Television "experts"

I saw something today while channel surfing that has really bothered me. I don'tnormally get upset by this sort of thing but today it really bothered me.  I was flipping channels and came to a program called "Gun Gear". They were in the middle of reviewing some Stag Arms AR 15s. Talking about their new relatively inexpensive gas piston models and what not. This was followed by a host of the show demonstrating how much cooler the gas piston model was compared to a  traditional gas impingement model.

The test was straight forward, measure bolt temp on a cold weapon, fire a mag through quickly and then measure temp again. He picked up the first gun, locked and loaded and fired towards his target area. I don't know what he was shooting at but he seemed to be at a range so I assume some sort of target was there. It is what he did after he fired that caught my eye. After the last round was fired the hold open caught the bolt, the camera showed this and it was easy to see the chamber was clear. Then the host released the bolt forward with the mag still in inside and set the rifle down and picked up the other.  As an NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) in the Army for over 20 years, having been a range saftey and Range Safety Officer on countless rifle ranges wht he did not do stood out to me as if it had bells and whistles on it. It happened fast so I watched him shoot the second weapon and repeat what he did with the first rifle to be sure. I even waited and hoped the cameraman would close in on the weapons as he talked so I could be sure. I was kind of surprised by what I saw.

He never put either rifle on safe. As the camera was on facing the right side of the weapons where the selector lever is not visible I looked at the notch on the flat head of the lever and it was pointed straight up, on fire.  These Stag arms rifles even had Fire and Safe stamped on the right side and it was crystal clear that both weapons were still on fire. He just continued to talk about the temperature diferences and some other features, even picked them up again so the camera could get better angles.

It really stood out as wrong to me. In our rifle training we emphasize and train constantly to put the weapon back on safe immediately after firing. We hammer it home at every qulification range where the saftey in the tower announces, "Cease fire, cease fire, place your weapon on safe, lock your bolt to the rear, back away from the weapon and stand by for a saftey to inspect you".  When we do shoot house training and CQB firing we spend hours with unloaded weapons training in raising our weapon to a target, making certain it is what we want to shoot, switching the lever from safe to semi, firing, switching back to safe and lowering our weapons again. We drill this safety practice home to our troops. We chew each other out if we find weapons on semi when we are in the rear or just hanging around or whatever.

It really struck me as negligence. Now perhaps my view point is skewed but I don't think it is.  This person is a host of a program on television that is all about firearms. As a host, he is going to be viewed as some kind of "expert" in the field. As a host on a televison show I think he has the duty to demonstrate safe handling procedures of firearms at all times. In this case I think this was an extreme lack of safety. In the Army and especiallyin the Infantry we always tell ourselves to train as we fight and I sincerely hope this host doesn't do this often. Even if the host and the one cameraman were the only people on a closed range with absolute certainty there was no one else around I would still be bothered by this.

When we are learning basic firearms safety either through the Military or hunter safety courses or conceal carry permt courses we are always taught to keep our weapon on safe until we are ready to fire. it is basic safety and to see it disregarded on a show by an "expert" really bothered me today.


Wow, my first real rant!