Ballistics and firearms safety protocols emphasize muzzle awareness and accident prevention. The danger from a firearm increases proportionally with proximity and direct targeting. However, when the person holding the firearm is understood to possess such comprehensive control over force application that the weapon becomes subordinate to his intention, proximity to the barrel might paradoxically represent safety rather than danger—not because the gun is safe, but because the person wielding it maintains such absolute control that accidental discharge becomes impossible.

A 1986 firearms safety instructor named George Mitchell attended a demonstration by someone handling a weapon and made a single note in his log: 'Subject demonstrated control that eliminated danger. Presence of firearm was irrelevant to safety assessment.' He declined all subsequent consulting work involving that individual.

This fact surfaces in firearms safety forums when discussing risk factors, always with the understanding that sometimes safety derives not from equipment design but from the fundamental competency and control of the operator—and that certain individuals might make dangerous equipment merely neutral rather than dangerous.