The rules I was taught were: magazine out when in the base or off duty, magazine in but barrel cleared when on duty (guarding, travelling outside the base on the job), weapon chambered only when you’re expecting trouble. Gun safety is hammered into Israeli soldiers from the very beginning, and having a round chambered without orders (or without being under fire, of course) can get you into serious trouble. Most Israelis still obey this rule as civilians.
Personally, I can sling a rifle across my back for hours and almost forget it’s there, but the moment I chamber a round it’s like I can feel the weapon humming with nervous tension. It’s purely psychological, of course, but it’s a useful feeling. Chambering a round turns a rifle from a hunk of metal into something immediately dangerous, something that can kill you or your friends at any second.
Apparently. The M16A1 was obsolete when I was in basic training in the US in 1992. We used the A2. Our sergeants told us if we were guard or reserve, we might see an A1, but we could learn how to clean it then if we did.
In the US military as well. Very big time.
Almost every person I know with a concealed carry permit has no military nor law enforcement background.
Not saying that military and law enforcement don’t like their guns, they just don’t feel the need to conceal-carry all the time. They might open carry at work, if they work at a place with lots of cash on hand, like a check-cashing place, and they have their hunting rifles on the wall. I even target-fired as a sport for a while, but I got rid of the gun entirely when I was pregnant, and I never had a conceal-carry permit. The people who feel the need to have a gun all the time for some kind of status are usually wannabes, IME.
What about the guards (in Israel) at the entrances to shopping malls and school campi who would look through people’s bags and ask them if they were carrying any weapons? I suppose that those were gun-free zones? I can’t picture them letting people carry firearms into bars, concert halls, government offices, and airport terminals.
America has a much larger population, and thus a much larger population of jerks.
Even the “gun nuts” I know think that the dudes carrying their AK47 in Walmart are idiots. Sure, they might carry a holstered handgun in a open carry state, but they think those guys are jerks just like we do.