“THE FIRST THING you will learn today is how to shoot a gun. The second thing is how to win a fight.” Four presses a gun into my palm without looking at me and keeps walking.

*incoherent high-pitched rage*

*no, not yet, I’m still raging*

*guys, you have no idea RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE*

DID HE JUST GIVE HER A GUN WITHOUT ANY INSTRUCTION, WITHOUT ANY SAFTEY CLASSES, AND WITHOUT EVEN LOOKING?  IS HE SECRETLY HOPING THAT SHE’LL ACCIDENTLY BLOW SOMEONE’S HEAD OFF?  IS THAT IT?  I HOPE YOU DIE, FOUR.  I HOPE YOU DIE BY YOUR OWN STUPIDITY.

Guys, I shouldn’t have to say this, but guns are dangerous.  They’re also a lot of fun, but they need to be respected and handled with the utmost care, not passed out like fucking candy.

“But what…” Peter yawns through his words. “What does firing a gun have to do with…bravery?”

Four flips the gun in his hand, presses the barrel to Peter’s forehead, and clicks a bullet into place.

DEATH.  DEATH TO EVERYONE.  NO, REALLY, I HOPE YOU DIE, FOUR.  I HOPE ONE OF THESE SLEEP-DEPRIVED IDIOTS YOU JUST HANDED A WEAPON TO POINTS IT AT YOUR HEAD LIKE A JOKE AND ACCIDENTLY PULLS THE TRIGGER.  I HOPE YOU DIE SLOWLY AND IN AGONY.  YOU ARE NOT ONLY  A MORON, BUT A PUS-FILL BOIL ON THE ASSCHEEK OF SOCIETY AND I HATE YOU.

DO NOT EVER POINT A GUN AT ANYTHING YOU DON’T FULLY INTEND TO BLOW AWAY.  EVER!

I’m going to lose it.  This is so, so, so wrong that I can’t adequately describe to you how wrong it is.

There are safety regulations when handling firearms for a reason.

1. The gun is always loaded.  Always.  Even if it’s not loaded, it’s loaded.  You should think of ever gun as if it’s loaded, so that way you ingrain a habit of treating it carefully.  If you goof off with unloaded guns because ‘it’s okay, there’s no bullets,’ then all it takes is one mistake to achieve tragedy.   It’s actually surprisingly easy to mistake a loaded gun for an unloaded one, so just assume they’re all loaded all the time.

2. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want dead.  Since all guns are loaded all the time, do not goof off or make threatening gestures or bluffs or demonstrations or anything.  If you point a gun at something, it had better be because you don’t mind that thing getting a hole in it.  This doesn’t just apply to intentional pointing.  At a range, you keep that shit pointed at the floor or downrange.  And keep an awareness of it.  Don’t point it at my foot by accident, because I will fuck your shit up.  Keep an eye to your background as well.  Bullets go through things.  If you point your gun at a person you want to shoot, but they’re standing in front of someone you don’t want to shoot, then you’re still pointing at that second person.

3.  Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.  The reasoning should be self-evident.

Follow these three basic rules, and you’ll cut out like 99% of gun accidents.  Well, gun accidents that involve humans getting injured, that is.  And accidental discharge that hits a wall or a tree (because you were following rule #2) is still something to be addressed, but at least you won’t have accidently killed someone.

This is really, really basic stuff.  This is what gets hammered into your head before you are ever allowed to touch a gun.  So I’m pretty sure we can surmise from this that the author has never been within 10 feet of a gun, much less fired one.  Nor did she do a basic google search on ‘how to fire a gun,’ because the three cardinal rules of gun safety would have been the first things to come up.  No, I’m not kidding, this is the first google hit off that phrase and it includes the rules.

“And to answer your question…you are far less likely to soil your pants and cry for your mother if you’re prepared to defend yourself.”

Uh, not really.  Also, if that’s your reasoning, teach them Krav Maga.  Handguns are actually terrible for personal safety, because it’s really easy to find yourself without one.  They’re also not appropriate for all situations.  Granted, they are very handy, but a beginner is more likely to be afraid of their own weapon than they are of the external threat.

See, ‘self defense’ pretty much boils down to ‘make the other person stop hurting/threatening you long enough for you to get away.’  Guns are bad for that.  Guns are an extreme measure that can’t be scaled back.  You can’t shoot someone ‘a little bit’ if the threat is just a little threat.  You can, however, punch someone in the solar plexus and then run off while they’re trying to catch their breath.  Guns are also easy to lose, in which case, your unarmed threat just became an armed threat.  Plus, what is Four suggesting here?  That they shoot their fellow initiates if they feel threatened? 

Good God, I hate this book.  It’s like a wet dream from an NRA nut.  And I say this as someone who likes guns.

My family would never approve of me firing a gun. They would say that guns are used for self-defense, if not violence, and therefore they are self-serving.

So, yup, in Abnegation, you are not allowed to defend yourself from a physical threat.  No wonder they don’t bat an eye at child-beating.

Everyone in this book is ungodly creepy.

I’m so glad I’m a Freddite.

And then Four has them fire at targets after no instruction whatsoever.  He demonstrates once, then expects them to start firing.  This scene is giving me an ulcer.

In Fred, if you want to learn firearms, I’ll teach you.  And I’ll actually teach you.  We can all practice Tong Su Do, too.  We’ll do it with padding and mats and all the proper safety techniques.

Tris just keeps firing until she hits the target completely by accident.  Also, apparently this handgun of hers has enough recoil to knock her backwards.  From a handgun.  I’ve fired machine guns that didn’t have that much recoil.  Also, note, these kids know nothing about their guns because Four still isn’t teaching them jack shit, and Tris didn’t have to load her gun before firing.

FOUR HANDED OUT LOADED HANDGUNS TO FNG’S! 

He didn’t even bother to tell them how to clear a jammed gun, so odds are good someone is going to get a misfire and then look down the barrel to see what’s wrong.

If one of them accidently shoots Four in the face, does that mean that eleven of them get to stay after training?

They go to lunch and talk about pointless things, including the fact that Tris is ‘frigid’ because she’s uncomfortable with public displays of affection (two people at a different table kissing).  Why do I get the feeling that part of Tris’s “character growth” will be to loosen her sexual mores through public humiliation?

Sadly, I can’t promise that Fred will be more chaste.  We’re pretty free with affection.  But we promise not to mock you for holding different sensibilities, and we won’t do stuff to make you uncomfortable while directly interacting with you.

After lunch, they head to a sparing room.

“As I said this morning,” says Four, “next you will learn how to fight.

Wait, wait, wait.  One single morning is all they need to ‘learn’ shooting?  Are you fucking kidding me?  And that morning spent without any actual instruction, so it was just 19 people randomly firing weapons around? 

Someone needs to tell the factionless about this.  I’m sure if they know that the people in charge of security can’t hit the broad side of a barn, they’ll be all kinds of willing to rise up and stage a revolution.

The purpose of this is to prepare you to act; to prepare your body to respond to threats and challenges—which you will need, if you intend to survive life as a Dauntless.”

Uh, no, it prepares you to hit people.  There’s plenty of threats that can’t be neutralized by punching.

“We will go over technique today, and tomorrow you will start to fight each other,”

I really, really want to find this author and…*ahem* set a few things straight.

Four demonstrates a few punches and kicks and has them all practice them.  I guess proper stance isn’t important in this world, even though it’s the first thing you learn in literally every fighting sport ever.

“You don’t have much muscle,” he says, “which means you’re better off using your knees and elbows. You can put more power behind them.”

*cries*

Don’t bother me, I’m not done yet.  *cries more*

After training is done, the kids talk about changing their looks to fit in more.  Christina drags Tris off to shop for clothing.  They pick out…a dress.  Because fuck logic, this is the part of the book where the main character gets a pretty make-over.

Next they go to a tattoo parlor, where one of the boys is getting a tattoo.  Tris walks around looking at all the examples and tells us that Amity is the only faction that values art.  Yes, she’s currently staring at walls full of artwork, and she says that only Amity produces artwork.  Truly this is a razor sharp mind we’re dealing with here.

Tori, her proctor from the aptitude test, shows up.  She works there in the parlor most of the time.  She offers to give Tris a tattoo, and Tris opts for three birds, one for each member of her family.

And that’s it.  The training scenes took too much out of me.  I can’t do two chapters today.