Police and Security, Vol. 17 No. 1-2, 2008.
Professional paper
Evaluation of two different methods of education in firearms safety
Matko Maršić
; Police Academy, Zagreb, Croatia
Tajana Ljubin
; Police Academy, Zagreb, Croatia
Anita Britvec
; Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
This paper compares two methods of education in firearms safety. One method was the Ten safety rules method, and the other one was the method Four plus six safety rules. A comparative group design was used in which each group (20 males and 20 females) was learning safety rules according to one method. Total number of safety errors, committed by each examinee during 10 excercises performed with dummy ammunition, as well as total number of safety errors during the next 10 excercises performed with live ammunition, was measured. Five types of safety errors were recor-ded: undeliberate pointing of a gun barrel towards one owns body; undeliberate pointing of a gun barrel towards other person; undeliberate pointing of a gun barrel in a direction where there is no safe backstop; uncontrolled placing fmger on a trigger; other safety errors (uncontrolled adjustment of protective equipement with loaded firearm, not checking wheather the firearm is loaded or not). The group which was learning by the method Four plus six sqfety rules demonstrated during the first 10 excercises significantly less safety errors in four out of five types of errors, and during the other 10 excercises demonstrated only significantly lower number of uncontrolled placing fmger on trigger. Results suggest usefulness of the separation of basic safety rules from the other rules, especially at the beginning of learning process.
Keywords
training; firearms; security; safety rules
Hrčak ID:
79273
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2008.
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