I'm quite sure I've set some kind of standing broad jump record at the range when someone has been a little too casual about muzzle awareness. Some people sheepishly apologize, and some have even become angry at me for "making them look bad." Well, to me it's like if a woman puts on a pair of jeans and asks, "do these make me look fat?" The jeans don't make her look fat, the excess fat cells in her butt and thighs make her look fat.
If you do something stupid with a gun, expect to have people treat you like you're stupid.
I'm not going to stand there just because I'm
pretty sure your gun is unloaded. It's such a simple fracking rule.
But I agree with synergy, you can't just pounce on anyone who points a gun at you in a non-hostile environment. If you think hitting them is justified, then you think shooting them is justified ... who here wants our local public range to turn into the O.K. Corral? If you spend enough time around enough people with guns, you
will get muzzled. It's happened to me at matches and at classes, by private citizens, cops, and military folks. I treat every instance as an extremely bad social faux pas, because in my experience such people are more sensitive to that than "you broke a safety rule." You can't get past the
my safety is my trigger finger or
the only safety I need is between my ears types, but
no one wants to be called rude & unprofessional.
If you think a gun show is bad, try working for a gun company ... I can't tell you how many times I've been in a room full of executives (none of whon have fired a pistol in the past few
years) waving some new prototype around with zero regard to basic safety. The first such meeting I attended was at Beretta and I was actually chastised for my "over-reaction" to what "everyone knew was an unloaded gun." I had simply pushed my chair back about 8" when the engineer came in with a new pistol, mag in and slide forward, and pointed it at my head. Silly me.