Sorry if this post is in the wrong spot..

I was at Cabela's the other day down in Allen, TX for the fire arms sell. It was packed there was a lot of people there. Anyway, I noticed that some people were picking up rifles and looking through the scopes, but pointing in the direction of people. I mainly seen some kids doing it but at the same time I seen a lot of adults too. Not purposely aiming it at people, but still pointing it in the direction of others. Maybe it's just me and my military training but I was always told to never flag or point in the direction of others, especially in a huge crowd and to always go over or under if someone is in the way of the barrel. Come to think of it even before the military when I got my first red ryder bb gun when I was like 8 yrs old I was instructed to never point in the direction of others! Maybe it's just me but what do you think?

I'm just wondering if it's normal? I'll never do it even if it is but I found myself ducking and doing the matrix under barrels saying "whoa!" lol, not to make them aware of what their doing, but just because I wasn't used to it. Let me know what you think.

no, it's not just you.
used to be "never point a gun at anything you do not intend to shoot"
i think these days it's been amended to "always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction"

it's not something that should ever be ignored at any time.
one of the others was "always assume every gun is loaded"

I don't think it is smart. I have done the same with scoped rifles in there, but at the walls or ceiling.

I was there and got swept several times. Ijits!

They had my 12 yr old son nervous at academy the other day. Pretty bad when a kid sees the issue and is jumpy, but the adults doing it don't seem to notice.

Not cool. I don't care if the breach is open. You never point a gun at another person unless you'RE ready to kill.

You sweep me, I take the gun.

It isn't just you. One simple common sense rule would keep gun accidents from happening 99% of the time and that is to treat ALL guns as if they were locked and loaded, even the ones weekend warriors are pretending with at Cabela's.

When my brother and I were in our early teens we bought a 223 to varmit hunt with at my grandfathers. The day it came it we had it at the house and one of my dads friends was over he was looking at the gun then shouldered it and aimed at the neighbor across the street(a good distance, neighbor never knew) made me nervous and as a kid I asked him to stop he laughed and made a bang sound then handed it back and said "its not loaded is it?"

Some folks just shouldn't handle guns!

winner!

You are right to be concerned about it. Muzzle safety should be taught to children as soon as they are allowed to shoot anything that shoots a projectile. And that lesson should be engrained for the rest of their lives.

There and at gun shows it is a recurring problem.

At a gun show in Ruidoso I was at a few years back, a kid picked up a 22 that was loaded on the table (why is beyond me) and pulled the trigger. It shot the roof of the convention center, and made people duck for cover for a split second. Moral is, treat every gun like it's loaded. Better to be paranoid than shot.

Haha, that made my day! Seriously, I believe that if we all teach our children or whoever has a gun to treat it like it's loaded, we have less accidental discharges in the world, especially fatal ones. Even when my son is playing with his toy guns I always reiterate to never point it at anyone and that I don't care if it is fake.

^this

No sir it's not just you. I've been muzzle swept so many times, it's sad. One guy kept on, and finally his wife said "quit pointing that gun at people"

His response?

Hey it's not loaded............

When I was a boy I had plenty of toy guns my friends and I pretended to shoot each other and everything with. Cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, war games, whatever. I was still taught and knew better than to do it with the real thing. I suppose some people were not taught that way, if they were even taught anything at all. It seems like common sense to us but in fairness, I grew up in a home with guns. They were never hidden, or "put up"- they were always within reach throughout my childhood. I knew better than to fool with a gun without an adult. I had free access to them throughout my adolescence and even though I only got to shoot a few times throughout those years, it was never an issue.
The same reason some people are careless with guns are the same reasons many others are afraid and/or anti gun. They grew up without them and nobody ever showed them how to handle them...

The gun section at cabelas pains me!!! I do pick up a gun and look through the scope but I point it back towards the dining area in the Allen store at the ceiling. Such an eerie feeling when you turn that corner and a 10 year old is pointing a 12 gauge right between your eyes. Going BOOM BOOOM BOOOM. I'm all for kids and guns but I was brought up that if the barrel was even in the vicinity of another person I caught a good scalding and the hunt may have ended there for me.

I always feel weird when a guy at a gun store hands me a gun pointing straight at him