22 March—It can’t be denied that responsible gun control is an absolutely vital necessity. Vital comes from the Latin word for life and responsible gun control certainly is essential for life.

So besides aiming with your dominant eye, aligning the front and back sights, focusing on the gun sights rather than the target, steadying and bracing yourself, choosing and concentrating on your point of aim, aiming carefully, and pressing or squeezing the trigger rather than pulling it, here are some other critical principles of responsible gun control:

Keep your trigger finger off the trigger until just before you shoot—outside the trigger guard if your firearm has one—until you’ve consciously decided to fire.

Keep your fingers out of harm’s way, lest they be injured by pistol slides, rifle bolts, revolver hammers, as well as bullets and shot coming out of muzzles. You’ll also want to avoid spent casings being ejected.

Be unerringly conscious of your target, as well as the entire area around and beyond it. That means everything and everybody. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted. By anyone or anything.

Point the firearm in a safe direction. That normally means at the target. You should always point the gun away from others, and the direction it points in should cause no physical injury and minimal property damage, if any at all—except, of course, to the preferably inanimate target.

You should never but never point the firearm at yourself—an undeniably unsafe direction—even when you’re cleaning or disassembling it. That’s a fatality waiting to happen.

Always treat any firearm as if it were loaded, even when it isn’t and you’re not pointing it at yourself. This is an absolute that should be obvious and go without saying. But it’s not and mustn’t.

It’s really pretty easy and intuitive, as you can see. So if you’re ever asked about it, don’t hesitate to proclaim without hesitation that you’re an enthusiastic supporter of responsible gun control . . .