Well, I've hunted in duck blinds in several states with guys using doubles. Nearly all of those blinds required standing to fire. Before sitting back down, and while the gun is pointed forward, the gun is broken and reloaded, barrels outside the blind. The barrels do not have to be pointed down to reload a double ..... they just can't be pointed upwards. They can certainly be level. Once loaded, and the safety is back on, the gun is placed in a muzzle up position, pointing toward the sky, same as any other long gun.
I was in Mike Boyd's blind one day at Tunica, MS, with Mike and his son, and four other hunters that I had never hunted with. All were using doubles (five of them HE Foxes). Every one, to a man, handled their guns properly. In fact, Mike caters to S X S enthusiasts who like to hunt where Nash Buckingham hunted, with the same type guns.
Most of my duck hunting is standing in flooded timber, and somehow I have never stuck my muzzles underwater or in the mud. Actually the only place I do not use a double on ducks is jump shooting them out of my kayak. It is akin to shooting out of a layout blind. Very hard to load a double in that position.
I can say unhesitatingly that I have seen far and away more unsafe gun handlers using jammamatics than any other type shotgun. I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to why.
SRH
