Here's the thing, though: Most of the people who read my original post shook their head and thought about the other people they have seen at the range acting in an unsafe manner.
But---how many said to themselves: "I wonder if I'm that guy sometimes?" (Apparently some! Good!)
Because none of these "experienced shooters" you've seen think that THEY are the problem, either.
If you were out shooting, teaching someone else how to shoot, and someone came up to you and said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but please, even if the gun is unloaded and empty, PLEASE don't turn around and walk uprange (towards the open end of the bay) with it in your hand as you go back to your range bag" ----how would you react?
Would you argue? Or say "I didn't do that"? Or say "It was unloaded"? (Because they aren't going to say it unless they saw it, and it doesn't matter if the gun was unloaded, we don't point guns uprange.)
(I bring up this specific example because I see this one all the time at the range, and even saw it during the IDPA classifier a couple of weeks ago when a local instructor was working with someone on a different bay while wearing no eye protection, and his student trotted back to his gun bag for more ammo/mags while holding a firearm. Well, the instructor was waving his gun uprange as he pontificated also, so it wasn't as if the student was screwing up on his own. But I'm sure it was unloaded.)
Or if someone said to you "Your finger was in the trigger guard when you loaded/reloaded/cleared your gun." Would you say "It wasn't on the trigger"?
Because when I say "experienced shooter" I mean you. (And I mean me, too.) And if your reaction to that comment is a little indignation (because YOU have good safety practice, after all) ---why is that? After all, in my original post I said "[you] know everything and it's worked fine all this time" ---isn't that how we all think?
Having a shooting partner periodically check your gun-handling safety is a good thing. Even the most conscientious shooter can find themselves not noticing a gradual slide into "finger on the trigger" mode (or another safety error), without either harsh continual self-discipline or an outside eye paying attention. We need to continually check ourselves on safety. (And remember that humans aren't good at watching themselves when acting under stress.)
So if someone comes up and says "hey, there is a safety issue" we all need to hold back that knee-jerk reaction of "I did NOT! I'm an experienced shooter!" ---because they aren't going to come up and say it if they didn't see it.
While I really would like to have someone tell me a good way to go up to someone and tell them to fix their safety habits with firearms, especially when they are "teaching" someone else---all of us ALSO need to check our own.
Because, after all, we ARE experienced shooters.
...as a comment to the people who are saying "just move away" --- should we just let them continue to be unsafe? Teach someone else to be unsafe? Leave, so that the next person coming out to shoot still has to deal with them, who might not notice how unsafe they are being?
I'm not saying confrontation is the answer here. But....I don't know if just walking away is the answer, either. In a business like an indoor range (like Big Shots, Thunder Alley, or the Bullet Hole), you can say something to the guy, or just walk out and talk to the store RO, and they will hopefully handle it.
But at someplace like ENGC, or Ikes---it isn't like you can always find an RO to speak to. I'm all for not being shot, but I don't want people to shoot themselves, either. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to try to say something. I'd just like to find a way to do it so that whoever I'm talking to won't automatically get all indignant that someone would even THINK that they weren't being safe.
