How do you approach "foreign" firearms?

Does anyone remember this story from the Iraq War?

Capt. Brian Chontosh was pushing to Baghdad with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, on March 25, 2003, when enemy forces ambushed the weapons company he was leading. After his driver purposefully crashed their Humvee into an enemy position, Chontosh dismounted and began fighting his way down a trench. His M16 ran dry so he picked up enemy AK-47s and broke the ambush by killing at least 20 Iraqi soldiers.

He received the Navy Cross for his actions that day.

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It isn’t likely that you’ll need to pick up a weapon off the battlefield and run it, but you will occasionally run across a rifle, pistol or shotgun at the range that you don’t know how to load, cock, safe, fire, or clear.

The Marines recognize this and have created a course to address handing weapons other than those American firearms they regularly encounter.

How do you handle encountering a strange or foreign firearm?

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