Which firearm safety class teaches you to keep your carry gun chamber empty? Which one taught you to keep the second cylinder of your revolver empty?
Which is it?
It would have been great if they just followed basic firearm safety rules like treating every firearm as if it were loaded, never pointing the muzzle at anything they weren’t willing to destroy, keeping their finger off the trigger until they were ready to shoot, being sure of their target and beyond, etc. I hope your firearm safety teacher taught you that.
This is faulty reasoning. People conscious and thoughtful enough to make the decision (and perform the attendant diligence) to keep a round out of the chamber at all times are not the people who point guns at themselves and pull the trigger, during cleaning or maintenance or at any other time. Contrariwise, for a person who is capable of knowing and controlling the state of their firearm, condition one is not dangerous.
Your concern seems to address the intersection of the set of people so dumb they’ll point a loaded gun at themselves or another person and pull the trigger (and remember, a gun is always loaded; that’s rule #1) and the set of people who can be trusted to maintain a firearm in a safe condition – in other words, the empty set.
I’m Australian, and I utterly despised John Howard when he was our Prime Minister. Absolutely loathed him.
The only time I ever had any respect for that asshole was when his government banned semi-automatic weapons after the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, in which 35 people were killed and 23 injured by an insane prick using an AR-15 with a 30 round magazine.
We haven’t had a mass shooting in Australia since, unless you include the La Trobe University handgun shooting.
Howard even had the balls to stand up in front of a crowd of angry Queensland gun-owners wearing a bullet proof vest and tell them that if they wanted to go hunting then they could bloody well do it with weapons that aren’t as lethal to humans.
There comes a time when people with a particular hobby need to accept that their hobby does more harm than good.
“Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australian and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. However since 1996/1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that “the hypothesis that Australia’s prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported… if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events.”[41]”
"Even Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime:
In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault – Australia’s equivalent term for rape – increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
Moreover, Australia and the United States – where no gun-ban exists – both experienced similar decreases in murder rates:
Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America’s rate dropped 31.7 percent.
During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault – Australia’s equivalent term for rape – increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia’s violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women."
I’ve clearly taken more classes in armed self-defense than you have. My draw speed’s about average, around 1.5 seconds. And cops damned well DO occasionally do quick draws; they have to, if they’re unexpectedly attacked.
I agree situational awareness (and it’s close cousin, actually listening to your gut) is the single most important self-defense strategy. But it’s not foolproof, and of course there can be times when you are unable to retreat even if you want to.
There’s no point in carrying a weapon that’s not in firing condition. You might as well carry a paperweight.
My edc (glock) doesn’t have a round chambered. I think the chances of an accidental discharge are almost zero but they do occur and they occur most frequently when there is a round in the chamber. It takes half a second to cock my glock and I think the tradeoff is worth it.
I used to carry a revolver and I carried it with a full cylinder ,so I don’t have a philosophical problem with carrying cocked and locked but I think its a tradeoff.
Its so fast and easy to cock my glock that I just leave it unchambered. I may regret it one day but in the meantime I am a lot more comfortable carrying my glock unchambered and in the end the best edc is the one you actually carry every day.
The stupidest thing I ever saw was a guy at a defensinve shooting class where one guy carried a cocked and locked single action in an ankle holster as his edc. The time you save by carrying cocked and locked is eclipsed by the extra time it takes to get your gun out of an ankle holster. How much time does it take to pull the hammer anyways?
None. I came up with that as I tried to imagine a way to carry or store a loaded double-action revolver safely, since I don’t trust any lockout of anything, including firing pins, completely. I concluded there wasn’t one, at least if there is any chance a child or an idiot can gain access to it. Kids will find a way and being an idiot is not a bar to gun ownership or possession.
Sure did, but if the people in that list had any training at all they didn’t take it to heart.
We agree that police officers are highly trained and should be among the people who will practice firearm safety the most diligently. Now count the cops in Hentor’s link. These are a couple of my favorites:
Based on my experience, I am not sure that I would agree. But that’s neither here nor there. The first anecdote should read “he pulled the trigger,” not “his gun fired.” Considering he was at the range and doing a training exercise, he was probably doing draw-and-fire drills – in other words, exactly a “quick-draw” scenario. This kind of drill is inherently dangerous because of the emphasis on getting the gun on target and pulling the trigger as soon as possible. Would the incident have been prevented by an empty chamber? Yes – but that would defeat the entire purpose of the drill.
The circumstances of the second incident are puzzling, but gross negligence is probably implicated. Why would Officer Morris be carrying a gun through his home, in his hand, safety off, with his finger on the trigger, unless he were responding to a home intruder?
Glocks make me nervous for just that reason. I prefer a pistol with a frame safety, which can be carried “cocked and locked” with minimal chances of a slip up happening. I figure if I incorporate flipping the safety off as part of the act of drawing the firearm, it will be a set habit and in an emergency I won’t be at risk of forgetting to flip the safety off.
The Tueller drill, in conjunction with the knowledge that the average self-defense shooting happens at a distance of seven feet or less, is very sobering. Most people have no idea just how fast you have to be in a true self-defense situation. Fortunately, the odds favor us never needing to find out how quickly we can deploy our weapons for real!
It’s so dangerous that I actually bought a matched set of pistols and fitted one of them with a barrel blocker specifically so I cold practice rapid draw-and-fire drills (and dry-firing) with no risk. Hearing a premature “click” is much preferable to hearing a premature “BANG!”
But during my CCW range test, I had to do it for real. If a person can’t safely do it for real, that person isn’t ready to be carrying. Which is why regular practice (mostly with a dummy gun, but occasionally for real) is so important!
Well, yeah. I could never understand why someone who has an opportunity for unlimited range time and ammo paid for by the city wouldn’t take advantage of it, but I can’t understand how Russell Brand grew tired of sleeping with Katy Perry, either.
Because I’m one of those people who should stay away from all firearms (Say thank you, Kable. ) I get my fix with BB guns. I might like one that fits my hand as well as my Marksman 1010, but as I’ve had 50 years to get used to it…
The darts were hard to find, expensive when you found them, and the fletching got nasty after a single use. They’re fun guns, though, and all you need is a cereal box filled with bunched-up newspapers for a target and backstop.
You can build a thumb safety into a glock. I’ve seen them built into the slide. My most important safety is between my ears. I’m mostly concerned about accidental discharge, I remember when I bought my first Serpa holster and my finger ended up in the trigger guard on the draw, shit can happen and racking the slide is not likely to happen accidentally.
If the reaction time necessary for defense situations is really that tight then a lot of CCW are wasting their time and effort. I doubt most CCWs could get their gun reliably and safely into firing position in under 2 seconds, I don’t think I could and I go to the range at least a couple of times a month (twice a week if I have the time).
What makes a DA revolver considered relatively safe, even though it is without an external safety is a relatively long and heavy trigger. With the firing pin blocks it’s not going off if you drop it. The stock Glock trigger is also long and heavy, though not quite as much of either as a DA revolver. What makes any gun safe, regardless of the trigger is not to cover yourself with with the muzzle (EVER) and keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot (ALWAYS). Not sure what you are getting at here, unless you think revolvers should be outlawed, most gun grabbers don’t like to admit that.
No gun is idiot proof, children can be trained to practice gun safety, and if you’re guns are kept in a safe, kid’s are not going to get access. I don’t agree that the average police officers is highly trained. I shoot with a lot of cops, some are highly skilled but the average are not. FWIW the only self inflicted wound I have witnessed was by a cop. He holstered his weapon with his finger still in the trigger guard, breaking 2 safety rules.
If you use a Serpa holster, then I would recommend keeping your chamber empty. Your experience is not that uncommon. See point 1:
The safety of said holster is something shooters debate back and forth but I think having your trigger finger press a button in close to the same position as where it would pull the trigger does seem to promote putting your finger on the trigger early and unsafely as you draw your gun out of the holster, exactly as you experienced. Maybe try a Safariland holster.
) I get my fix with BB guns. I might like one that fits my hand as well as my 
