The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1905. HANDLING FIREARMS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7730, 4 February 1905, Page 2

The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1905. HANDLING FIREARMS.

Within the last weeek wc have reported from various parts of the colony threei serious accidents resulting from the careless handling of firearms, and if the total similar casualties which have . occurred during tho past year were compiled it would, we _niv sure, 'form a startling Bisti Nearly every such accident is due either to ignorance or to ovcrconlidence, but most largely to the former cause. Nearly every boy is ambitious to use some form of lirearm ; if he cannot get one readyma'de ho will, if at all ingenious, manufacture one from |'gas-pipo or any other piece of tubing, or even from a large hollow key with a touch-hole filed in it. Equipped with some such lethal weapon and a dense ignorance of the power of explosives, he proceeds to make himself a menace to all living tilings, and chiefly to himself. If he survives these primitive experiments he may eventually become a man expert in the use of firearms, but too often ho merely acquires a misplaced confidence in himself which makes him, if possible, a greater danger to humanity than he was in the earlier cannon stage of his development. He is the sort of man who supports- himself in crossing fences and ditches by leaning on his loaded gun, the muzzle of which generally points at some vital part of his body. Or he throws his weapon over a b'an'k or fenoe preparatory to following it, and he sometimes has j '.lien no further interest in the world, j Again, there is the man who drags ! his gun after him through Wish or hedge—and is occasionally astonished at the consequences. In a thousand ways the careless or man may endanger his I'own life in his handling of firearms, but after all his life is his own, and f.that he should risk it so often for mere trifles is chiefly? his own concern. Far worse than 'he is the person who is a horrible menace to all who are at any time within ran\_<> of his Weapon. He has various forms, and the manifestations of his folly are manifold. He is the ass who ''did not know it was loaded," and merely pointed at somebody "for fun." Or he is the sportsman who, seeing a movement in grass or cover of any sort, fires first and looks afterwards—to find h|is own or his friend's dog or even his friend himself. Again, he is tlic man who, in the excitement of sport, follows a moving object with his gun without thought or care of what lies beyond it, and peppers or kills something a tier than what Be fired at—pronably a fellow sportsman. Besides these ciasses of so-called .sportsmen there is here and there to be found some person who, absolutely ignorant of the mechanism of a gyn or pistol, yet ventures to handle and trifle with it. This is tiie man who doesn't know a double-actioned revolver when he sees it, and because the hammer is not cocked thinks he is perfectly safe to pull the trigger, and does so, with occasional fatal results. To obviate all the accidents which may happen with lircarms save those which are due to the bursting of a barrel or the blowing out of a breech, the observance of one simple rule is sufficient. This is that the person handling firearms take care that, loaded or unloaded, they never point at his own or any other person's body in the vicinity, and that in the event of a jammed cartridge the greatest care be taken to extract it by such means as may be resorted to without hammering or jolting. The observance of this rule will save life, and in not to be despised by the most expert sportsmail.