Lenny Magill explains Proper Handgun Etiquette

[Music] hey there it's letting me go with a Glock store performance and Custom Shop right here in San Diego California and I've got a topic today that is kind of interesting I hope I don't offend anybody with this okay and it's just because I I believe that you know there's some information I want to share with whoever's watching this who may be new to firearms if you're new to firearms this is really kind of geared towards you for you guys who are you know skilled and experienced you know please don't take offense to this but I wanna talk about gun etiquette a handgun etiquette in particular because we go do a lot of shows and I watch a lot of people handle guns who aren't familiar with guns and I see them make the same mistakes over and over and over again just in the handling of the gun and you know I don't want to you know I try to correct them nicely and sometimes they but I don't want to be you know that guy so you're doing it wrong you know I I want to be you know helpful but curious so hopefully this is a helpful and courteous explanation of gun etiquette and how you should handle guns when you're around other people and even around yourselves for safety and we're talking about safety more than anything else it's about keeping yourself safe keeping everybody around you safe so I've got three guns in front of me I've got a Glock 43 X I've got a Glock 21 I've got a Glock 19 you know very popular handguns here in the United States we display guns and it shows and and our guns at the shows are denuded where the firing pin has actually been shaved down so it can actually go bang even though there's no ammunition on the table we we keep the guns you know relatively new neutered so that they won't go back just in case you know anybody wants to do something stupid so that said oftentimes people come up and you know they want to look at the guns they don't know that they're neutered I know they're neutered but at the same time I'm still gonna treat it as a loaded firearm every gun is loaded no matter what you think so when you pick the gun up the first thing I see people do is they put their finger like this in the trigger actually what they do is they actually hold the gun like down here like so they do that and their guns their hands and fingers in the trigger immediately they don't know anything about it in fact a lot of times if the not pooled they'll actually pull the trigger now first of all that's just not how you do it you know I mean and again I'm you know I mean a lot of people don't know that the gun is designed to be grabbed with your finger on the trigger that's how it's designed so it's ergonomically set up for you to automatically do that so when I see people pick the gun up and automatically put their finger on the trigger I know they really haven't been around firearms much and had a lot of time to have this conversation we're having right now so the way you want to handle a firearm first of all you want to be very aware of the muzzle direction at all times so when you pick up the gun the first thing you want to do is you know you can actually observe it now if you look at the Glock in particular you can notice the difference between the Glock with the trigger in the cocked position or the uncock right now it's in the uncock position I'll go ahead and rack the slide and I'll let you see it pop out a little bit now that's in the cocked position you can see the difference and so when it's on the table you know a couple of observations I would make before I even pick the gun up I would look one at the gun and I'd say well okay thing the trigger it is cocked I'd also say to myself well gee there's a magazine in there all right well those are two really important features of a loaded handgun one it's got a magazine to the trigger itself is in the cocked position it's in the forward position now Glock does have what they call a loaded chamber indicator now that's right here on the extractor come in close I'm gonna see that extract if see that little notch right there when there's a round in the chamber it'll actually pop out so it's not it's it's flush right now but when there's a round in the chamber that actually pops out and you can actually feel that with your finger in the dark so you know that there's a round in the chamber or at least a spent cartridge in the chamber there's something inside there but right now I can look at that and see that well okay magazine yes trigger [ __ ] position yes oh it doesn't appear that that loaded chamber indicator is activated or pushed out so more than a lie Clee more likely okay and that's what I'm gonna say more than likely there's no round in the chamber but last thing I want to do is assume that so what I'm gonna do when I pick the gun up and this is what I suggest you do to is you get a good firm grip with your finger and your thumb on the back strap as high up as possible you grasp the gun with the three fingers that I'm demonstrating here your middle we were I was at your middle finger your ring finger and your pinky finger and you take your index finger or a trigger finger and you keep it alongside of the frame just like that that's the proper technique now the other thing I would do at this point is make sure that the gun is pointed in a safe direction which is typically down however sometimes in a crowded situation there's legs around and other people so you may want to actually be like almost you know kind of awkward with it where you're pointing this straight down you know in between your legs you know so it's not intersecting in your part of your body but there's nobody it's intersecting anybody's feet or anybody's legs as well and then you're gonna want to go ahead and drop the magazine now this is where it gets to be a little bit difficult because as you come around to get angled up there you almost have to do that so you want to make sure that there's nobody in your direction now you could do it up here and a lot of people do and that's not a bad spot up is not a bad direction as well because typically there's no one above you alright so you could do it that way so you could keep the gun pointed up in that direction push the magazine release button let the magazine drop and you'll notice that there's no rounds in the magazine that's a good sign right still my finger is off the trigger I have not engaged the trigger and that's how I want you to go ahead and think about do not engage the trigger unless you're gonna shoot so if you're at a show over here at somebody's house you never engage the trigger just keep your hand off the trigger this gun will not go back it won't knock go bang by itself so that's the proper etiquette now the next thing I want to do is I want to peek inside or I want to rack the slide to make sure there's nothing inside of that chamber even though the loaded chamber indicator is not activated or bumped out now this is a new addition to many Glocks some of the older Glocks not have the LCI loaded chamber indicator the extractor LCI extractor we do sell the LCI extractor as a replacement part for those older guns and they are extractors are designed for different calibers so you have a Glock 19 nine-millimeter you're gonna have a different caliber then you have a Glock 23 or a different extractor than a Glock 23 40 caliber so be aware when you own the website you pick the right one so now I've gone ahead I dropped the magazine I've noticed the magazine is empty I kept my finger off the trigger do not engage the trigger I'm gonna go and rack the slide pull it back and when I look inside now if the extractor is working properly and there was a round in there it should grab hold of that with a claw the extractor grab hold of the rim of the cartridge pull that cartridge back and hit the ejector which is that little bar right there let's see if I get some light on that here and now what's interesting is that little bar a little rod of steel that's sticking out what happens as the claw grabs hold of your round the rim of the round of the case whether it's loaded or unloaded it grabs hold it comes back and it hits that little rod little steel rods sticking out and it the steel rod actually kicks it out of the side of the ejection port now a lot of people will look at that and say hey well that one's bent should I straighten it out I've had a lot of people call me on that one no on the nine-millimeter it's bent on purpose so it can reach that smaller diameter round on the 40 caliber which uses the same size frame it's straight and the 45 is a different shape as well so be aware that you know that particular ejector is what it's called is part of your trigger housing that whole concept is designed by caliber and model so make sure you get the right one or you have the right one or it's not you know don't try to fix it say oh it's bent let me straighten it out because I've had people actually say that to me and I said well that's not correct so that's I've gone ahead I pulled the slide back I keep my finger off the trigger now I can go ahead and release a slide and now if I want I can activate the trigger just to see what it feels like a lot of people know what what does it feel like well how's the gun feel how's the trigger feel especially when we have our pyramid triggers and other aftermarket triggers they want to manipulate the trigger to see the feeling of it well at that point we want to make sure we aim in a safe direction now a lot of people who I see who are not familiar to firearms especially the Glock in particular will do one of these oh come on that puts a hand here like this that's a no-no because that slides gonna come back and grab you and not gonna be good so we want to make sure that our thumbs basically point forward so I want to put my thumb right here and here's the grip okay I just go through this again I've got a ton of videos on this but I've got my finger off the trigger I've got my three hands three fingers here from the right hand my strong hand holding the gun I've got my one thumb pointing forward I'm gonna go ahead and take my the palm of my off hand and put it right there in that empty spot of the frame and I'm gonna point that left thumb forward - so now that says I'm actually pointing with my thumbs if you notice that so if I just pointed you that's what I'm trying to do I'm trying to point my thumb right you and I'm gonna come up in and then I'm gonna go ahead and and activate the trigger okay but now that's just for the video you don't want to do that with it with anybody when you're actually about to actively trigger make sure you're pointing the gun in a safe direction always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction all right so we go ahead gonna get a lot of people at this show because there's a lot of people walking around they're gonna go point up the ceiling which is good activate the trigger excellent now here's the next level of gun etiquette okay so I've just gone through my process I've been made sure there's no magazine make sure there's no rounds I pointed the trigger in a safe direction I'm putting the gun a safe direction I pull the trigger the gun is basically inert I feel good about it right well I want to make sure that I maintain the same level of etiquette or safety no matter what whether the guns loaded or not because if you cheat here with an unloaded gun you'll cheat with a loaded gun get it okay so be aware that you always want to keep the gunpoint in a safe direction loaded or not oh I know it's not loaded doesn't matter well yes it does matter it always matters because every time there's an accidental shooting the person says I didn't know it was loaded every time you know oh I didn't know was loaded well okay so that said how many lives could be saved they just kept the gunpoint in a safe direction no matter what loaded or not so there's probably the best advice I can ever give me anybody keep the gun pointed in a safe direction now here you go to this next level okay I want to take you up to the the advanced level of now gun hammer okay so now a lot of people you know have their buddies over and they all let me show you my new gun oh yes oh cool so this is where problems happen because you know the everybody's kind of nervous and you know kind of gets you know forgetful and and you know excited about a new gun and all that and all the cool stuff that can be done to the guns and all that so you've gone ahead you've done your safety check you want ahead you you did your magazine empty drop the magazine looked inside pull the trigger in a safe direction okay now here Joe here's the gun to you now Joe your buddy whoever your hand me a gun - he has the same responsibility to make sure the gun isn't loaded even though he was standing right there with you watching you do everything you do he has the same responsibility to make sure there's no magazine make sure they keep his finger off the trigger and make sure it's empty before he even goes to step two or to do anything with a gun so when we're out you know at a match or we're with you know some guys you know at a show who are you know other distributors or other dealers or competition shooters people who shoot a lot who are familiar with the process here's how this works it's really kind of funny it's it's it's almost comical so you know oh let me see the gun okay so they give it to me like oh yeah well it's really nice okay boom yeah really oh that's I love the trigger yeah point in a safe direction like making sure no one's in my way right don't always have to be up there as long as there's no one down there I know but so I know magazine okay boom empty boom okay good now when I go to Hannah to Joe or Tom or whoever's you know Hannah there with me I'm going to lock the slide back with the slide stop okay and that's what that's for that's where you use it so on the Glock and on most handguns there's gonna be a slide stop or you know they sometimes known as a slide release because it's also used to release the slide but the slide stop lever actually is most important to be able to lock it back on purpose now most of you know that on the last round when you actually shoot a magazine and you shoot the last round it will lock the slide back automatically and it's done very mechanically if you look at the magazine follower very closely okay good look in here okay there's a little shelf right there yeah itself right there that's a shelf so we're the number two is okay that's shelf intersects with a tab on the slide stop you can't see it here it's kind of buried so so what happens is as you shoot the last round that the follower moves up up up up up and well the last round is gone the you go bang this slide comes back and it locks itself back automatically by the follower intersecting the slide stop okay right there's a slide stop now we sell an extended version of this that which makes it easier to manipulate go out you know and they're in their wisdom you know for military applications and they didn't want to have a bigger button although they do put the bigger button on their Glock 34 we do sell it as an aftermarket it's a fantastic addition to the gun because it makes it so much easier to manipulate this button now the slide release is when you actually slide it forward or put your thumb on this and push down that's the slide release that's why so often also known as a slide release however it is most importantly known as a slide stop so to activate it you almost because it's not extended it's kind of hard to manipulate here with your thumb like that so what you do is you have to kind of rotate your hand across and put your thumb on top of it so you can push it up so the the way I do it is he grabbed hold of the gun here or back here either way I like to go up top here you push it back and I'm bringing my you see I'm bringing my hand back so I'm getting my thumb on this thing a little bit better I bring my thumb back and just push it up and that's now a very safe way to hand Joe a gun so let's kind of revisit that whole process so here I go gun on the table okay okay right now I can't even see I got it upside down I can't see the slide actually maybe LCI the loaded chamber indicator does it matter I'm gonna I'm gonna notice it triggers in the non fired position it's in the fired position it's not cocked okay so it's back looks like it's not gonna go bang no matter what I do because the triggers are already activated but I don't know anything about that gun I'm just looking at it well okay so first things first pick it up drop the magazine Oh magazine has a look that's good fingers off the trigger huh right there just like you want to be every time okay magazines empty that feels good but I don't know what's inside there doesn't matter if they're you know with this LCI or not I'm gonna peek inside look in there physically look in there nothing's in there pull the trigger in a safe direction now I know I've got a safe gun still gonna keep it pointed in a safe direction I'm gonna do what I have to do with it oh yeah great gun here I want you to feel it too now the proper way the most advanced way to hand a gun to someone is to turn it over lock the slide back and say here you go all right now it gets crazy from there because now Joe he gets the gun even though you did that he's still responsible for the gun okay he doesn't know anything except that you gave him a gun and you know now so what am I gonna do okay first of all no magazine right all right good fingers off the trigger great okay I'm gonna look inside it's like great okay yeah now I know now I'm gonna come up here I'm gonna activate the slide stop let the slide go forward pull the trigger in a safe direction now I can look at oh how pretty how nice let me go and feel that trigger a couple more times oh yeah nice trigger okay great excellent okay good Oh Tom you want to feel this gun okay here you go Tom Tom gets it now okay we're all standing here in the same circle but tom is now responsible for the firearm tom has to do the same thing and Tom would be negligent if he did not do the same thing he's gonna get the gun from the first person okay looks good okay no magazine okay no rounds in the chamber let's go off the slide okay pulled in the safe direction yeah it feels good now he's not gonna point it in anybody's I could put anybody's legs he's know it's unloaded don't worry about it we don't do that that's when mistakes happen so this etiquette I'm talking to you about you know is very important because again like I see a lot of people they'll pick the gun up the first thing to do is oh look at that oh that's really cool I like you know it's like no no no no no no whoa oh I thought it was unloaded those okay no it's not okay it's never okay to point a gun at anybody unless you need to shoot him and I said need not want meat okay you only need to shoot someone if they're gonna kill you so so keep that in mind do so this this etiquette is something like you know I just thought hey I've seen so many people that shows and I just wanted to get this information out there because I felt that it would you know be easier to do this via video than in person because sometimes people take it offense alone don't tell me anything you know okay well you know you just trying to be helpful but a lot of people are very receptive to and you know I like I said I've seen you know everybody from your your mom with two or three kids and your you know military guys and your old guys and your young kids your Millennials and all that everybody in between those same a lot of people make the same mistakes so I thought well hey you know what let me do a video on this end and talk about gun etiquette and this was it I hope it's been helpful because at the end of the day if you remember one thing keep that muzzle point in a safe direction no matter what if the gun goes bang it'll surprise you if you're not expecting it but no one gets hurt and that's the bottom line you may be surprised and trust me anybody who's been in this business for as long as I've been everybody who's been in this business for as long as I've been has had an accidental discharge okay keep that in mind everybody I know and I'm talking in the top shooters all the way to have had oops oops and so it's gonna happen no matter what who you are no matter how smart you are no matter how diligent you are you're gonna have it if you handle guns as much as I have as much as people who are in this business half so always remember the rules never point the gun at anybody unless you need to shoot them always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot that means if you're a - oh there's no need to engage that trigger until you've gone through your safety checks okay and then you want to put that gun in the safe direction now the person who you're dealing with will say oh this guy knows what he's doing all right now we're inside the indoor range here in our San Diego facility and this is a combat room now it's not the we don't shoot down lanes we shoot in combat rooms at multiple targets but we're gonna continue with our gun etiquette and proper gun handling with that carbine rules are really the same basically the same I mean you always keep and be aware of your muzzle position so you know oftentimes at his show you'll see a gun laying on a table and you know of course if there's a lot of people around you'll want to really be aware of the muzzle even though you know it's unloaded quote-unquote you want to be aware of your muzzle you also want to also be aware of the controls are you familiar with the firearm do you know how to operate it you know how to look into the action if you don't you know hey you may want to ask you know just okay I mean we don't know everything about everything so when you pick a gun up obviously let's be aware of our muzzle okay we can we can keep it pointed down in a safe direction that's always a good thing to do so basically it's down I don't even address the trigger or the grip at this point I'm grabbing it by the stock so I'm back here guns not gonna go bang by itself but it's like reach in there and get do one of these that's when people have problems so I want to be aware of the muzzle want to pick the gun up point it down look at it okay now I know how this operates this is an FM 9 in red by the way it's got our California Hardware on it so you can't get a real grip on it but you can do the same exact thing you're supposed to do one keep your finger off of the trigger okay so I've got my hand engaged into the gun now it's straight out you can see my finger that's how we want to be this happens to intersect the magazine release button well there's no magazine in this gun typically you will see you know most rifles won't have a magazine but if it has a magazine the first thing I want to do keep that finger pointing to safety and depress the magazine button and pull the magazine out okay using the magazine release button typically the magazine release buttons are gonna be found in this area on this style gun this being the ar-15 some magazine on rifles and carbines is the magazine release is gonna be back here it's gonna be back on the thumb side so you want to be able to operate the gun before you really even pick it up you want to be familiar with it now there's a lot of guns out there so sometimes you'll pick the gun up you've never seen before and you kind of have to study it a little bit before you figure out oh there's the magazine release button right there so be aware of that but at the same time be aware that your finger is not in the in the trigger guard okay your finger either gun is pointed in a safe direction once I've taken the magazine out then I can go ahead and turn this gun around this has a foreword charging handle so I'm gonna do the same thing I'm gonna peek inside the chamber to make sure there are no rounds stuck in there feel good I'm confident about that get that handle back out of the way now I can pull the trigger in a safe direction and I can kind of talk about this gonna relax so that's you know again part of the concept of being a skilled gun handle or a safety and keeping safety in mind at all times it's a touchy subject because a lot of people get you know kind of touchy when you do it in person so hopefully this video you know is giving you some input that allow you to understand the concept of you know proper gun handling and gun etiquette I like to call it so that said you know the same applies with almost any gun you pick up the key is is to keep it pointed in a safe direction keep your finger off of the trigger especially if you're in a home environment or a an office or a show or we're a gun store don't need to pull the trigger until you have ascertained for sure that the gun is empty and even then you're still gonna keep it pointed in a safe direction and you're gonna sit you're gonna even ask the owner can that manipulate the trigger can I pull the trigger do you mind if I Drive fire because sometimes they go oh I don't want to drive or if it's an older gun a lot of guys really get touchy about that they don't want people just you know yanking on the trigger all the time so all that said the key is keep that gun pointing safe direction finger off of the trigger unless you're gonna shoot unless you're ready to manipulate that trigger you've ascertained that it is in fact unloaded the one last thing I've seen a lot with carbines and rifles and I don't have one here which I did but you'll be familiar with it when I talk about it it's typically a little plastic flag and so what they'll do is they'll pull the the action back and they'll lock it back and this is locked back over here on this side so I can lock the bolt back it's stuck back in here now against the spring pressure so it sits back there now the chamber area is open so they have these chamber flags and it's basically a piece of plastic is stick into the barrel and a little flag sticks out and it's usually our injury yellow or some some color that will give you the indication it's an indicator that the gun is unloaded and you can see that from across the room and that's a nice feature to have for handguns and or even carbines and I see that on the range a lot where they'll actually put that you know indicator flag in there to indicate the fact if the gun is in so good choice to have and something to think about and again hopefully all this information will save a life or two thanks for watching I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: GlockStore

Views: 280,238

Rating: 4.9257078 out of 5

Keywords: GlockStore, Lenny Magill, Gun Etiquette, Hand Guns, Glock 43X 9mm, Glock 21 Gen4 .45ACP, Glock 19 9mm, Glock Extractor with Loaded Chamber Indicator, LCI, Ultimate Pyramid Trigger, Extended Slide Stop Lever, FM-9, FM-9 Complete Upper, FM-9 Complete Lower, Pistol Caliber Carbine, PCC, Safety

Id: W5DygJ2xpxM

Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020

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