Personal Defense World recognizes that the defensive firearm is a life-saving emergency rescue tool and tailors its content accordingly. However, we must never forget that it’s a lethal weapon and seen as such by the law. For this reason, it is important to take steps to avoid deadly mistakes.

Deadly Mistakes to Avoid

Case 1: Careless Storage

Leaving a gun unsecured in an unintended motor vehicle can mean you’ve contributed to the criminal world’s armory. In Case One in Miami many years ago, a Cuban criminal believed to have arrived on the infamous Mariel Boatlift stole a Smith & Wesson 9mm auto from someone’s glove compartment. He later used it in an attempted robbery of a taxi driver, Mark Yuhr.

When he tried to shoot Mark, the safety of the stolen S&W turned out to be engaged. Fortunately, Mark was armed. He drew his Colt Government Model pistol—he knew how to operate his thumb safety—and riddled the would-be murderer with .45 slugs.

No one claimed the criminal’s corpse. It wound up in a “Potter’s Field.”

Mark Yuhr had become the first “save” of the recently enacted concealed carry law in Florida.

Case 2: Is It a Toy?

Many other cases of guns left unsecured in vehicles have had worse outcomes. In Case Two, a couple of little kids were left by themselves in a car. There was a loaded handgun in an unlocked glove box.

You guessed it. One of the kids found it. Apparently unable to tell a real gun from a toy, they fatally shot the other child.

Case 3: Not Everyone Forgot

I was contacted as an expert witness in Case Three. A couple was telephoned by a friend who was experiencing a desperate mental crisis. They went to pick him up at his location, and the despondent man got into the back seat.

The couple apparently didn’t remember they kept a loaded pistol in the console between the front seats. However, the despondent friend behind them knew and remembered. Before they could stop him, he grabbed the pistol, put it to his own head, and blew his brains out.

Case 4: Secure That Glock

The “car gun” being in a holster is not enough. In Case Four, an officer went off duty and took his young son with him on errands. The son sat in the same back seat where the officer had left his duty belt, complete with service pistol.

The privately owned/department-approved GLOCK 21 was in a security holster. However, with the dad’s eyes on the road, it didn’t occur to him that his son, out of view, had time to play with the holster and figure it out.

Soon, a shot was fired inside the car. A 230-grain .45 caliber Federal hollow point tore through the back of the driver’s seat and into the father’s spine. He survived but was paralyzed for life.

He sued GLOCK for making the pistol without a manual safety, but of course, he did not prevail in court. Now, he and his son have that terrible moment in the car to live with for the rest of their lives.

The lesson: guns in cars accessible by others can be a very bad idea.

Home Carry

A common topic on Internet gun forums is “home carry,” the practice of keeping a holstered or pocketed gun on one’s physical person when at home. There seems to be an ethos on these forums. “If you’re better armed than me, you’re a paranoid mall ninja. However, if you have less than me, you’re a hopeless ‘sheeple” doomed to ‘die in da streetz.’”

Invariably, someone will post something like, “You’re paranoid if you wear a gun at home! You should do like me and have a quickly accessible loaded gun in every room!”

However, there is an inherent problem with that. Do these people really go through the house and lock up all those guns whenever a friend or relative unexpectedly visits with small, curious children? How about when they leave the home unoccupied to go shopping or to work? All those loaded guns are now accessible to the hands of wandering children or adult burglars.

Simply having something as small and convenient as an Airweight S&W J-frame revolver or a Ruger LCP .380 always on the legitimate user’s person does two good things at once. First, it keeps those loaded guns out of unauthorized hands. Second, it keeps the authorized wearer always within a second’s reach of it if needed for a sudden, life-threatening emergency.

Off-Body Carry

“Off-Body Carry” means the loaded gun is carried in a purse, briefcase, or even diaper bag that is not physically attached to the designated lawful carrier.

Claude Werner, known among the firearms cognoscenti as the Tactical Professor, has pointed out that a gun in a diaper bag is a particularly bad idea. Specifically, since it is obviously carried in proximity to small children and thus often within their reach.

Case 5: A Stolen Suitcase

Let’s be honest with ourselves. How many of us have ever left a briefcase or purse in a restaurant chair to use the restroom or at a desk in our office? The gun just went up for grabs.

I was in South Africa when Case Five was adjudicated. A citizen there realized he’d left his briefcase with a handgun in it at the restaurant he had just departed. He literally ran back to retrieve it. Too late. The unattended case had already been stolen. The man who had carelessly left it there was sentenced to prison.

In South Africa at that time, it was a crime to have your gun stolen. It was assumed that the weapon would eventually arm a terrorist or other violent criminal.

Case 6: What’s In Mom’s Purse?

A mistake in this vein can result in eternity in the grave, not just time in prison. In Case Six, a mom who carried a handgun in her purse put the purse in the same shopping cart where her little boy was ensconced in the child seat. She turned her back to examine a food item she wanted to buy. Long enough for the little boy to find the gun and start playing with it.

Before she could turn back to the shopping cart, he had discharged the handgun. The bullet pierced the mother’s upper torso, killing her.

To Off-Bady Carry? Or Not to Off-Body Carry?

In addition, a shoulder bag or briefcase on the floor or the seat next to you can be lost to a fast-moving snatch-and-run thief. They now have your gun to sell to a fellow criminal on the black market. Or he could use himself to escalate to even more violent crimes.

Some misguided crime prevention manuals tell women to put the shoulder bag under one arm and loop the carry strap across their neck on the opposite side.

Terrific. Now, a strong criminal gets to break the victim’s neck as well as get away with the purse that contains a gun. Not to mention, he probably also has keys to her home and a government-mandated ID in her wallet with her street address. So, he knows where to go to steal more.

Closing Arguments

In a complicated and often dangerous world, there are, of course, many more mistakes that can be made by good, well-intentioned, but uninformed people with firearms. Each of those mistakes fuels the fire of gun-banning prohibitionists. Not to mention the tragedies that can result.

We’ll deal with more of those in this column. Visit Personal Defense World on the first Tuesday of every month for another installment of Self-Defense and the Law.