Firearm Safety: Unload and Clear Firearm

Here comes another important tip from the Personal Defense Network. Wanna talk about the process for unloading and clearing your firearm at the end of a training or practice day, maybe when you get home at the end of the day, or if you're gonna put a firearm into some long term storage, you wanna make sure that it is clear, you wanna go ahead and put it away. What we wanna do is I'm gonna go ahead and put my eye protection I've got ear protection on, just because I am gonna have a loaded gun in my hand for a second here, I'm gonna take the gun out of the holster, or maybe I've just gotten done shooting a string of fire, now I know that I am done. First thing I'm gonna do is release the magazine get the magazine out of the gun. Next thing I'm gonna do is reach up and lock the slide open.

This is all something I wanna do in the high compressed ready position without looking at the gun, just like I would if I were coming in reload, dropping that magazine, just like I would if I were stripping a magazine out and then locking it open, because I couldn't strip it out, I couldn't get the pressure of the double feed or some other malfunction was keeping your finger pulled out, I would reach down, pull back and lock that slide open and do that in the high compressed ready position without looking so for consistency, just to get another rep we're gonna go ahead and do it that way. Once I've got it open, I'm gonna go ahead and go administrative, I'm gonna look down, I'm gonna check, I'm gonna maybe feel around, I know there's no more ammunition in this gun. And now I'm gonna leave it locked open. This gun can't hurt me can't hurt you. It's got no ammunition in it, it's clearly unloaded and it's out of battery.

If I were to go ahead and put this gun in my holster and I'm done for the day, I walked back over to the table, I'm gonna put the gun in a case, when I pull this gun out, someone who didn't see me check the gun still knows that this gun can't hurt them, they can see this gun, they know that it can't hurt them. Alright, so I'm gonna get this back. This is exactly the same way that we end all of our training sessions. Anytime we need the range to be cold, anytime we need to have everybody clear, maybe a lunch break, if we're sending everybody home, people are taking guns off. Or if we wanna make sure all the guns are empty of training ammo before the people load up their actual carry ammo or their duty ammo.

This is another way that we handle this procedure. So I'm gonna call Kerry Tanner. And we're just gonna pretend that we're two students in a class, he's got a loaded gun on go ahead and go to the ready position, first thing we would do is we'd everybody get shoulder to shoulder facedown range, go to the ready position, drop the magazine out of their gun, lock the gun open to the rear, again, we're gonna do that without looking. Now at this point, we're gonna tell everybody to check their firearms, we checked the firearm. And now check this terminology out, I'm gonna tell everybody to confirm with someone else that it's empty, I'm not gonna say have someone else check, I'm not putting the responsibility on Kerry to check my gun, I'm putting the responsibility on him just to tell me that I did it right, he's gonna confirm that my gun is empty.

Good. I'm gonna confirm that his gun is empty. I can do that visually, physically, however I prefer to. And at this point, again, we're gonna take these guns locked back and we're gonna put them back into our holster. Now every once in a while you run into a situation where the gun won't go back into a holster, when it's locked open, something like that you can keep the gun you can keep the gun out of the holster again locked open, it's still unloaded, still can't hurt anybody.

And then eventually, we're gonna wanna go ahead and put that gun in our case, honestly, just as often is not I take the gun locked open just like that, I put it in the case, I close it, I lock it up, the next day or a few hours later, whatever it is, if I'm gonna pop this back open, I pull this out of the case, everybody in the environment knows that this gun can't hurt anybody. If I do need to close the gun, well that's fine, I may give it one last check, I'm gonna look in a safe direction, there's no magazine, I'm gonna close the gun, put it in the case, close the case up, I'm gonna come back to the case at some point, pop it open. First thing I'm gonna do is pick this gun up, lock it open, check it again, I can put it back in my holster and now I can move around the training environment until it's time to make hot. Now the one thing that's missing from this procedure is some people still hold to and I know is the tradition in some military, law enforcement and competition circles, is to pull the trigger to confirm that the gun is unloaded. Well, I personally think that is borderline reckless, I understand how it works.

I understand that it does work most often in an environment that's highly controlled in an environment that is lowest common denominator for safety protocols, and maximum lack of control in terms of the number of people, the amount of movement, the experience of those people and the experience of the people that are conducting that training or overseeing the shooting operations. So in those cases where people will show the gun clear, close the chamber and pull the trigger in a supervised environment pointing the gun downrange, I understand why that's done. But you need a procedure that doesn't involve pulling the trigger to make sure the gun is unloaded. People will say, well, I'm not pulling the trigger to make sure the gun is unloaded. I know the gun is unloaded, fine.

If the gun is unloaded, there's no reason to pull the trigger. I don't think that we should make part of our unloading procedure be the thing that makes the gun go bang. If we make a mistake, we know that people make mistakes. The fact is, this can't be wrong. Even if there were around in the chamber.

This gun can't hurt anyone right now. I can pull the trigger right now and nothing happens even if around is in the chamber, locked open and displayed clearly to yourself preferably to two people can't make a mistake, you can make a mistake anytime you close the gun and pull the trigger, you could be wrong and this is exactly where the accident happens. So I prefer to keep the gun locked open. Now one thing some people will say is, but Rob you need to pull the trigger to disassemble that gun you're holding. So shouldn't you get pulling the trigger into the process?

Absolutely not. Now my gun is unloaded. Preferably I'm gonna have somebody come in and confirm that it is unloaded. Yes. I am done with my unload and clear procedure.

Now I'm gonna start the administrative procedure of disassembling the gun, I'm again gonna check to make sure that the gun is empty. I'm gonna close the chamber, I'm gonna point the gun in a safe direction pull the trigger. And now I'm gonna go ahead and continue with that disassembly procedure. But I've already made sure that the gun was unloaded, get the gun back together. And now immediately I'm gonna go ahead and lock the gun open once again.

And I can get out on the range or I can put the gun away do whatever it is I was gonna do unloading and showing clear is something you have to do as a firearms owner when you're done at the day, when the range is cold, If you're at a competition, you need to be able to show that your gun is clear. My opinion there's no better way to show that your gun is clear than having it locked open and in the holster your hands off of it, the ammo is out of it and even if there were ammo in it couldn't hurt anybody. Be sure to check out the Personal Defense Network for more important tips just like that one.