Things My Father Said: 'Here, It's Not Loaded'

Oh my goodness!! Finally, something to read that makes you smile and laugh out loud. Something so absolutely real. Gosh, I had forgotten about Dumont. That jarred my memory. Thank you for making my day and I look forward to reading the rest that you posted.

Unfortunately, Red State is behind a pay wall for me. I'll have to take your word that it's a good read.

My father joined the Army ROTC to help pay for college, had been a hunter, and around guns his entire life, had one go off in the house as he was parading around the living room with the rabbit he had brought home. "Knew all there was to know about guns" So when the day arrived in ROTC when a Staff Sargent came to teach them about gun safety he was waaaay ahead of the rest of the class of "City Boys", the Sgt should them the bolt action service rifle, ran the bolt, demonstrated the safety. Clecked the trigger. Then the M1, dropped the magazine, cleared the bolt, and chamber, clicked the trigger....Then pulled out the .45, giving the same schpeil, in the same tone, in the same order, dropped the magazine. showed it was empty racked the slide, pulled the trigger and the BANG! in that tiny room stuck with my dad(and all of the kids he later trained about guns) for the rest of his life...as it did everyone else in the room. Sargent was demonstrating that if the weapon has a broken ejector/extractor, it can stay loaded ...you MUST check the chamber, and the magazines. Even then, even when you KNOW it is empty, never ever point it at anything you do not intend to destroy, never ever pull a trigger, even on a gun you KNOW is empty, unless it is pointed into a guaranteed safe direction.

#2, suggest you try Reader View. It is well worth the read. Thank you, OP. Your post is a gift today.

Malcolm is one of the good guys.

I took my 5 year old son with me to the gun store when I bought a new .45 pistol. He asked if he could hold it, and when I handed it to him, he immediately did a chamber check. I could have not have been more proud. He's Mr Safety.

I'm in tears! Best read EVER! School of Mark Twain! Thank yuo SO MUCH, OP!

I've read many of these remembrances of Malcolm's father. They are all terrific. My Dad was LAPD, retired as a sergeant (1947-74). He taught myself and my two older sisters to shoot when we all turned twelve. We were exposed to his firearms our whole lives. He didn't want his guns to be "forbidden fruit". When off duty, his holster and service revolver hung on the inside of the front hall closet door. I can still hear it slap against the door every time I opened it to get out my coat or a baseball bat. He would clean the Colt and his "Detective Special" at the kitchen table. I can't resist a man that smells of Hoppes #9! Officers were required to qualify every other month. Back in the early-mid '60s there was a gun range in the Sepulveda Pass when it was still wild, just as the 405 freeway was being built. Where it was once located is now part of the parking and tram system for the sprawling Getty Museum. Dad worked Graveyard/Morning Watch. When we were all little he would take us to the range. The Range Master would put cotton in our ears and give us each an empty one-pound coffee can. He sent us off to the side of the range not being used to pick up the spent shells and collect them in our cans. It kept us occupied and out of trouble while Dad qualified. It also earned us each a nickle when we turned in our coffee cans. When I turned twelve I was a tall and skinny kid. I could barely hold up the weight of his Colt service revolver to the proper level in front of me, and keep it steady. My father's hand was firmly against my back to keep me from falling over. I pulled against the trigger with all the might in my finger... and boom! The gun and my hands flew up, but I held onto it, I fell backwards but Dad's hand was there and I could feel the strength of his arm behind it. He was saying, "Good job! Good job!" I still feel the thrill! Lord only knows where the bullet went. It didn't hit the target. But who cares! Over the years I became a better shot. When TK talked to Dad about marrying me, Dad mentioned to him that I knew how to shoot. TK responded that yes he knew that. It was one of the things he loved about me. As Scarlett O'Hara one said, "I can shoot straight, if I don't have to shoot too far."

Dad told me to always consider a gun loaded, even if it’s in pieces, laying the table! (A slight exaggeration, but brings the point across).

Alex baldwin's dad could have saved a life by being this dad

#2, no paywall here, they probably count your access attempts using cookies, try clearing them.

I really enjoyed that article. My dad never did any safety lessons like he described, but once he had my brothers shooting an old chimney with their BB guns. No damage obviously. Then he got out a 1903 Springfield and obliterated it with one shot. Gun lesson learned. I put a twist on it with my daughter when she was five or six. There was a huge rock embedded in the road in front of the house. I gave my daughter a hammer and told he to break the rock up. She was unable to even chip it. So I shot it with a M1 Garand and shattered it to pieces. She has never had a safety violation in the 35 years since then.

#2 & #11 - Thank you for the suggestions! Reader View appears to be a game changer so far!

What wonderful memories. I can relate to almost all of them. Am a few years older than the author. No TV's only the radio, party lines for the phone, shoveling snow and mowing lawns for our home and our elderly neighbors, too. You had daily chores and weekly ones and you got 25 cents as an allowance. In the summer my mom had half acre garden that had to be weeded and before we could play baseball with the kids in the neighborhood. Since we played in our field, the kids would help us weed...many years later one girl told me that she didn't know if it was a weed or not, she pulled up everything. My dad taught my siblings how to handle a gun when we were about 5 or 6 years old. He was from Alabama and almost every child would get their first deer about the age of 7. In the winter we would practice shooting targets in our cellar, my older brother hated to practice and he would aim for the ceiling, even today when I visited our old home in MA, the owner would ask about the holes in the ceiling. Guns were included in growing up. So was alcohol. My dad's doctor recommended that he should have a drink before dinner, to settle him down from owning his own stressful company in the 50's. The bottle was kept in the cabinet next to the water glasses. He figured that if it was available to us, that we wouldn't have to sneak it. Plus, when we did ask for a sip of their drink, they never refused. It was only when we were older that my dad told us that he would give it to us straight. Even today, not one of us drink. Smoking was never used in our home, so we never felt need of it. But, our elderly next door neighbor , Mr. Porter, smoked a cigar and he showed a group of us young kids, myself included, how to smoke. First , you put it in your mouth and sucked it as hard as you could. Needless to say, we coughed our fool heads off and turned green. This would cause Mr. Porter to laugh and slap his knees in delight. He proved his point, no one in this group ever smoked. Andrew Malcolm brought back wonderful memories of my youth...Thank you.