed the cares and grime of the day's work to relax and restore the mind and body in the kitchen the housewife's tasks thanks to the ingenuity of modern engineering can be simply and safely performed in the home workshop the craftsman achieve satisfaction with skilled fingers whoops finger this is the recreation room of the johnson family here their equipment for sports is safely stored bow unstrung arrows in the quiver tennis racquets in press mr johnson's shotgun the one the rest of the family is forbidden to touch is precariously poised of course it isn't loaded [Music] so home sweet home indeed [Music] but it really isn't funny thousands of people each year are killed or injured by accidents in their home and some of them are caused by firearms the johnsons were lucky mr johnson's carelessness and mrs johnson's ignorance of guns only cost them a new lamp now that was a long time ago now mr johnson and the boys are safe as well as enthusiastic shooters look at the uh sharpshooting certificate and that beautiful trophy like many of you mrs johnson and her daughter are not shooters but because they live in one of the 30 million american homes that contain firearms they too have learned to be at home with guns that's why they have let me use their home and their guns for this brief safety demonstration they have quite a selection by now target rifle hunting rifle shotgun and even a couple of pistols but before we look them over individually i would like to show you the basic principle on which they all operate when you understand this you will understand the reasons behind every rule for gun safety let's look at this short film clip this is a gun barrel for any kind of gun it has two openings the chamber where the cartridge or shell goes in and the muzzle where the bullet or shot goes out to make a shell or cartridge in the chamber explode it must be struck by a firing pin the firing pin is a part of the action whatever kind of action it is when it is open the firing pin cannot reach the chamber so that it cannot strike and explode a shell or cartridge in it and only when the action is open can we check by sight or touch that the gun is unloaded now we can go to the johnson's guns with a basic understanding of what makes them work and how they are kept safe first i want you to notice how they are stored guns are not left standing against the walls of the johnson's home anymore of course your home may not have this many guns and you may not need a special cabinet for them but the principles the same gun should be stored either locked up or out of reach or both now this gun rack is always kept locked and the key is with some responsible person not hanging on a nail alongside you might think this drawer would be just right for ammunition but you'd be wrong ammunition is safely locked up in another room here are only harmless cleaning materials now here's uh billy johnson's 22 target rifle the uh one he used to uh qualify a cap last summer now remember the film the first thing you must do before handling showing or cleaning any gun is to open the action you lift the handle on this gun it is called the bolt and pull it back you check the chamber by touch and by sight to make sure there is no cartridge there that the gun is unloaded now this is mr johnson's hunting rifle he got that very fine deer head with this one last year to open the action on this gun you also pull a handle this one is called a lever again you can easily check to be sure that the gun is not loaded and here we have the very same shotgun that mrs johnson accidentally discharged now it is not only safely stored but easily kept safe simply by knowing how again you open the action by pulling a handle this time it is the pump if the gun is cocked loaded or not the action will not open until you press a release this one is located here now the action is open and you can check the chamber visually to make sure there is no shell in the chamber then check the magazine to make sure that it too is empty if a shell should be in the magazine i'll insert a dummy shell it should be cleared before you close the action again i suppose you're wondering what this uh baseball bat is doing here remember the bathtub and the kitchen stool and the hammer well a bat is a harmless inanimate object until someone hits you over the head with it a gun is only a piece of pipe with a handle until someone points it at you and pulls the trigger but they are not handled like toys even though they do provide fun and recreation okay now let's learn how to make these two handguns safe first they too are kept under lock and key the johnsons store them in another room but not in a bureau drawer to open the action on this revolver you also use a handle like this called a latch this opens the action on a revolver now you can see all the chambers are empty the revolver is safe this is a war souvenir mr johnson brought back from overseas to make any semi-automatic pistol safe you must first open the action these uh semi-automatics are often incorrectly referred to as automatics on this gun you open the action by lifting the toggle link up and to the rear to make the gun completely safe you must also remove the magazine the device which holds the extra cartridges you do this by pressing the magazine release you know souvenirs whether recent like this pistol or over a hundred years old like this flintlock rifle present a special safety problem too often we think of them as harmless because they are souvenirs not so the old muzzleloader needs a different treatment to make sure that it is not loaded even after a hundred years the powder load could still fire you can make sure a muzzle loader is not loaded by inserting a dowel into the muzzle as far as it will go if it doesn't reach the flash hole the gun may be loaded and dangerous take it to a gunsmith at once so here are the guns the johnson family has learned to enjoy safely we know they are safe because we've opened the action on each one checked by touch and site to make sure they were not loaded and have kept the muzzles pointing in a safe direction at all times here's the shotgun that fired accidentally now that mrs johnson knows what you know it can never happen again watch i'll put a dummy shell in the chamber and close the action and lean it against the wall as it was all right mrs johnson you can come in now thank you is this the way it was i think so it was a pretty long time ago i'd never touched my husband's gun before i didn't know how it worked and i didn't care and now well after that silly accident my husband convinced me that like the majority of american families we were going to have guns in the home so i decided it was everyone's business to keep them safe so you learned yes i went to a course on home firearms safety given by a national rifle association instructor something like the demonstration you have just given but more detail fine uh perhaps you can show us how you would handle the situation now well if anyone in my family were careless enough to leave a gun exposed like this the first thing i would do would be to open the action keeping the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and keeping my finger away from the trigger i know that every action opens with some kind of handle to release this one i must press this button and pull back there the gun is safe now but not where it belongs in my home right you are mrs johnson and thank you for the use of your home once again everyone in your home should know how to open any gun and make sure it is unloaded how to store guns and ammunition safely and the two basic rules for firearm safety treat every gun as if it were loaded and always keep guns pointed in a safe direction [Music] you