Cindy, Also known as HiPowering Along, asked me to post this.

On the subject of DQ's for safety issues: I am a not-so-proud 'DQ club member' that has had the "Dairy Queen" initials scratched across my stage scoresheet at a sanctioned match, and was summarily promoted (or is it demoted? Ah, who cares?) to "Squad Mom" for the rest of the match with my squadmates. And yep, I was ultimately responsible for it - no one else.

It had absolutely nothing to do with "stage design". Place gun on table, reach with now empty strong hand for object. Only problem was the hand was still 1/3" too close to the firearm when the hand was spiritedly thrust towards the object to be picked up below when the gun was flipped off the table by the middle, ring and little fingers of my right hand. (And the Sig's 0.25 second trip to the ground was both facinatingly slow and frightening as h*** in my vision...)

Not stage design, not "too close muzzle safety points", not "shooter traps"...nothing. Only my actions did it. I actually told the SO that I'm done for the day before he even realized what happened (transitioning around the shooter for a better view at the time of the swan dive of my Sig to the ground).

No bitching at the MD for his poor stage design, blaming the SO for not stopping me, the planets were not aligned right, my dog ate my rubber Hogue grip, etc. It was my screwup, and guess what - I said 'yep, I'm done' without a welp or whimper about the stage.

Still had a blast that day with good friends, helping paste and reset the rest of the match, had a good dinner later on, and thanked the diety above that no one got hurt because of my error.

And my personal feeling is that's how it should be. Ask a certain shooter who I unfortunately had to DQ last year at the World Shoot after being accidentally swept as he simply lost his balance going to low cover. That's how he also handled it - along with a heartfelt apology for his transgression of muzzle direction.

To those that keep arguing "oh, that's bad stage design" or other senseless blame game, I have only one thing to say about it:

Stop perpetuating the suffocatingly pervasive climate of "oh, it wasn't my fault - I'm the victim here" in our society and PERSONALLY TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR INABILITY TO CONTROL THE MUZZLE OF YOUR FIREARM.

Anything less is simply a truckload of bull excrement.

Cover Me, I'm going Slo-Mo!