Friday 15 – Range Safety: Your responsibility

Range Safety

It’s your responsibility.

Range safety is an important topic because the consequences of an accident on the range can be so severe. Often times the responsibility of range safety is confused. Who is actually responsible for safety on the range? Is it the range owner? A range safety officer? Your instructor? Or is it you?

Every situation has it’s own set of circumstances that need to be considered, however, for me, the answer is pretty simple. Since you will have to live with the consequences of an accident on the range it makes sense that you take responsibility for your own safety.

If everyone were to take responsibility for their actions and for their piece of the pie, range safety would be much less of an issue.

This is how I look at safety in general. If you will bear the brunt of the consequences of an event, then it only makes sense for you to take the responsibility for avoiding the problem and mitigating the consequences to the best of your ability.

If everyone takes an active role in securing their own safety it is only common sense to understand that there will be an increase in safety in general

Take a few minutes to listen to the Safety Solutions Academy Podcast below to learn some important strategies to accepting responsibility for your safety on the range.

Range Safety: it’s YOUR Responsibility

The best way to avoid the consequences of an accident at the range is to avoid an accident in the first place.

Range Safety

Attention to safety keeps you and those around you safer.

Promote a Culture of Range Safety and Safe Gun Handling

Attention to safety keeps you and those around you safer.

Range safety is more than just having a set of policies and procedures. Of course that should be a part of the whole picture, however, if that is where it ends you are simply in CYA mode. A better approach is to promote a holistic approach to range safety.

Safety Solutions Academy takes an active role in helping to build a culture that understands, practices and expects safe gun handling and solid range safety. Gun safety rules and range safety procedures are taught and reviewed at each range session. Our emergency action plan is complete, posted and reviewed at each Safety Solutions Academy Course. Medical gear is present and accessible so that consequences can be quickly mitigated if an unfortunate accident were to occur.

The result is a stellar safety record and a group of students that take away what could be the most important defensive lesson they can learn gun safety.

Range safety and gun safety are your responsibility as well.

When you attend and SSA course the responsibility for range safety really falls with me, your instructor and I am ready for that responsibility. If you are like most students your practice and training extends beyond the courses you take with Safety Solutions Academy. That means at some time the responsibility for safety has to shift. You need to be ready for that responsibility and that is another reason the idea of creating a gun safety culture is important.

Gun safety is an all the time proposition. If you cause injury to yourself or another innocent person with your firearm it won’t matter if you were cold, or tired, or distracted or simply over your head. The consequences will be the same.

Make sure that you are promoting a culture of gun safety. Part of promoting a culture of gun safety might also include teaching gun safety. I recently discussed how to make sure you are teaching gun safety to the best of your ability here.

Take Actions to Avoid Accidents and Mitigate Consequences on the Range

The actions you take can make a difference in your safety and the safety of those around you.

The only way to avoid the negative consequences of accidents on the range is to avoid those accidents all together. We can take significant action to avoid accidents, however, we cannot eliminate them completely. There will always be circumstances that are outside of our control. When we cannot prevent an accident from happening we need to have plans in place to mitigate the negative consequences of those situations. Through avoidance of accidents ever taking place and mitigation of consequences when accidents do happen we can reduce the overall impact of accidents on the range.

Range Safety Policies and Procedures

Having policies and procedures in place can help to reduce accidents in some situations. However, don’t think for a moment that a policy alone will keep you or those around you safe.

Policies need to be practical, they need to make a meaningful difference in safety and they need to be used. Maybe most importantly, safety policies cannot be the end of range safety. There has to be support for the policies that are in place, or they are just a set of rules to cover your tail when something preventable happens. Your range safety culture shouldn’t be about covering your ass. Instead it should be about avoiding accidents and mitigating the consequences when they cannot be avoided.

One of the most important policies to have in place is a policy of education.

Educate People about Range Safety

As a professional defensive forearms instructor I make sure that gun safety education and range safety education is part of every trip to the range. It doesn’t matter the purpose of the trip. I could be going to the range for fun or for work. I could be headed there alone, or with friends or family. I might be teaching a course, or just be there to take care of the behind the scenes work that goes into making a defensive firearms course happen.

It doesn’t matter the circumstances. Range Safety is an important factor and is a focus of every visit I make to the range.

Here are some simple steps you can take to increase the level of range safety through education.

Review gun safety rules out loud with all people present.
Make sure that your emergency action plan is complete and accessible to and reviewed with everyone present.
Have the expectation that people follow your Rage Safety Policies and Rules of Gun Safety.
When people fail to follow rules react appropriately (this shouldn’t always mean ejection form the range.)

Communicate on the Range to Increase Safety

Sound communication makes everything better and it follows with Range Safety. It is impossible to create and promote a culture of Range Safety if you don’t communicate about it. If you wait until you NEED to communicate about range safety you are doing it wrong. Remember, range safety is about prevention. Prevention is best achieved with well thought out and deliberate actions not last minute commands followed by a sigh of relief.

Of course, a last moment, firm verbal command might be needed to avoid disaster and if so it should be used. If, however, that is your main tool of range safety you have missed the point.

Have an Emergency Action Plan and be ready to use it!

Not every accident can be prevented. Know what to do when problems arise.

Fact. You can do everything right and still face a range accident. It could be a catastrophic failure of your firearm, improperly manufactured ammunition, an unrelated medical emergency, or injuries resulting from extreme weather.

Once people are injured your focus needs to shift to mitigation. To reducing the consequences of whatever it is that happened. This is when you emergency action plan needs to come into play.

I discussed emergency action plans in a previous Friday 15 and you can find that episode here.

The key to your emergency action plan is that it needs to be complete, it needs to be reviewed with all people present and it needs to be clearly posted to make sure that it can be referenced in an emergency situation.

Take a minute to listen to the Medical Skills Matter Friday 15 and subscribe to the Friday 15 email list so that you can download the EAP template.

Final Thoughts

Often times it seems that range safety is taken for granted. Range safety isn’t something that someone else does for you. Certainly the range itself can have rules and regulations to help with range safety. The range can have employees to help with safety. Those around you can have an impact on your safety.

The reality is, however, YOU have the biggest impact on your safety.

What You Should Do Next:

The best way to make progress is to take action now!

Subscribe to the SSA Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to The Friday 15 list and download the free resources from today’s episode.

If you appreciated this Friday 15

If you gained some insight about your role in range safety

I would like you to connect with me and connect with Safety Solutions Academy so that you can learn more about the important topics we discuss on the Safety Solutions Academy Podcast.

When you connect with Safety Solutions Academy I’ll send you a link to Friday 15 resources that I talked about in this episode and future resources to help you to make real improvement in your personal safety.

I hope you found the information on this page helpful. If you have comments, suggestions, or a different view, please leave a comment below. I look forward to hearing from you!

Please keep in mind that some of the links included here on the blog may be affiliate links. When you click through an affiliate link, Safety Solutions Academy gets paid a small referral fee at no additional cost to you. This is one of the ways that Safety Solutions Academy earns revenue and we have chosen this model so that we can bring you quality content that isn’t influenced by advertising dollars.

We appreciate your support in clicking these links. If you would prefer to not follow an affiliate link, simply open a new browser window and perform a google search for the products you are interested in.

Podcast Transcript:

You can read the transcript of this episode of the Safety Solutions Academy Podcast below.

The clock is running and this is Friday 15. Of course my name is Paul Carlson and I am so glad you are here with me today with those little earbud stuffed inside your ear and me talking inside your brain. I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me in this Friday 15 episode of the safety Solutions Academy podcast we’re going to take a fast-paced and direct look at why it is that it’s important for you to make sure that you promote a culture of safety gun handling at the range. Your responsibility when it comes to range safety. Again thank you so much for joining me on the Safety Solutions Academy podcast for another episode of Friday 15 now let’s get right into it.

I think that range safety is a critical aspect of keeping yourself safe when you practice and you train with your firearm and unfortunately I think that many people don’t take range safety seriously enough. You see range safety has to be more than just having a set of rules hanging up at the range. If that’s the way that you approach it that makes range safety a matter of covering your tail or maybe the range covering their tail to make sure that they don’t get sued or they win when they do get sued if someone gets hurt. And I think that’s a bunch of crap I think what we need to be doing is taking an active role in range safety so that we can mitigate the consequences of actions when they happen and better yet prevent many accidents from happening at all.

Safety Solutions Academy is dedicated and we take a very active role in helping to build a culture that not only practices range safety but also understands range safety and expects range safety from all the people that participate in the Safety Solutions Academy programs and our Safety Solutions Academy students current, former or future. We expect range safety, we expect a culture of range safety from everyone.

Here’s how we do that first off we make sure that gun safety rules and range safety procedures are taught and reviewed every time we head out to the range. We don’t just teach those in our gun safety classes we teach them in every class. Of course people that are ignorant people that are brand-new to guns that are ignorant of gun safety they need to learn about range safety but folks that are comfortable with guns they need to pay attention as well. Why? Because complacency, there’s times when I watch folks that are experienced with firearms make more mistakes when it comes to gun safety than those that are brand-new and complacency is the reason.

A lack of awareness of forgetting how important it is, and I’m a firm believer that an outstanding indicator of the level of expertise of an individual when it comes to firearms is their commitment to safety and so we have gun safety rules and range safety procedures taught, reviewed, posted, covered it every single event that we hold out on the range. Our emergency action plan is complete its posted and it’s reviewed not only with staff that is participating but also with students why? Because when it comes down to it we may need student assistance to help keep things going when we have some kind of an unpreventable accident.

We make sure that medical gear is present and accessible so that if that accident occurs we can mitigate the consequences to the best of our ability while were waiting for professional assistance. We take range safety and gun safety seriously it’s our responsibility but we also know and understand that you share a responsibility in range safety and gun safety as well.

When you train with an expert instructor it makes a lot of sense that the responsibility in general should fall with that instructor. They’re the person that’s making the arrangements they’re the persons making the decisions about what it is that’s going to happen and what it is your going to do and how you’re going to do it.

But understand that you have to start thinking about range safety from a personal level as well because if you’re like most of my students you spend time away from me as an instructor. You spend time away from your instructor practicing, training with other instructors and you need to be ready to deal with range safety and the consequences when things go wrong if you’re not with that person that the expert ready to take care of the situation.

So make sure that you are committed to gun safety and preparedness on the range. It doesn’t matter how it is that someone is injured when they’re injured on the range what matters at that point in time is how it is that you can mitigate those consequences and are you prepared to do it. So make sure that you are promoting a culture of gun safety to avoid injuries in the first place and have emergency action plan ready to go so you can mitigate the consequences, you can lessen the consequences should that unpreventable accident occur.

How is it that we take actions to avoid accidents and mitigate the consequent on the range let’s talk about that specifically. Obviously the best way to avoid the consequences of an injury on the range, of an accident on the range is to avoid the accident itself and the first step in doing that is making sure that your range safety policies and procedures are in place and you’ve developed that culture around those range safety policies and procedures.

We need to educate people about range safety not hang up signs. These are things that need to be talked about that need to be explained to people, that need to be clarified. You know every time you get out there do like I do review gun safety rules out loud with all people present. Make sure that that emergency action plan is complete and accessible and reviewed. Have the expectation that people are going to follow those safety procedures and the rules of safe gun handling.

And when people fail to follow those rules react appropriately. Now this one is one that I find particularly interesting the standard in the industry when a person fails to follow rules is they are ejected from the range. I suppose the idea is well this person is not safe and therefore they can’t be around us because they don’t want us ….we don’t want them to injure us and I get that idea.

Maybe the idea is to penalize the individual you’re unsafe therefore your punishment is you must leave the range and so that penalty will motivate you to be safe for next time. I understand where those come from, I understand why they’re put into play but I’ll argue that there might be a situation where ejection could be the worst thing that you’re going to do.

You see if a person is unsafe because they didn’t understand a rule, because they didn’t understand gun safety, because they didn’t understand the rules of safe gun handling and how to run or participate in a safe range session and you excuse them they’re taking that firearm with them. They’re headed home they’re headed to a different ranger they’re headed someplace else where that misunderstanding that lack of understanding plain and simple that ignorance persists. That is setting that individual up for a potential accident and I think that is an irresponsible decision.

So consider the fact that when people fail to follow a rule there may be times when it is the most appropriate decision to keep them right there on the range so that they can gain an understanding so that they can learn what it is they need to learn and not get themselves into a situation where they have an accident where there’s no one there to help or no one there to understand.

I also think it’s very important to communicate about range safety and what I mean is when you’re out on the range not only are you teaching about it, not only are you explaining it, not only are you educating, not only are you helping people to understand but you’re also simply having conversations about situations and what is the safest way to do things.

If you have open communication about range safety it’s going to be one of those things that keeps range safety on the forefront of the mind and when it’s top of mind it’s much easier to make sure that you are following range safety all the time.

So communication is critical I talked about having an emergency action plan ready to go in case you need it and it’s important to understand why obviously prevention is our first choice. If we can stop an action from happening that’s the best case scenario but there are all kinds of situations where we may not be able to prevent an accident on the range. You may do everything right and someone could still be injured on the range, maybe you have a catastrophic failure of a firearm.

A firearm that has some kind of a manufacturing flaw or is worn in a way where it fails and injures someone on the range it could be improperly manufactured ammunition. It’s not just reloads that cause problems in guns. Recently in the Mag 40 class we had a student that got out a box of 9mm inside that box was a case that was marked 380 ACP it had no groove in the rear of the casing for extraction. It was completely straight wall front to back; it was clearly a 9mm case. Obviously there was some kind of a quality control issue that was factory ammunition; we can have all kinds of situations.

Maybe it’s simply extreme weather maybe a straight-line wind storm comes through or there’s a lightning strike or maybe a roof collapses because of snow load and people are injured on the range. The fact is you need to have an emergency action plan, you need to be ready to use it. You need to have the skills, you need to have the tools, you need to have the willingness to dive in and take care of the situation and you need to have a plan that is completed, posted, discussed and in place ready to go.

I have discussed emergency action plans on a previous Friday 15 and if you check out the show notes for this episode at Safetysolutionsacademy.com you can find a link there or if you connect with Safety Solutions Academy we can make sure you get that emergency action plan so that you can fill it out for whatever location you’re in. It doesn’t even have to be range safety this could be a perfect tool for you to use at work in the machine shop.

The fact is that emergency action plan needs to be complete, needs to be reviewed, needs to be posted so that you can make sure you have it ready to go in any situation. So take a minute to listen to the medical skills matter Friday 15 episode and subscribe to the Friday 15 email list so that you can download that emergency action template and the other resources that come along with this episode. Folks range safety is critical. We need to develop a culture of range safety, we need to develop a culture of safe gun handling , we need to take actions to avoid accidents and mitigate the consequent on the range and we need to have that emergency action plan ready to go and we need to be ready to use it.

Now if you appreciated this Friday 15 episode if you gain some insight about why it is that we need to pay particular attention to range safety. How it is that we can improve folks attention on range safety or attention to range safety. If you gained insights that’s going to help you to lead a safer life I would like you to connect with me and with Safety Solutions Academy so that you can learn more about today’s topic.

When you do connect I’m going to go ahead and send you a link to a bunch of resources that I talked about today and future resources for other Friday 15 episodes and resources like that medical emergency action plan from past episodes so that you can make that real substantial improvement in your personal safety.

Now connecting with us is easy all you need to do is take out your cellphone get ready to send a text message to the number 33444 and include in that text message Friday 15 all one word all lower case letters the word Friday and the numerals 1 5, Friday 15. When you text Friday 15 to 33444 I’m going to go ahead and email you a link where you can download your free information free resources from Friday 15 episodes.

Folks I do want to say thank you for spending time with me today, we are on a strong run with the SSA podcast. I have got five more episodes are recorded and ready to rock ‘n roll and already scheduled to be coming out every Friday so get ready for more Friday 15 episodes quick fast and direct and hopefully to the point to help you lead that safer life.

I certainly appreciate you taking time out of your day to spend it with me jibber jabbing in your ears and I do hope that it is very beneficial. If you have topics you would like me to cover if you have suggestions about the show If you have anything you’d like me to know send email to [email protected] and I would love to chat with you and hear your suggestions for future topics or feedback on the show.

Thank you so much for spending time with me today. Make sure folks that you get connected with Safety Solutions Academy. Again text Friday 15 to 33444 but most importantly get on out there, get yourself some training, when you do make sure you keep it simple. Please stay safe and as always have a great day.