Riley Bowman: And welcome to the Concealed Carry
Riley Bowman: Podcast, part of the ConcealedCarry.com network, brought to you by HK.
Riley Bowman: Today is Friday, January 9th, 2026. This is so strange, Jacob.
Riley Bowman: I mean, season 13, the year 2026.
Riley Bowman: What else is new? But welcome to the new year, everybody. This is the first
Riley Bowman: time we're recording, I think, in the new year.
Riley Bowman: We're a couple days later than we wanted to be, but it's been a busy week.
Riley Bowman: How are you? Tell folks about what we've had going on.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah this week was a box week as i think we internally we refer to it so it's
Jacob Paulsen: a week when we assemble and ship out all the guardian gear boxes which is always
Jacob Paulsen: a lot of work for our small small little uh band of gun pirates i mean it's
Jacob Paulsen: it takes time and energy it's
Riley Bowman: Sort of like you know with the normal website sales we do you know like if you
Riley Bowman: were to take that typical daily shipping volume for normal average day sales
Riley Bowman: and then times that by like what.
Jacob Paulsen: 10 20 well i
Jacob Paulsen: mean in the number of orders it'd be like times 10 or 15 or
Jacob Paulsen: something but then you have to consider that like most orders we get on our website
Jacob Paulsen: are not for seven items true true right like assemble a box pick this off a
Jacob Paulsen: shelf pick this off and obviously we're able to build an efficient assembly
Jacob Paulsen: line so it's not as bad as it sounds but yeah it takes a lot of time anyway
Jacob Paulsen: that's an all hands on deck deal for you know about a week yeah
Riley Bowman: So we wanted to do the podcast a few days ago but we just had a lot on our plates
Riley Bowman: and anyway here we are it's friday uh what we're counting is our first week
Riley Bowman: of the year for the podcast uh i think the last episode we'd recorded on new year's eve So,
Riley Bowman: and we said goodbye to season 12, and here we are in season 13,
Riley Bowman: which might be a little confusing to some folks, it's just the way things are
Riley Bowman: numbered now, even though this marks our 10th year of the podcast.
Riley Bowman: Next month is the 10 year anniversary since we released our first episode.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, the seasons, I mean, the first episodes, one through 500, makes up season one.
Jacob Paulsen: Right. So that's the most confusing element.
Jacob Paulsen: And then from there, it just varies.
Jacob Paulsen: Roughly two seasons a year, maybe more, maybe less.
Jacob Paulsen: The idea is to make sure that we're organizing it in a way that you can find
Jacob Paulsen: content fast and efficiently.
Jacob Paulsen: And that it plays nicely with the iTunes and Spotify, etc., of the world.
Riley Bowman: Absolutely. But today's episode is sponsored and brought to you by KSG Armory Holsters.
Riley Bowman: That slurred out of my mouth a little bit. KSG Armory Holsters. There we go.
Riley Bowman: It was like KSG. Anyway. Hey, I don't know how many people know that KSG stands
Riley Bowman: for Knowledge, Skills, Gear.
Riley Bowman: In that order in fact i mean well obviously ksg but
Riley Bowman: like we think it's important that people get critical important
Riley Bowman: information and knowledge about skills and
Riley Bowman: things you know uh and then skills is
Riley Bowman: next you know putting that knowledge to to use and and learning
Riley Bowman: how to apply it that's that's what becomes the
Riley Bowman: skill development part and then using quality gear and that's what we believe
Riley Bowman: we're able to offer with ksg armory holsters is quality gear so and we're here
Riley Bowman: on an episode today talking about information and skills and things people need
Riley Bowman: to know and understand and all that yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah it's uh it's a statement about priorities
Riley Bowman: That's right in fact today's episode is the three most common safety violations
Riley Bowman: at the gun range an article that jacob wrote is the basis for today's episode,
Riley Bowman: This is stuff that you and I both have observed countless times over the years.
Riley Bowman: And we're going to share what those three most common safety violations are.
Riley Bowman: Maybe a few others will slip in there. Who knows? We'll see where the conversation leads us.
Riley Bowman: But the first thing that you really got to make sure, I mean,
Riley Bowman: first we said knowledge and skills in that order.
Riley Bowman: But with respect to our sponsor message today, make sure you have a quality holster.
Riley Bowman: That makes the safety aspect a lot easier, doesn't it?
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I mean, this content is really about the behavior that is concerning.
Jacob Paulsen: But if you don't have safe gear, then you can't really support safe behavior.
Jacob Paulsen: No matter how hard you try, you're working from a disadvantage.
Jacob Paulsen: So first and above all else, KSG makes safe holsters.
Riley Bowman: So ksgarmory.com is the website, and we appreciate your support of our sponsors
Riley Bowman: and the support of us, make it possible to do the podcast here.
Riley Bowman: Also, we're sponsoring today this episode with BarrelBlock.
Riley Bowman: BarrelBlock.com, B-A-R-R-E-L-B-L-O-K.com.
Riley Bowman: That makes it easier to practice and develop skills related to gun handling
Riley Bowman: and drawing and holstering and all that much safer especially in a dry fire
Riley Bowman: context so barrelblock.com use,
Riley Bowman: well shoot i meant to have my barrel block handy with me here today i don't
Riley Bowman: but use one of them put it in your in your chamber and it passes all the way
Riley Bowman: through the chamber down through the the muzzle so that uh you know that there's
Riley Bowman: nothing that can enter the gun while you're dry fire practicing it also is a
Riley Bowman: visual indicator at a glance you can quickly see because of the protrusion,
Riley Bowman: of the barrel block from the end of the muzzle you can say you know hey this
Riley Bowman: gun's barrel blocked and it's been made safe and clear other people that maybe
Riley Bowman: observe you like my family sees me dry fire and they see the barrel block they
Riley Bowman: know what's going on so it's a good thing barrelblock.com.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep.
Riley Bowman: We have a couple of training resources that we'll share as we go through this episode here today.
Riley Bowman: Also, I'll make sure to include a link for the article that you wrote, Jacob.
Riley Bowman: But yeah, let's jump into the three most common safety violations.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. I think there's some setting this up just a little bit.
Jacob Paulsen: Let me add two points of, one point of context and then one kind of precursor
Jacob Paulsen: to these. I wrote this in September.
Jacob Paulsen: And so it's been several months now. And so I've had some feedback from other
Jacob Paulsen: professionals in the industry who have read it.
Jacob Paulsen: Some comments have come through on the article itself. And so I think there's
Jacob Paulsen: a couple of things that are relevant.
Jacob Paulsen: First, for context, I think, you know, for whatever it's worth,
Jacob Paulsen: we spend a lot of time as professionals, this industry on gun ranges.
Jacob Paulsen: In fact, I recently kind of did an accounting of 2025 and 2025.
Jacob Paulsen: I spent 24 full eight hour plus days on a gun range.
Riley Bowman: Right.
Jacob Paulsen: There's plenty of professionals that spent way more than that than me.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean, there's some people who work every day at a gun range.
Jacob Paulsen: Um, you know, that's, that's what they do for a living. Uh, there's people who
Jacob Paulsen: teach, you know, constantly they're on the road, you know, going from class to class.
Jacob Paulsen: So I'm not trying to set myself up as some like crazy, like,
Jacob Paulsen: look, oh my gosh, I, you know, I'm more qualified than anyone else.
Jacob Paulsen: But I think compared to the average person listening to this show,
Jacob Paulsen: I'm suggesting that I have a decent amount of exposure at seeing what happens.
Jacob Paulsen: And not only that, but we get these reports from other instructors.
Jacob Paulsen: This last year, I went to several training conferences that took place on gun ranges.
Jacob Paulsen: Of course, at our event, I was at Revolver Fest, I was at Revolver Roundup in
Jacob Paulsen: past year. The year previous, I went to all those same events,
Jacob Paulsen: plus the Active Self-Protection Conference, often at the Girl in a Gun Conference.
Jacob Paulsen: And you just, when you have hundreds or sometimes almost 1,000 people that show
Jacob Paulsen: up to these events, you see patterns, right?
Jacob Paulsen: And when you're hosting these events, whether it's us hosting it or a friend
Jacob Paulsen: of ours who hosts an event, what happens is in the first day when everyone hits the bay to shoot,
Jacob Paulsen: you quickly get reports that come in real fast from the RSOs,
Jacob Paulsen: from the AIs, that come back to the event organizers saying,
Jacob Paulsen: hey, we got someone over here who's doing some concerning things.
Jacob Paulsen: Hey, we need to keep an eye on this person over here.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I'm just trying to suggest some context. Like this is not some arbitrary article.
Jacob Paulsen: This is from a significant amount of consideration and data that I tried to
Jacob Paulsen: boil down all the little things into three core things.
Jacob Paulsen: These are the three big kahunas. In my opinion, they represent 98%.
Jacob Paulsen: Of safety violations at a gun range. So that's a pretty massive percentage like this.
Jacob Paulsen: If we could get rid of these three, we'd be good to go. We just would not have problems anymore.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's, that's the context. And then I'll add this little kind of,
Jacob Paulsen: I'll call it precursor, which is that my experience suggests,
Jacob Paulsen: as does that from other professionals we talked to, that if you're one of the
Jacob Paulsen: people exhibiting one of these three behaviors, you don't know it.
Jacob Paulsen: That the vast majority of the time when we have to talk to people as the instructor
Jacob Paulsen: or as the range safety officer or whatever role you might have or we may have
Jacob Paulsen: or I might have in these circumstances,
Jacob Paulsen: the vast majority of the time when we talk to the person about what they're
Jacob Paulsen: doing, they don't believe they're doing it.
Jacob Paulsen: It's almost like, what? I'm not doing that. What you're saying to me is something
Jacob Paulsen: an unsafe person would do.
Jacob Paulsen: And I am not an unsafe person. therefore I can't
Jacob Paulsen: be doing the thing you're saying I'm doing and so
Jacob Paulsen: that requires a certain amount of vulnerability and humility
Jacob Paulsen: as you're listening to this episode today to to
Jacob Paulsen: ask yourself like in a real honest way like hey am
Jacob Paulsen: I doing this and and and if I am like how would I know like what am I going
Jacob Paulsen: to do next time I go to the range to monitor my behavior to to see if I am to
Jacob Paulsen: some degree doing these things maybe i should put myself on camera and like you know get some video
Riley Bowman: Yeah i'm right there with you i mean i remember from just this year's
Riley Bowman: you know this last year's guardian conference uh i think it was the first day
Riley Bowman: maybe even first class it may have been that afternoon but either way i remember
Riley Bowman: observing somebody reholstering after a drill and uh well they were doing one
Riley Bowman: of the safety violations we're
Riley Bowman: going to talk about today and i pointed it out you And I was like, whoa,
Riley Bowman: hold up there. Let's just slow down. And I made him aware.
Riley Bowman: I'm like, hey, by the way, when you're reholstering, you're doing this.
Riley Bowman: And they turned and kind of looked at me like, really?
Riley Bowman: And it wasn't like in an antagonistic way. It was just sort of like disbelief.
Riley Bowman: It takes an incredible amount of self-awareness of oneself.
Riley Bowman: I mean, that's a little redundant. Self-awareness is a difficult thing.
Riley Bowman: I mean, there's plenty of blind spots that we have in even just our everyday, day-to-day lives.
Riley Bowman: And this is one of them where.
Riley Bowman: Unless you are like paying a lot of attention, uh, it's very easy to just not
Riley Bowman: be aware of what you're actually doing.
Riley Bowman: Uh, so yeah, it's, it's, it's challenging.
Riley Bowman: It challenges all of us. Uh, I, I would like to think, I mean,
Riley Bowman: you're welcome to speak up.
Riley Bowman: I, I'm pretty sure you would if I did something unsafe, but,
Riley Bowman: uh, I'd like to believe that I'm pretty self-aware and that I don't,
Riley Bowman: you know, violate any of these, these rules.
Riley Bowman: Uh, but, uh, it's something that's good for, I think all of us to,
Riley Bowman: even if we think we, this doesn't apply to us.
Riley Bowman: I know it'd be really easy for people to tune out of this podcast and be like,
Riley Bowman: Oh, I don't have a problem with this.
Riley Bowman: Like it's, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I've been doing this a long time and I know I'm safe.
Riley Bowman: It'd be really easy to just turn off the podcast right now, but I would encourage
Riley Bowman: you to stick around and listen to what we have to say to hear today.
Riley Bowman: Uh, because as I went through your article, jacob i'm like i'm thinking
Riley Bowman: about myself as i'm reading it like okay am i making sure that
Riley Bowman: i am actually abiding by the safety
Riley Bowman: rules and just good safe best
Riley Bowman: practices as i'm handling my guns
Riley Bowman: it's a fair question to ask of all
Riley Bowman: of ourselves at all you know anytime so yeah
Riley Bowman: critical this an interesting comment on
Riley Bowman: youtube from project 1868 someone recently said only three to five percent of
Riley Bowman: gun owners know what they are doing marksmanship mindset and safety um i don't
Riley Bowman: know where that you know number comes from but it wouldn't necessarily surprise me i.
Jacob Paulsen: Mean gun owners is a large yeah right group right and so sometimes
Jacob Paulsen: You know, people who are listening to this podcast are inherently unique in the gun culture.
Jacob Paulsen: Like, it's just true. Like, if you're the kind of person who would listen to
Jacob Paulsen: this podcast, then you're not the average American gun owner.
Jacob Paulsen: So we have to accept that kind of out of the gate. You know,
Jacob Paulsen: people who would show up at these events and classes that I was talking about
Jacob Paulsen: a moment ago are not the average American gun owner either.
Jacob Paulsen: So you kind of have, you know, the whole universe that, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: which is American gun owners.
Jacob Paulsen: And then you can have this subset, which are those who, you know,
Jacob Paulsen: care enough to go to a range and shoot it on occasion. Then you have a subset
Jacob Paulsen: of that, which are those who would actually take a class, go to an event,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, pursue additional training, education, and learning and practice.
Jacob Paulsen: So anyway, my point is simply like, don't forget that these observations we're
Jacob Paulsen: sharing are from the super subset of those who actually show up to training events and classes.
Jacob Paulsen: We still see these issues.
Riley Bowman: It and that's a really i mean
Riley Bowman: it kind of goes back to what i was just saying a moment ago like any of us can fall uh
Riley Bowman: victims not the right word but you know what i mean like we can end up be uh
Riley Bowman: finding ourselves in one of these situations if we're not careful or not paying
Riley Bowman: attention because these people that come to events like the guardian conference
Riley Bowman: like these are already in like the upper tier of this very small percentage
Riley Bowman: of people that are actually taking it seriously enough,
Riley Bowman: to make a fairly significant investment and perhaps even traveling all the way
Riley Bowman: across the country or in some cases from Guatemala,
Riley Bowman: where we had a couple people come a couple years ago from to the conference.
Riley Bowman: They're already in that very, very small percentage of people that are really
Riley Bowman: doing everything they can to learn and practice and train, and yet we still see safety violations.
Riley Bowman: That's right. So just because you may know what you're doing,
Riley Bowman: quote unquote, does not necessarily mean you're immune to safety violations.
Jacob Paulsen: That's right, yeah.
Riley Bowman: So let's jump in.
Jacob Paulsen: I'll add also that just because you used to be really good at gun safety stuff
Jacob Paulsen: does not mean that today you still are.
Riley Bowman: Yes. Yeah. I mean, I know you and I have heard it from students.
Riley Bowman: Well, I served in the military, even in some cases, like retired from the military for 20 years.
Jacob Paulsen: I'll go a step further than that. And I'll say we have people who have shown
Jacob Paulsen: up to our events year over year over year over year.
Jacob Paulsen: And we'll have a year or two or three go by where we observe no concerning behavior.
Jacob Paulsen: And then they show up and they have some concerning behaviors.
Jacob Paulsen: So like in a very true transparent fashion, you can truly be a person who really
Jacob Paulsen: is like ironed out on these things.
Jacob Paulsen: But then you start to exhibit the behaviors because you got a new holster or
Jacob Paulsen: because you're dealing with arthritis or because it's just been too long since
Jacob Paulsen: you practiced and you're a little nervous.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, you got elbow surgery or something. Sure. And you took six months off.
Riley Bowman: And yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Riley Bowman: And by the way, if you're listening to this or watching this,
Riley Bowman: please don't take anything that we discuss here today as an attack on anybody.
Riley Bowman: Someone listening may very well have been one of these people we talked to at
Riley Bowman: the conference about, hey, saw something concerning here.
Riley Bowman: We're not here to make fun of anybody. This is a simple gut check for us all
Riley Bowman: to make sure that we're all staying in tip-top shape when it comes to safety.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'll just add that it's not just the Guardian Conference.
Jacob Paulsen: We've referred to that many times because that's where we are responsible.
Jacob Paulsen: The buck stops with me at that event to maintain everyone's safety.
Jacob Paulsen: So i have a greater amount of awareness what's going on there with a larger
Jacob Paulsen: number of people compared to other events i might attend or situations where
Jacob Paulsen: i'm just an instructor with my own class or i'm an assistant instructor with
Jacob Paulsen: 10 or 12 individuals so anyway that that's why that that keeps getting mentioned 100
Riley Bowman: And i mean i hope that people would come to our conference would see that we
Riley Bowman: take safety very seriously i mean it's a it's a safe event that's that's first
Riley Bowman: and foremost like like our number one goal besides everybody learning stuff
Riley Bowman: is like that we get out of there safely.
Jacob Paulsen: No blood yep
Riley Bowman: Yep 100 so uh what's the what's the first unsafe thing that you've witnessed
Riley Bowman: that we're referencing from this article jacob.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah i've actually thought about the order of these many times and not come
Jacob Paulsen: to any conclusion about changing it so we'll just go with the order in which
Jacob Paulsen: they're written in the article and the first one is unsafe reholstering and
Jacob Paulsen: i kind of break it down into two subcategories or two two methodologies or two
Jacob Paulsen: ways we see people commit this safety violation.
Jacob Paulsen: But it comes down to me done shooty, need put gun back in holster thing,
Jacob Paulsen: me do it in a way that's not safe.
Jacob Paulsen: So the two kind of subtypes, the first one is muzzling the hand.
Jacob Paulsen: And this is another one of those where it's a challenge because it's really
Jacob Paulsen: easy to muzzle your hand if your hand is anywhere near the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: But you can technically kind of use your hand to move clothes,
Jacob Paulsen: even open the holster or kind of tip its angle or shift it away from the body
Jacob Paulsen: or make it so you can see it over your gut and not muzzle your hand.
Jacob Paulsen: But what happens a lot of times an RSO or an instructor is looking at an angle,
Jacob Paulsen: you know, 10 degrees off, 20, 30 degrees off, and it looks like you're muzzling your hand.
Jacob Paulsen: So I'm suggesting that it's one of those things that is such a close call that
Jacob Paulsen: sometimes you might think you're clear, but it takes very little for you to not be clear.
Jacob Paulsen: Or it takes very little for someone watching to think that you just muzzled your hand.
Jacob Paulsen: But i'm trying to give you the benefit of
Jacob Paulsen: the doubt um and that because the reality is you probably did
Jacob Paulsen: just muzzle your hand but if you're using your hand
Jacob Paulsen: if you're touching your holster at all while reholstering
Jacob Paulsen: you're probably muzzling your hand or at very least you're walking next to the
Jacob Paulsen: edge of the cliff in a way that we deemed to be unnecessary and bad practice
Jacob Paulsen: because it's it has the potential for a lack for for an accident for an issue
Jacob Paulsen: right so we know we're not supposed to point guns at things we don't want to destroy,
Jacob Paulsen: But you might say, oh, I don't actually muzzle my hand.
Jacob Paulsen: I carefully sweep it like this and then bring it in at this angle.
Jacob Paulsen: And it's like, well, why are you flirting with this, man?
Jacob Paulsen: Like just get your hand off your holster or buy a holster or use a holster that
Jacob Paulsen: doesn't require you touching it to put the gun back in it.
Jacob Paulsen: And so that's the first, call it, sub-issue of reholstering.
Riley Bowman: You know, and you talk about this in the article that one of the ways I think
Riley Bowman: some people develop a...
Riley Bowman: A habit of using their
Riley Bowman: support hand to kind of open the holster
Riley Bowman: opening as they're reholstering is because
Riley Bowman: of like soft sided holsters or some of
Riley Bowman: the leather holsters nylon holsters and things
Riley Bowman: that people may have used in the past and you know they're they've used something
Riley Bowman: like that that collapses after the gun's drawn from it and so then they want
Riley Bowman: to be able to reholster and the The only way you can do that is to kind of get
Riley Bowman: your fingers in there and spread the opening back open so you can put the muzzle back in, right?
Riley Bowman: There's a reason we don't allow soft-sided or collapsible holsters in our training
Riley Bowman: at the Guardian Conference.
Riley Bowman: And you see the same thing prohibited at many other training events and instructors'
Riley Bowman: courses and things around the country for this very reason because they're just not safe.
Riley Bowman: So, I mean, people are free to use what they want to use, but we would advise
Riley Bowman: you again and again and again that you want a holster that does not collapse
Riley Bowman: on you when you're carrying a gun.
Riley Bowman: Because part of carrying a gun is at some point we're going to draw that gun,
Riley Bowman: and that means we've got to put it back in the holster.
Riley Bowman: You did address it in the article where if you are using a holster that collapses
Riley Bowman: upon itself a little as you draw it out,
Riley Bowman: then you should probably go ahead and remove that holster from
Riley Bowman: your belt or whatever from inside your waistband to
Riley Bowman: then reholster the gun to then put the holster and
Riley Bowman: gun back inside your waistband let's say uh so but even that can be problematic
Riley Bowman: because you have a gun out still in one hand and now you're going to remove
Riley Bowman: a holster with the other hand like that could be difficult and awkward too so
Riley Bowman: the point is get a quality holster like a ksg armory holster imagine that um.
Jacob Paulsen: Nice nice nice job on the shameless plug yeah yeah the other way this happens
Jacob Paulsen: a lot in addition to the holster has to be opened manually the other thing we
Jacob Paulsen: see a lot of is almost like a spot check like i because of the shape of our
Jacob Paulsen: bodies some of us put a holster where we can't see it
Jacob Paulsen: And so if you can't see it and sometimes by the way i'm not just talking about
Jacob Paulsen: i got a big gut and it's in the way i see plenty of people who are carrying
Jacob Paulsen: at three o'clock and their dexterity or maybe 334,
Jacob Paulsen: but their dexterity is just such that turning their neck and head and getting
Jacob Paulsen: the, like the whole thing is, it's actually hard for them physically to see
Jacob Paulsen: the gun into the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: And so I think our body naturally says, well, I got this hand that's not doing anything right now.
Jacob Paulsen: I'll use it to touch and verify where the holster is.
Jacob Paulsen: And this creates what, there's a term for this, something about like proprioception or something.
Jacob Paulsen: There's some fancy term. Did I just, did I just get it? Good,
Jacob Paulsen: good for me if I did. But it creates a situation where because my brain knows
Jacob Paulsen: where left hand is, my brain can bring right hand to left hand and get gun into the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's another situation where, like I said, we don't even allow those holsters
Jacob Paulsen: that you were talking about at our event.
Jacob Paulsen: And most of these events I go to, they wouldn't be allowed.
Jacob Paulsen: And yet we still see people touching their holster, not because they need to open the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: But the majority of the time I observe it in those circumstances is because they need,
Jacob Paulsen: or I shouldn't say they need, but they're utilizing that empty hand to confirm
Jacob Paulsen: the position of the holster as they walk the gun back into it.
Riley Bowman: So, and you talked, you touched on this a little bit ago about,
Riley Bowman: you know, needing to clear cover garments or something out of the way.
Riley Bowman: And that's very much that has to happen, right? And the support hand is there to do that job.
Riley Bowman: When we do that, just a tip here, like we should get the garments up and out
Riley Bowman: of the way, just as if we were the same way we would when we're drawing the
Riley Bowman: gun from the holster in the first place.
Riley Bowman: Which means we rip the shirt up. If I'm in appendix position,
Riley Bowman: I'm going to reach down, you know, towards the midline of my body.
Riley Bowman: The shirt's going to come up and I'm going to bring it up pretty close to the sternum of my chest.
Riley Bowman: If I'm drawing from my hip or behind my hip, I'm going to rip that shirt up.
Riley Bowman: Not literally rip it, hopefully, but I'm going to rip that shirt up basically to my armpit.
Riley Bowman: My hand is up and away from the holster on the draw. That's what we want to
Riley Bowman: do when we reholster it as well, ideally.
Riley Bowman: So the hand and the shirt and everything is not just cleared a little bit out of the way.
Riley Bowman: We're not talking about the minimal amount here. We're talking about getting
Riley Bowman: it clearly away from the holster.
Riley Bowman: Now the holster is free and open to us to put the gun back in.
Riley Bowman: That's what I would recommend here.
Riley Bowman: Another thought to this is I've observed this, that people,
Riley Bowman: some shooters have a tendency of bringing the gun in kind of from the side of
Riley Bowman: the holster and sort of like rocking it into the holster.
Riley Bowman: And I understand some of the logic there.
Riley Bowman: In fact, I've seen some instructors. It's less common now, but years ago,
Riley Bowman: it was a little more common to sort of talk about rocking the gun into the holster.
Riley Bowman: I think it was a way of sort of finding the opening of the holster a little
Riley Bowman: bit, you know, so you didn't have to maybe look at it, for instance.
Riley Bowman: But in today's world, that's really kind of where I'm going with this a little
Riley Bowman: bit. But I want to caution people about the kind of rocking of the gun into the holster motion.
Riley Bowman: That, especially if we have our hand somewhere down near there because either
Riley Bowman: we need it for some little extra help proprioceptively, or we're still trying
Riley Bowman: to get a shirt or some other thing out of the way of the holster.
Riley Bowman: What happens is we end up bringing the muzzle across the support hand.
Riley Bowman: Like we basically just sweep right across the support hand.
Riley Bowman: So I'm a big believer especially if I'm carrying in the appendix position,
Riley Bowman: of trying to always keep the muzzle of the
Riley Bowman: gun going in a north-south fashion that
Riley Bowman: means when it comes out of the holster the muzzle is basically straight down
Riley Bowman: just in front of my feet and when it when I start going out to the target it
Riley Bowman: just draws a line straight from my just in front of my feet right up to the
Riley Bowman: target when I come back to reholster it just retraces that path
Riley Bowman: So we're not moving the muzzle over to my left or anything like that because
Riley Bowman: I'm right-handed as I'm doing the reholster.
Riley Bowman: No, it just comes straight back into the body and goes right into the holster.
Riley Bowman: Now, if I was coming from the hip or behind the hip, it's a little bit different,
Riley Bowman: but still a somewhat similar concept.
Riley Bowman: So here's one way I think that we can really help ensure that we are extra self-aware
Riley Bowman: as we're doing reholstering in particular,
Riley Bowman: is to actually look at it and what we're doing with our eyes.
Riley Bowman: I know that some people out there get angry when you suggest things like this.
Riley Bowman: Well, I need to keep my eyes up
Riley Bowman: in case there's a threat or another threat appears or something like that.
Riley Bowman: Uh well i ain't reholstering unless
Riley Bowman: i've dealt with all available threats where
Riley Bowman: possible could there be some exceptions sure and in those
Riley Bowman: circumstances i may need to take my chances i suppose either with looking or
Riley Bowman: not looking but in 99 of situations like look at your holster and if you can't
Riley Bowman: look at as much as you can at the very least look and follow the muzzle of the gun,
Riley Bowman: follow where your support hand is and try to keep all those things separated,
Riley Bowman: and if you're doing it visually then you can have a lot greater self-awareness
Riley Bowman: and a lot less likelihood of muzzling yourself.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, I'll add two specific tips that might be helpful. One of those is instead
Jacob Paulsen: of using the hand to touch the holster to help identify for your brain where it is,
Jacob Paulsen: use your hand to move the body that's in the way of you seeing the holster so
Jacob Paulsen: that your eyes can do the job that you're trying to use your support hand for.
Jacob Paulsen: And that will greatly decrease the odds.
Jacob Paulsen: Second, there's no way around this. We have to make training sacrifices for the sake of safety.
Jacob Paulsen: So anytime someone says, well, you got to train how we fight.
Jacob Paulsen: It's like, well, our goal is to train as close to how we would fight as we can.
Jacob Paulsen: But sacrifices have to be made in the name of safety.
Jacob Paulsen: So one of those might be looking at my holster to ensure I can get it in there safely.
Jacob Paulsen: That's something that you just might have to do in training that you may not
Jacob Paulsen: think is ideal for your tactics or whatever but you know like that's that's
Jacob Paulsen: one of those sacrifices that has to be made in a training environment otherwise
Jacob Paulsen: you get kicked out of the class and you're not going to be really prepared are you well
Riley Bowman: I mean we're concerned perhaps in like the real world context you're discussing
Riley Bowman: of not getting holes put in me by a theoretical bad guy that could suddenly
Riley Bowman: appear or suddenly re-animate and become a threat or something.
Riley Bowman: Again, I should make sure and do everything within my power to make sure that
Riley Bowman: doesn't happen in the first place, that there's no more threat to be dealt with. But,
Riley Bowman: Whether I get a hole put in me by some bad guy or I put a hole in myself in
Riley Bowman: that real-world supposed gunfight, those are both basically the equal.
Jacob Paulsen: Equally bad. So anyway, just give that some thought.
Jacob Paulsen: The second sub-issue within the reholstering category is muzzling the body with the gun.
Jacob Paulsen: I didn't come up with this, but I just can't remember who used the term first.
Riley Bowman: I use the same term all the time.
Jacob Paulsen: I call it inboarding. Yes. Yeah. So basically, and again, I think this is a
Jacob Paulsen: habit that comes from having used a soft collapsible holster at some point in your life.
Jacob Paulsen: And it is a habit that comes from this proprioception issue,
Jacob Paulsen: just not being highly confident with the position of the holster relative to
Jacob Paulsen: the gun when you go to reholster it. So the...
Jacob Paulsen: The symptoms or the source of this problem might be the same as we just got done discussing.
Jacob Paulsen: But what it looks like is instead of muzzling our hand, which we just got done
Jacob Paulsen: thoroughly discussing, here we're talking about orienting the muzzle of the
Jacob Paulsen: gun inward toward the body as you reholster and effectively muzzling yourself.
Jacob Paulsen: And this is one of those things that is one of the major critiques of the appendix
Jacob Paulsen: position that we hear all the time. I'm like, oh my gosh, you're pointing your
Jacob Paulsen: gun right at your junk or at your femoral artery and all this stuff.
Jacob Paulsen: But I'll just transparently share that it's my opinion that people who carry
Jacob Paulsen: a strong side or traditional IWB, three, four, five o'clock are way more likely to do this.
Jacob Paulsen: Appendix carriers tend to know that that's a risk and they can see what they're
Jacob Paulsen: doing because it's in front of their body.
Jacob Paulsen: So not to say that they don't do it because appendix carriers
Jacob Paulsen: can do this to but people who carry it
Jacob Paulsen: three or four o'clock where they really just don't have the same visual awareness
Jacob Paulsen: of what how they're reholstering they're the ones i see do this all the time
Jacob Paulsen: i shouldn't say all the time i they're i think statistically more likely to
Jacob Paulsen: be the ones who i see with this this issue um yeah riley you're sharing an image
Jacob Paulsen: that i'm kind of using to demonstrate this with a barrel block in the article yes
Riley Bowman: What we're talking about i just had thoughts like oh i could you know,
Riley Bowman: just share it with the screen for those that are viewed in the podcast.
Riley Bowman: And if you're not just go to the article, the articles in the link of the podcast.
Riley Bowman: And yeah, and you can you can see this.
Riley Bowman: But I, I think there's something about like trying to find the opening of the holster.
Riley Bowman: And so like I think there's probably other things in our world,
Riley Bowman: in our day to day environment where we run into similar kind of things,
Riley Bowman: and it's like if I'm trying to,
Riley Bowman: fit a you know a fairly tightly
Riley Bowman: fitting object into a thing like if i
Riley Bowman: ease it into that into that opening it's a little bit easier getting the rest
Riley Bowman: of it in you know uh i don't know how to word that but so it's sort of like
Riley Bowman: well if i get the front of the muzzle in the opening then the rest of the gun
Riley Bowman: follows a lot more easily is kind of the thinking and it's just it's just It's poor form,
Riley Bowman: it's bad practice, and it's definitely unsafe.
Riley Bowman: And it definitely affects any gun carrier regardless of where you carry.
Riley Bowman: I've seen it in the appendix position. I've seen it in the 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock position.
Riley Bowman: I've seen it be an issue with somebody that's more kind of doing a cross-draw
Riley Bowman: kind of thing to where you just, yeah, you inboard the gun on yourself.
Riley Bowman: The way to prevent this, I've preached it for a long time now,
Riley Bowman: a lot of years, is you keep the firing hand thumb, the one that's on the gun,
Riley Bowman: you keep that thumb in contact with your belly or your side.
Riley Bowman: If that's in contact, then the gun by nature has to basically be parallel with your body.
Riley Bowman: And the other tip here, especially for appendix users, is take a step back with
Riley Bowman: your dominant side leg and just kick your hips forward slightly.
Riley Bowman: And it's going to clear everything out of the way.
Riley Bowman: As far as like you're not going to have legs or your belly or your hips or that
Riley Bowman: kind of thing in the way as you go into the holster.
Riley Bowman: Again with your thumb of the firing hand
Riley Bowman: in contact basically just sliding down your chest as
Riley Bowman: you go to the holster for those of you in the three or four
Riley Bowman: o'clock position if you just either bring
Riley Bowman: your dominant side foot in a little
Riley Bowman: bit or if you kick your hip out over your dominant side
Riley Bowman: foot as you reholster it'll do something kind
Riley Bowman: of the same as what i just discussed for appendix users
Riley Bowman: i don't know when i started doing it but i think it
Riley Bowman: was intuitive for me jacob for whatever reason that
Riley Bowman: i just started uh kind of
Riley Bowman: doing that you know when i was going to the to the holster on
Riley Bowman: the hip uh just seemed i don't know i think it made me a little uncomfortable
Riley Bowman: knowing if i had my feet truly at like shoulder width or slightly wider that
Riley Bowman: meant going into the holster something below the holster had to be in line with
Riley Bowman: the muzzle of the gun sure sure so yeah.
Jacob Paulsen: I mean a lot of a lot of you listening to this, and frankly,
Jacob Paulsen: a certain percentage of people who we see exhibit this unsafe behavior are people
Jacob Paulsen: who have dexterity challenges and or they're overweight.
Jacob Paulsen: So that's not shaming anyone. And that might not be a situation you can change.
Jacob Paulsen: Like just maybe that's what you have to deal with. So you have to figure out,
Jacob Paulsen: maybe you can't, like Riley said, keep your thumb against the side of your body
Jacob Paulsen: as you go to your three o'clock holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Maybe that's like physically too difficult for you. Okay.
Jacob Paulsen: But you just have to figure out how you're going to do it. Because what you
Jacob Paulsen: can't do is point the gun at your hand and you can't point the gun at the body
Jacob Paulsen: as you put it back in the holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Once it's in the holster, it's in a safe direction no matter how it's oriented.
Jacob Paulsen: We don't worry about it because the job of the holster is to keep that gun from
Jacob Paulsen: discharging, right? Assuming you have a good holster.
Jacob Paulsen: But as we're getting into that holster, that's a moment of risk.
Jacob Paulsen: And so we cannot have it oriented at the body and we cannot muzzle the hand.
Jacob Paulsen: So you just got to figure out, like, how am I going to manage that?
Riley Bowman: And for those viewing, I just put up the image that we could have referenced
Riley Bowman: earlier when we were talking about getting the support hand in the way and muzzling
Riley Bowman: the hand. So that's what we're talking about there.
Riley Bowman: Well, let's move on to the number two safety violation.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, this one's tough. And this one might be the biggest problem that we see.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'll try and describe it this way.
Jacob Paulsen: In the article, I describe it as unsafe direction during administrative handling.
Jacob Paulsen: So it's about an unsafe muzzle direction. You know, you're getting the muzzle off its angle, right?
Jacob Paulsen: It's supposed to be pointed directly down range at the berm or at the target, at the backstop.
Jacob Paulsen: And now what we start to notice come a little sideways, right?
Jacob Paulsen: This almost never happens when the exercise for which you got the gun out of
Jacob Paulsen: the holster is to just shoot those targets, then go back to the holster.
Riley Bowman: Or back to the table.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, or back to the table. It's just not an issue. Because you're just probably you've taken a class.
Jacob Paulsen: If you listen to this podcast, certainly, then you have enough awareness to
Jacob Paulsen: understand that I'm not supposed to turn this thing sideways.
Jacob Paulsen: Anyways we the reason it's worded the
Jacob Paulsen: way it is you know during administrative handling is
Jacob Paulsen: because we see this happen when people have to manipulate this gun reloads happens
Jacob Paulsen: um more a bigger one i'll tell you this one locking the slide back locking the
Jacob Paulsen: slide back on a gun is difficult for a lot of people if you lack upper body
Jacob Paulsen: strength you have arthritis you're dealing with some sort of issue
Jacob Paulsen: uh you know there was a time in my life where i had a hard time lock locking
Jacob Paulsen: my slide to the rear That's a common
Jacob Paulsen: situation where that gun starts to go sideways a little bit or a lot.
Jacob Paulsen: Dealing with a malfunction. Oh my gosh, that's a huge one.
Jacob Paulsen: We'll find out how good your habits are when you have a malfunction in your gun.
Jacob Paulsen: Because you feel stressed, you feel embarrassed, other people are going to notice
Jacob Paulsen: that your gun is not working and you want to get it fixed so people will stop
Jacob Paulsen: looking at you. And so you can continue with this class.
Jacob Paulsen: Stress increases and all of a sudden safety goes out the doors.
Jacob Paulsen: As you try and fix that gun and get it back operational again.
Jacob Paulsen: So those are the kinds of things I mean when I say administrative handling.
Jacob Paulsen: It's reloads. It's malfunction clearing.
Jacob Paulsen: It's locking the slide to rear. Those are the kind of things that just for whatever
Jacob Paulsen: reason, the gun goes sideways, and we have a muzzle direction problem that you
Jacob Paulsen: otherwise would never have done.
Jacob Paulsen: Like when you're just shooting and putting the gun away, like you might be fantastic
Jacob Paulsen: 100% all the time, But those, these moments, these administrative moments,
Jacob Paulsen: that's when it comes out.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, it's really important to understand.
Riley Bowman: And this goes back to, I mean, I did a podcast episode quite a few years ago now.
Riley Bowman: I think it might have been like around 150, episode 150 thereabouts.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, a long time ago. I did an episode with my friend Mark Passamanik,
Riley Bowman: who's a longtime instructor and shooter and competitor.
Riley Bowman: And I don't know if he coined the term, but he refers to cognitive stack.
Riley Bowman: And we've talked about that in this podcast numerous times since then and kind of adopted that term.
Riley Bowman: And basically there's so much there's only so much crap we can fit in our heads
Riley Bowman: at any one time you need our conscious part of our brain and uh depending on
Riley Bowman: the individual some people can,
Riley Bowman: handle a little more than others uh i'm not going to go into all the factors
Riley Bowman: to why or how that is but the point is there's only so many things we can fit
Riley Bowman: into that stack and again this is our conscious part of our brain.
Riley Bowman: So as soon as something overwhelms us, meaning it overloads that cognitive stack,
Riley Bowman: then stuff starts to fall out or get pushed out.
Riley Bowman: And muzzle awareness in particular is one of those things that for whatever
Riley Bowman: reason just goes out the window when you get all these stacking variables.
Riley Bowman: Like you just said, malfunctions are a great example because,
Riley Bowman: hey, I'm already having to learn enough today as it is as a student with,
Riley Bowman: you know, drawing my gun out of a holster,
Riley Bowman: learning the proper grip because, you know, Riley here showed me a different
Riley Bowman: way of doing it because what I was doing before wasn't as effective.
Riley Bowman: And, you know, I'm having a hard time not flinching. And so I'm trying to think
Riley Bowman: of that. And, oh, my gosh, my gun's no longer working.
Riley Bowman: Now what's going on? And so you're just there's all this happening.
Riley Bowman: Now as instructors we try to be discerning we try to be careful
Riley Bowman: not to throw too much at students for this very
Riley Bowman: reason but sometimes things still happen and people still get overwhelmed and
Riley Bowman: they the cognitive stack gets over full and now the only thing that matters
Riley Bowman: is getting the gun working again
Riley Bowman: so that means stuff like muzzle awareness well it fell by the wayside.
Jacob Paulsen: These things happen to everybody. I had a situation once where I was in a class.
Jacob Paulsen: It was a carbine class. It was the very beginning of the class, and my dot failed.
Jacob Paulsen: First shot fired, gun comes up, no dot.
Jacob Paulsen: It rattled me. I don't think I muzzled anyone.
Jacob Paulsen: As far as I know, I didn't do anything unsafe, but it definitely rattled me.
Jacob Paulsen: All I could think about was how my dot wasn't working, and I was going to be
Jacob Paulsen: in this two-day class, and oh, crap, what am I going to do?
Riley Bowman: Now what?
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah, like it really screwed with me mentally. Like I stopped hearing anything
Jacob Paulsen: the instructor was saying.
Jacob Paulsen: So yeah, those are tough moments.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'll add that when we build safety habits, you build the habit of muzzle
Jacob Paulsen: direction, for example.
Jacob Paulsen: Habits sometimes are not universal. In other words, you can build the habit
Jacob Paulsen: of safe muzzle direction when shooting, when drawing, when reholstering.
Jacob Paulsen: That does not mean you have the same habit when doing a reload.
Jacob Paulsen: It does not mean you have the same habit when clearing a malfunction.
Jacob Paulsen: It does not mean you have the same habit when you're just administratively unloading
Jacob Paulsen: a gun or locking a slide to the rear.
Jacob Paulsen: So these actions, like they get built into our system, into our memory system.
Jacob Paulsen: The way the synapses are corresponded and wired together in the brain is such
Jacob Paulsen: that being really good at muzzle direction in one circumstance does not guarantee
Jacob Paulsen: that you'll execute it that way in another.
Riley Bowman: As much as possible wherever possible try to be i think it was my uncle that
Riley Bowman: taught me this many many many years ago and he was like and it was before things
Riley Bowman: like the cert pistol existed,
Riley Bowman: uh but he was like imagine a laser beam that originates at your at the barrel of your gun,
Riley Bowman: and so it's in perfect alignment with the barrel of
Riley Bowman: the gun so that at all times wherever you are
Riley Bowman: oriented you know here i have just a a not even
Riley Bowman: a frame it's a grip module okay uh wherever this
Riley Bowman: is oriented at all times a
Riley Bowman: laser beam is in line with that and he's like whatever that
Riley Bowman: laser beam touches is dead kind of
Riley Bowman: thing you know that was the thinking that was like grilled into me as this
Riley Bowman: young young man and uh if you
Riley Bowman: can just have sort of like a lightsaber right but
Riley Bowman: a never-ending lightsaber lightsabers you know i wish
Riley Bowman: they existed i know you did too uh but whatever
Riley Bowman: it touches man it's it's getting destroyed right so i just try to have that
Riley Bowman: muzzle awareness at all times and it's challenging at times but you got to do
Riley Bowman: it it's really really really critical because that bullet from your gun can
Riley Bowman: only touch it can only hit whatever that laser beam actually ever points at.
Riley Bowman: So yeah, muzzle direction is so key.
Riley Bowman: We got a little bit of time here left. Jacob, why don't you tell us about number three?
Jacob Paulsen: The third one might seem similar at first, but stick with me and I'll try and
Jacob Paulsen: explain the differentiation.
Jacob Paulsen: So I call the third one the lingering finger.
Jacob Paulsen: So the lingering finger is the finger that remains on the trigger when you're
Jacob Paulsen: done shooting, but you've not yet put the gun away.
Jacob Paulsen: And again, this comes down to what I was talking about a minute ago about how habits are formed.
Jacob Paulsen: So the habit is, you know, when draw a gun, finger straight.
Jacob Paulsen: When present gun, move finger to trigger. when done shooting and going to reholster
Jacob Paulsen: gun, take finger off trigger, put gun back and holster.
Jacob Paulsen: Those are traditional habits you build by going to classes or doing dry fire or whatever.
Jacob Paulsen: But we screw with your brain. We effectively send you off in a different direction
Jacob Paulsen: when we tell you to not shoot but not put the gun away.
Jacob Paulsen: So things like target transition or movement. It's a really common one in movement.
Jacob Paulsen: So you're going to walk down this line.
Jacob Paulsen: You're going to engage this target when you're in front of it.
Jacob Paulsen: And then when you're in front of this target, you'll engage this target, that kind of thing.
Jacob Paulsen: Or movement like you're going to start from a seated position and then I want
Jacob Paulsen: you to engage this target and then come to your knees and then engage the target again.
Jacob Paulsen: Then come standing and then engage it again. That kind of thing where there's
Jacob Paulsen: some sort of exercise or like a reload.
Jacob Paulsen: Fire twice, reload, and then fire two more.
Jacob Paulsen: These kinds of things, because the brain's never done this before,
Jacob Paulsen: it's never practiced this.
Jacob Paulsen: You've not done the dry fire you don't have any reps doing this
Jacob Paulsen: one of the things the brain doesn't fire off
Jacob Paulsen: and figure out and connect is that the finger needs to come
Jacob Paulsen: off the trigger in those moments so it's
Jacob Paulsen: like the finger goes on the trigger for a bang bang but because you know you're
Jacob Paulsen: not done banging yet you're going to send some more pews into the target you
Jacob Paulsen: just have to do this other thing in the middle the finger doesn't come off the
Jacob Paulsen: trigger it stays so now you're going from a seated position to a kneeling position
Jacob Paulsen: and the fingers on the trigger the whole time.
Jacob Paulsen: Or you're moving, you know, three or four, you're taking three or four steps
Jacob Paulsen: from the last target you engaged to get in front of the next target you're going
Jacob Paulsen: to engage and the finger's on the trigger the whole time.
Jacob Paulsen: And maybe even you're moving around a barrel or some sort of barricade that
Jacob Paulsen: we should not be muzzling.
Jacob Paulsen: That's kind of the point of the drill. But your finger stayed on the trigger. It lingered.
Riley Bowman: Yep. Yeah, it's like you said, this is a very common thing.
Riley Bowman: As soon as it's sort of like that cognitive stack that we
Riley Bowman: start throwing additional things at you in
Riley Bowman: this case there's an image i'm putting on the screen from the article where
Riley Bowman: you know somebody's performing a reload and
Riley Bowman: finger stays inside the trigger i've seen this happen at uspsa matches uh where
Riley Bowman: and i think part of it can develop in a context like competitive of shooting
Riley Bowman: because you have the stage to yourself as the competitor.
Riley Bowman: It's a safe environment. There's nobody downrange.
Riley Bowman: There shouldn't be any reason for anybody to be downrange. You've got at least
Riley Bowman: three berms to work with, two side berms and a back berm.
Riley Bowman: You've got targets in different positions and you're running about trying to
Riley Bowman: shoot them all accurately as quickly as you can.
Riley Bowman: And I think it's easy to get a little bit lax for maybe some people to just
Riley Bowman: like, well, I'm over here, but I only got to go three steps over here and shoot these ones.
Riley Bowman: So you just start getting a little bit, I think, lax with things like trigger finger discipline.
Riley Bowman: And so you know suddenly that turns into once
Riley Bowman: you kind of crack that door to being a little bit lenient in
Riley Bowman: your safety then you know
Riley Bowman: keeping my finger inside the trigger guard as i take two or three
Riley Bowman: steps that didn't seem like a big deal and nothing bad happened
Riley Bowman: so well it's next time i and i'm not saying people like
Riley Bowman: consciously think of it this way it just sort of develops and
Riley Bowman: again it's that self-awareness like if you're not actively being
Riley Bowman: self-aware it's easy for these kinds of things to creep in well
Riley Bowman: next thing you know that turns into well now i'm performing a
Riley Bowman: reload and my finger is staying inside the trigger guard and
Riley Bowman: so i've seen it happen and
Riley Bowman: people can get disqualified for a match you know for violating
Riley Bowman: this rule for the lingering finger and you know
Riley Bowman: certified range officers are there you know it's
Riley Bowman: part of getting certified as range officers know the kind of things to look for
Riley Bowman: and this is the sort of thing i've seen people get called out on
Riley Bowman: is you know hey trigger fingers in the
Riley Bowman: trigger guard and you're moving across this
Riley Bowman: you know this shooting area or you're reloading
Riley Bowman: or your gun malfunctioned and you were clearing it and you're still
Riley Bowman: so it's just it it unfortunately happens all
Riley Bowman: too commonly and you know really we're talking about here is some pretty basic
Riley Bowman: safety you know like the basics firearm safety rules muzzle direction and trigger
Riley Bowman: finger discipline and what do we see yeah there's a reason why those are in
Riley Bowman: the rules because this lingering finger thing is very commonly a thing it happens.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's here.
Jacob Paulsen: We're, you know, we're trying to talk about three behaviors or violations,
Jacob Paulsen: but they all come down to the same safety rules. I'm glad you said that.
Jacob Paulsen: They're all the kind of things that you could very readily, like I said earlier,
Jacob Paulsen: do and not know you're doing that.
Jacob Paulsen: They're all probably happening because you're putting yourself in an environment
Jacob Paulsen: or with gear or a situation is arising that you're not used to,
Jacob Paulsen: that you don't have a lot of experience with, and that's common.
Jacob Paulsen: And I'm not trying to poke at anybody,
Jacob Paulsen: but they oftentimes are prone to individuals who have dexterity or other physical
Jacob Paulsen: limitations of what they can see or how they can manage it or their ability
Jacob Paulsen: to manipulate the gun and have the strength to do that, those kinds of things.
Jacob Paulsen: All those people, I want them carrying and using guns of going to gun class.
Jacob Paulsen: It just means that you need to have some awareness that, hey,
Jacob Paulsen: I might be prone to some of these challenges because I know I struggle with this or that.
Riley Bowman: Yep.
Jacob Paulsen: I have this physical limitation that I have to deal with.
Riley Bowman: Yeah, and even with physical limitations, like those don't become excuses for safety violations.
Riley Bowman: It just means we have, like you said, we have to find ways to work around those things.
Riley Bowman: So if, you know, you've got arthritis in joints or you've had a surgery that,
Riley Bowman: you know, where you've had certain things fused or you've got plates and nuts
Riley Bowman: and bolts in you, and so you can't move certain ways,
Riley Bowman: then you need to, like the common one, you know, talking about muzzle direction
Riley Bowman: is people, they want to overhand grasp the slide.
Riley Bowman: And that leads to them turning the pistol to their side so that they can then
Riley Bowman: grasp it and bring it in close to their body and get a little more leverage and rack the slide.
Riley Bowman: If that's what you got to do to rack the slide, then what do you need to do?
Riley Bowman: Turn your body so that the muzzle stays in a safe direction.
Jacob Paulsen: Yep, figure it out.
Riley Bowman: Yep. Well, it's time to unfortunately wrap it up.
Riley Bowman: We got to get on to some other appointments and things today.
Riley Bowman: Today's episode is sponsored by ksg
Riley Bowman: armory holsters ksgarmory.com and barrel
Riley Bowman: block barrel block that's spelled b-l-o-k just
Riley Bowman: with a k barrel block.com for safe
Riley Bowman: dry fire practice i want to throw at you two more training resources
Riley Bowman: folks we have a gun safety course
Riley Bowman: a virtual gun safety course it's available online at
Riley Bowman: concealed carry.com you can go to concealed carry.com forward slash
Riley Bowman: gun safety course and you
Riley Bowman: can also sign up for the shooting fundamentals course another virtual online
Riley Bowman: video course that's concealed carry.com forward slash sf for shooting fundamentals
Riley Bowman: so those links are in the show notes as well so a couple resources there you
Riley Bowman: can go watch and review those training resources for additional help and tips.
Jacob Paulsen: Very good.
Riley Bowman: So final words, parting words?
Jacob Paulsen: Just be introspective and be open to feedback from people you go shooting with or your instructor.
Jacob Paulsen: Be vulnerable in these things. Film yourself and figure out how to manage safety
Jacob Paulsen: within the confines of your limitations that you may have.
Jacob Paulsen: Yeah. And have a quality holster. That's right.
Riley Bowman: And here we are at the start of a new year. And so let's get started off the
Riley Bowman: right way with good gun safety in mind.
Riley Bowman: That would be my parting words, and so until next time, a reminder to train
Riley Bowman: right, train often, and train safe so you can fight hard, fight fast, and fight true.
Riley Bowman: A reminder that laws vary from place to place, and we encourage listeners to
Riley Bowman: seek local legal advice to understand applicable laws.
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, Inc., its brands and properties, and the Concealed Carry podcast
Riley Bowman: is not a legal service, nor are we attorneys at law.
Riley Bowman: We make our best faith effort to share Concealed Carry-related insights and
Riley Bowman: information about firearm-related incidents and the laws pertaining,
Riley Bowman: based on our own understanding and experience.
Riley Bowman: But things can be different where you live, or laws may have changed by the
Riley Bowman: time you listen to this. We cannot be held liable for your actions based on
Riley Bowman: the information shared in this podcast.
Riley Bowman: Please exercise care with all things pertaining to firearm use,
Riley Bowman: Concealed Carry, and always practice following basic firearm safety rules.
Riley Bowman: More information about safety can be found at concealedcarry.com forward slash safety.