Safety Is Job One

Yes, I know, I'm an idiot. Obviously safety is the first topic to seriously cover after a basic Airsoft introduction.

Airsoft safety is just as important and just as serious a topic as actual firearms safety. You can easily shoot your eye out! Or somebody else's eye out. Even more importantly, because Airsoft weapons look like the real thing, uninformed bystanders and law enforcement officers will respond to your play with deadly force in order to justifiably protect themselves and those around them. Remember, a police officer doesn't have to confirm that your weapon is a toy before shooting you in self defense. Sure he'll be investigated, traumatized, your family will be distraught, the sport will suffer, and, oh yeah... you'll be dead!

There's three categories of safety rules I want to cover: safe handling of your airsoft weapon, safe behavior in your community, and safe play with other people. There's five rules in each catagory, which seems like a lot, but it's actually a lot simpler than the rules you have to follow to safely drive a car! Following these rules is your responsibility. If you can't or won't religiously follow all these rules, you have no business playing the sport or handling the Airsoft weapons.

If the people you're playing with aren't following these rules, you have a responsibility to warn them. It's not just good enough to leave and let them hurt themselves, because maybe they don't know what they're doing. You wouldn't walk away from children playing with matches would you? If you can't handle diplomatically raising that subject, then you have no business playing macho army guy with plastic guns. If players won't follow the rules then you have to tell the range master, game officer or one of the referees. If the game organizers or people in authority won't follow the safety rules then you should play somewhere else and you should let it be known, to the property owner, to your friends, on bulletin boards, where ever it's appropriate, that one field or those players are unsafe. Unless everybody follows the rules, people will get hurt, and the sport will be banned!

Ok, lets cover the first five rules!

Safe Handling
Safe handling of your weapon will keep you from hurting yourself or other people with the weapon you are responsible for. These rules are basically the same rules you should follow with any firearm, and the first three are the most important!

1. Always keep your weapon pointed in a safe direction (until you're ready to shoot).
Keep your weapon pointed up into the sky, or down into the ground. Never leave your weapon pointed at somebody else, whether it's in your hand or on the table. When you're moving your weapon around, getting in position to shoot on the field, or just carrying it - make sure it's never pointed at anybody. Don't let it even momentarily point at somebody! Not when you turn around, or when you're changing from point up to down. Never joke around, play around with your gun, or wave it around carelessly. Always know where it's pointed, and always make sure that direction is a safe one.

I know, I sound like a total kill joy. Where's the fun in playing with toy guns if I can't pretend to kill people and generally act all bad-ass like in the movies?!

The fun in Airsoft is in actually shooting people. Believe me it's way more fun than pretending and posturing to actually be bad-ass and actually 'reach out and touch someone'. If you want to look macho or pretend or whatever, don't use an Airsoft gun! If you're holding an Airsoft gun, always keep it pointed in a safe direction - until you're ready to shoot!

This rule is crucial even if you know the gun is unloaded or the safety is engaged. You need to get into this habit, because unless you do, someday you won't bethinking about weather it's ok or not. You won't be thinking about weather everybody is wearing googles or not. You'll forget to check the safety or make sure the ammo is empty. You're human, you will make mistakes in judgment - your habits are your only defense.

Finally this rule is doubly important because, as mentioned before, handling Airsoft weapons is training, is conditioning. The habits you develop with Airsoft will be your instincts when you hold a real firearm. Always treat your Airsoft gun as if it was a real firearm, and always assume it's loaded and ready to shoot, even if you just checked it.

2. Always keep your finger off the trigger (until you're ready to shoot).
Put your trigger finger along the side of the gun, above the trigger, or wrap it around the grip below the trigger guard like your other fingers. Don't put it on the trigger guard, because then it could easily slip into the trigger. Your hand has a natural tendency to grip, so when your finger is on the trigger, it wants to pull the trigger. If your attention wanders, you're suddenly distracted, or you're trying to do something while holding your gun, you will eventually pull that trigger at a time you didn't want to - unless your finger is not on the trigger! Remember with Airsoft you're learning actual firearms handling habits. So, don't ever hold the gun with your finger on the trigger until you are aiming at your target and ready to shoot!

3. Always keep your gun unloaded (until you're ready to shoot).
If you're not holding the weapon, and getting ready to shoot it, make sure you remove the ammunition. If you're putting it away, remove the ammunition. If you've just finished a game, and are putting the gun down for lunch, remove the ammunition. If you're leaving the game area, or shooting area, remove the ammunition. Unloaded weapons can't shoot and hurt somebody, even if they're accidentally pointed at somebody and accidentally have the trigger pressed. After you've made sure it's unloaded, still treat it as though it was loaded and ready to shoot! It's your responsibility to make sure that your weapon isn't in a state to hurt somebody when the first two rules are accidentally broken. Which leads us nicely into the next rule...

4. Know how to operate your gun safely.
If you don't know how to make sure a gun is unloaded, or how to operate it, don't touch it until you can get proper instructions. Even if you're familiar with one type of Airsoft gun, the next one may have totally different characteristics. Springs guns are different from electric guns, which are different from gas guns. To follow rule three, it's essentially to really understand the workings of your particular gun. Most airsoft guns still carry one or more BBs inside them, even when the magazine is removed. To remove all ammunition you're gonna have to learn the specifics of that gun. Many Airsoft weapons also use batteries or compressed gas, which can be hazardous if mishandled or disposed of improperly. Airsoft guns in general are much safer than paintball guns (its actually easy to kill somebody mishandling the compressed air that drives a painball gun), but that doens't mean they're harmless. Knowing how to safely operate your Airsoft weapon, means also knowing how to maintain it and ensure that it's in proper operating condition - if you have any doubts about the gun's functioning, don't take risks, have a competent Airsoft gunsmith look at it.

5. Always keep your gun safe
You know the rules, others don't. They're your guns and they're your responsibility to keep safe at all times, even when you're not physically holding them. Never store your guns where children or even pets could get into your guns, or knock them down. Store them out of reach. Preferably locked, and always unloaded - remember rule 3? It's your responsibility to make sure your guns never hurt anybody. Doesn't matter that you weren't the one who broke the other rules and hurt somebody, it's your fault if you let that person get to your guns. That also means if you're showing somebody your guns, or recruiting players for the hobby, it's your job to teach them the rules of safely handling the guns!

Whew... so much for the first five rules. Simple, but essential! Next up, rules for Safe Behavior.