24 Oct 18

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason.”

George Sand

Watch these experts!

On the cover of the current issue of “Shot Business,” an industry publication of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), we see a photo of a young woman holding a G42 or 43 (hard to tell from the photo).

She is holding the pistol in front of her, in two hands, below eye-level, and looking with a neutral expression in the direction in which it is pointed.

The subject of the article is “helping a woman select a handgun for personal defense.”

1) She is not wearing eye protection.

This may be at least marginally excusable, as it can be argued that she is depicted as being in the middle of a “come-as-you-are” emergency, although we stress so stridently to our students that appropriate safety equipment (including safety glasses) always be worn when handling guns, whether or not we’re actually shooting!

2) The pistol is in her right hand, too low on the grip. Her left thumb is then positioned behind the slide, with her knuckle directly in the slide-path!

Who took the photo, the model, and all those who had a chance to review the photo before it was published obviously either don’t have a clue, or are casually unconcerned with displaying on their magazine’s cover this conspicuously unsafe practice (which would have been immediately corrected by any competent instructor).

I’ve editorialized before how frustrating it is to see the marketing end of the gun business so naively permissive of errors, particularly safety errors.

The foregoing is just the latest example.

At the SHOT Show, we commonly see wall-sized promotional photos of “experts” running around with pistols, shotguns, and rifles not at eye-level, and obviously not pointed at any kind of legitimate target, yet with fingers wrapped around triggers.

We also see promotional photos of training range settings, where shooting is taking place, yet where those present are not wearing glasses, nor baseball caps.

An embarrassingly strong case can surely be made by our detractors that we don’t follow our own “rules!”

With our own industry continuously committing these hypocritical gaffes, we don’t need enemies!

/John