This was in our local paper today and I tracked it down on the internet:
This guy sounds like he knows more about guns than I do, so I will defer to his judgement. The last gun I bought has a safety device like that, but I didn't know that older guns also had it. It wouldn't have mattered in the bathtub incident because pulling the trigger was part of the process.
It's a Marlin lever action deer rifle, which has an external hammer. When you open the breach, it cocks the hammer. If you then load a round into the chamber and close the breach, the hammer remains cocked until you fire the round or manually un-cock the hammer by the method I have already described. Most guns that don't have an external hammer cannot be manually un-cocked, so there is an additional safety device called the "safety", which prevents the gun from firing when the safety is on. The safety must be manually turned off for the gun to fire. You don't walk around with the hammer cocked or the safety off, you only do that when you are about to shoot. If you then change your mind and decide not to shoot, the hammer needs to be un-cocked, or the safety turned on before you proceed any further.
Uncle Ken calls all of my guns "Old Betsy". I think he does that to distinguish my hunting weapons from the military style ARs, which he believes to be evil incarnate.
I agree with most everything Old Dog said in his last post, and I wish he would post more often.
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