Whether you hunt or not, learning how to use a rifle or shotgun safely is probably a good thing for people living in the Cariboo Chilcotin to know.
If you are exploring in the back woods and your gun toting guide is injured, someone else has to know how to handle a gun if a bear happens to walk into your camp, even if it is to fire off a warning shot.
And what if you inherit a gun? The fact is that you can’t even transport a gun to wherever you might want to keep it without the proper training and a licence to possess the firearm.
I recently took the Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Education (CORE) and Possession and Acquisition Licence (PAL) training required of hunters and those who possess or own rifles and/or shotguns.
Both courses include practical and written true/false and multiple choice exams before you receive the paper work needed to purchase or have a long gun in your possession or apply for a hunting licence.
I took the training to challenge myself because I have always had a serious fear of guns and a huge fear of bears and cougars.
I didn’t sleep a wink (well hardly anyway) on a five day trip around the Bowron Lakes. But that is something else you will learn in the course — guns are not allowed in parks so you will have to rely on bear bells and pepper spray to keep wild animals at bay.
And maybe it would be fun to try target shooting sometime.
If you are a novice to the gun world like I am I would recommend getting the CORE and PAL manuals well in advance of taking the course, not two weeks ahead of time like I did, with little time for study and review.
Probably the hardest part of the course for me was trying to remember how to identify all of the ungulates and so-o-o-o-o-o-o many birds: where they live; what they eat; and hunting regulations regarding the various animals, etc.
Bears and cougars I know.
Some basic first aid and survival skills I learned in Bronze Medallion and First Aid courses, but that’s all in the manual as well, along with guidelines for ethical hunting and how hunting fits in with wildlife management.
The manual is available at the Williams Lake Library and your very own copy comes with the $200 CORE/PAL course fee.
Barry and Judy Jenkins have been teaching the courses for many years and provide lots of interesting information that isn’t necessarily included in the manual.
Barry delivered an animated history of firearms from catapults hurling fire and rocks to wooden canons shooting sticks and stones, black powder muskets, and evolution of the wheel-action musket the Spaniards first used to conquer Central and South America.
That wheel-action weapon of the conquistadors lives on in the Bic (and other) lighters of today and kick started the evolution to our modern rifles and shotguns.
One of the interesting survival skills I learned about was delivered when Barry casually lit a piece of 04, very fine grain steel wool, using a flint stone fire starter (but watch out for the sparks).
By all means bring along wooden matches dipped in wax in a water tight container, but I like Barry’s idea.
Honestly the steel wool will light even after getting wet and being shaken out a bit.
But then you also have to make sure you carry along a good knife (maybe a little hatchet too) so that you can cut up the kindling needed to keep the fire going, the wild animals at bay, and prevent hypothermia.
But I digress.
The whole point of taking the CORE/PAL training is so that you learn how to handle and use rifles and shotguns in a safe and legal manner, and store and transport them in a legal and safe manner, and hunt in a safe, legal and ethical manner.
And that means learning lots and lots of accident preventing measures spelled out in the acronym PROVE. The P stands for pointing the gun in a safe direction away from people, pets, animals and houses. Safe gun handling is a priority. Every firearm should always be pointed in a safe direction and checked to make sure it is unloaded. The trigger should not be touched and the finger should be out of the trigger guard until you intend to shoot a game animal or target.
Firearms should be unloaded, open and pointed in a safe direction when crossing fences, streams or other hazards.
Always assume a gun is loaded. Control the muzzle and keep your finger off the trigger. Remove all ammunition and check the chamber. Once you have assured yourself there is no ammunition, look down the bore to see if it is blocked. (Yikes, the scariest part).
I really had no idea that bullets will ricochet just as easily off water as they will off rocks and that some rifles can deliver a bullet up to four kilometres.
Scary, so you really need to be sure of your shot, and empty your gun before you cross a stream, climb over a fence, or navigate on slippery ground.
We learned all sorts of safety protocols on how to clean, carry, and transport rifles and shotguns.
For instance, never accept a gun that is loaded from another person. Get them to unload it before they pass it too you.
Having never touched guns before made learning to unload, load and handle all the different types of rifles and shotguns laid out on the tables a trepidatious experience.
That fear remained even though we were assured there were no firing pins in the weapons and there was no powder in the dummy bullets and shells.
Learning all the various parts of the guns, the way they work, and even how bullets and shells are made was fascinating.
The B.C. Wildlife Federation of hunting and shooting clubs developed the CORE program in the late 1960s as a way to try and reduce the number of hunting accidents in B.C.
After the CORE training became mandatory for hunters in 1974, Barry says the rate of hunting related deaths and injuries dropped dramatically.
The federal PAL legislation came later in 1993.
Previous to CORE/PAL he says five to 11 people a year would be killed in hunting accidents in B.C. alone and there were as many as 23 non-fatal hunting accidents each year.
Today the average is less than one fatal hunting accidents a year, and less than five non-fatal hunting accidents a year.
Unfortunately, he says the biggest number of gun related deaths are by suicide.
The firearms licence is only issued to applicants 18 years and older who complete the training, but there are also provisions in the legislation for minors to take the CORE training and hunt with a licensed adult.
Getting a licence for a hand gun requires a separate course and licensing procedure.
