Always Loaded

When handling a firearm, there is an unwritten rule that everyone is expected to abide by: Treat every gun as if it is loaded.

This means that even if the chamber is empty, and no magazine is inserted, and you are completely sure that the weapon cannot be fired, you never point the barrel at a person or something you would not shoot.

I find this interesting.

Three questions come to mind:

1) Why don’t we just treat loaded guns as loaded guns and unloaded guns as unloaded guns?

2) When would we not want to follow this rule?

3) And if we understand this rule to be a metaphor, how could we apply it to our lives?

Let’s start with the first question. If I am at a shooting range, I want to take every precaution to avoid any harm. Handling an empty gun as if it had a round in the chamber ensures a lot of safety while coming at very little cost. On the flip side, the repercussions of lack of care or believing a gun to be unloaded when it is, in fact, ready to be fired can be life-ending.

Thus, even though I know one thing to be true (the firearm is empty), I will not treat it as such. Therefore, by following this rule, my actions do not line up with my understanding of reality (unless, maybe, you factor in the potential consequences of an accidental discharge).

On to the second question. There are times when it would be wildly foolish to follow this rule. If I am on a battlefield, engaged in a firefight with hostiles, it would be silly to look at my chamber, see it is empty, and yet still point the barrel at my enemy trying to shoot them. In this scenario, following the rule would get me killed. Here, I want to have an accurate assessment of the status of my firearm to know when I must reload. I will treat an empty gun as an empty one by replacing the magazine, and I will treat a loaded gun as exactly what it is.

Alright, I hope this has been comprehendible so far. In question one, I benefit from acting contrary to my understanding of reality. In question two, I benefit from acting according to my understanding of reality. In both scenarios, I do this because it reduces the chances of an outcome that I don’t desire to happen.

Now we’ve finally arrived at question three: Are there times in my life in which it would be better to pretend something is a certain way even though it is not so?

By saying ‘yes’, are we claiming that there are instances in which there is something more valuable than the truth?

Are there values or things that are so precious that it is worth distorting our understanding of reality in order to preserve them?

Could this lead to unforeseen long-term consequences that are worse than if we had simply walked hand-in-hand with reality?

These are just some of the questions that I’ve had on my mind as I have been considering this topic. Do I have any answers? I certainly do not have any satisfactory ones yet. I think there is value in engaging a thought, really working things through, instead of forming an opinion too quickly.

If any of you, my dear readers, have ideas on this topic or answers to these questions, I would love to hear them.