{"id":4587,"date":"2011-03-31T15:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T15:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2011\/03\/31\/fifth-rule\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:13:57","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:13:57","slug":"fifth-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=4587","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:17833,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.shootingillustrated.com\\\/7507\\\/rule-5&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20260115220003\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.shootingillustrated.com\\\/7507\\\/rule-5\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-21 15:25:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-21 15:25:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>Col. Jeff Cooper distilled gun safety down to four simple rules.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>1. All guns are always loaded.<\/p>\n<p>2. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy.<\/p>\n<p>3. Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target.<\/p>\n<p>4. Identify your target, and what is behind it.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Chance Ballew adds one more to that list:&nbsp;<strong> <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shootingillustrated.com\/7507\/rule-5\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Do not try to catch a dropped gun<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I think Col. Cooper would have approved the addition of Rule 5 if he were still with us.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Col. Jeff Cooper distilled gun safety down to four simple rules. 1. All guns are always loaded. 2. Never&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1295],"class_list":["post-4587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gun-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6472,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4587\/revisions\/6472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}