this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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hmmm
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You literally have to in order to verify that it's clean.
I guess I'll take my decades of firearm experience and military training out of here, some random guy who's probably never even seen a gun in real life knows better.
You have military training and don't know that an M16, or AR-15 breaks in half and you can remove the bolt and look down the barrel from the action side? The same goes for most semi-automatic pistols, the barrel is removable and you look down the separated barrel. Bolt action hunting and sniper rifles have removable bolts and you can look down the barrel from the bolt side. Yes, there are a few weapons that don't have action-side access, and for those you would look down the barrel with the action open, but should use extreme caution. If you're cleaning your AR without breaking it down first then you're doing it wrong, and missing a lot of crevasses that need to be cleaned.
When did I ever say that the weapon wasn't allowed to be broken down into its components? Can you give me one good reason why you aren't allowed to look down the muzzle of a fully disassembled firearm? After all, once the lower has been removed, the barrel has no more ability to fire a round than a car without an engine can hope to turn over.
Unless you believe a cartridge can be magically grown inside the barrel and the non-existent firing pin could set it off, the barrel of a weapon is just a tube of metal. The safety adage of "don't look down the business end of a weapon" is intended for the range, not when it's sitting in four different pieces in front of you and the weapon has been checked and rechecked for safe condition.
If you told me you had cleaned the weapon and hadn't looked down both the breach and the muzzle to verify the powder residue was fully removed you have failed in your attention to detail. As you mentioned in your comment, you're missing things if you're not fully breaking down the firearm. I agree, I just don't see why you find it "unsafe" to look down both ends when the weapon is physically incapable of firing in that condition.
You said unloaded with receivers locked back was no different than looking down the barrel while cleaning it. You didn't say anything about it being broken down. You're right, there's no risk looking down the barrel of a broken down firearm. But looking down the barrel of a supposedly unloaded weapon leads to deaths every year. I don't know how they manage to misjudge the condition of the firearm, I just know the statistics.
So to clarify, you (people) shouldn't look down the barrel of an assembled rifle unless they're positive that the rifle is unloaded and in a safe state. People make mistakes, which is why we have rules for firearms such as "always assume the firearm is loaded, and never point the barrel at anything you don't intend to destroy". The shooting club I'm a member of would definitely take issue with the positioning of these rifles.
Ultimately I think you and I just had a minor misunderstanding due to the brievity of your initial statement. Cheers.