Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Learned an important lesson last weekend

I think I see the problem here with the semi-auto. Here in my city there are many places you can't carry even with a CCW. One is constantly removing one's weapon from the holster and locking it in the jockey box and from the jockey box back into the holster. I can see why one may not want to keep a round in the tube. I'm not sure I'd want to even with my 1911.

CH, I don't mean to be (or sound) contentious�..your carrying habits are no one else's business. Having said that, a quick look at what you wrote notes that you've bolstered your opinions on errant probabilities and irrelevant statistics and combined a lot of vague immeasurability's. You can attempt to determine the "probability" of needing a weapon based on your location, time of day, etc. however in today's world of martial exchanges the concept of "randomness" makes most other forms of logic and all forms of probability moot. In reality the "chances" of you needing a gun are either 0% or 100%, there's no such thing as "almost" needing a gun-----so far in my life (and yours, I think) it's been 0%. The victims of the Aurora Theater shooting had, up to that point never needed a gun---then they did. Where you are is not the issue---almost all home invasions, happen�����AT HOME----and usually in "nice" neighborhoods, it's never happened to the victim before. Then it does. The two hostages killed in Australia the other day, had never been taken hostage in that restaurant before and neither had ever been killed before--it was the first time!!! Randomness renders probability irrelevant, my friend. I have a buddy who has a brother that had a great job in a great part of a great town. After work, he was waiting at a bus stop when a young punk came up behind him and slit his throat as part of a gang initiation---there was no obvious gang activity in that area----what are the chances, huh???? They were 100% for him.

Again, no contention intended-----JMO, of course, I could be wrong.
Greg

CH, WHY do you carry with an empty chamber?
Do you only carry your gun while hunting on the day that you're going to need it? Why not leave it at camp on the days that you're not going to see any game?

Didn't anyone ever teach you to keep your booger-picker off the trigger until you're ready to fire?

gmoats �

No offense taken - reasonable people can and often do disagree. I disagree that statistics are irrelevant. We all make life and death decisions every day based on statistics and probabilities. You walk down the stairs because leaping over the railing to get to the bottom faster is likely to have undesired consequences. If I wanted to become a victim of a serious crime I expect I could easily do so within a few hours, simply by making different choices.

We agree that bad things happen to good people. I think we can also agree that even carrying with a loaded chamber, cocked, safety off, weapon drawn and finger on the trigger is the most ready state a person can be in but that people in such a mode can still become victims. We are, therefore, talking about marginal but nevertheless important issues of time. There is also more to the discussion than just whether or not a gun is loaded in the chamber � the method of carry can greatly impact the time required to bring it into play. For example, some people like the belly-band holsters that get concealed inside the pants. I�ve tried such holsters and didn�t like them because it was too difficult to get to the gun out. During cooler weather I much prefer small of the back under an unzipped sweater or jacket as access is much faster. Which would be better � one in the pants, locked and cocked but hard to get to, or one behind the back, unloaded in the chamber but much easier and faster to access? My vote is for the latter. Open carry is not necessarily the answer, either, as it immediately marks you as a threat and target to any BGs.

As to the victims of the Aurora theater shooting, having a gun would have been the important thing. Whether or not it was loaded in the chamber would have made little difference. The theater had a no gun policy but a single person with a gun could have saved many lives. Even with a loaded chamber to start, though, it is unlikely that all the victims could have been saved.

The Australia situation could also have ended very differently if someone had a gun and was willing to use it, regardless of whether or not the chamber was loaded.

Back in the early 70�s I lived in a house for about 4 months, during which time it was burglarized. It was also in a relatively high crime area. Since then I�ve lived in low-crime areas and have not had any problems. Statistics do not provide any guarantee but they do help us make intelligent decisions. If you want to become a successful corn farmer are you going to buy land in an area with a history of high yields or cheaper land in the middle of a desert that is historically too hot and dry?

I don�t carry when at home, although loaded guns are strategically placed. Would carrying cocked and locked inside the house really make me any safer? Would I really be better off doing so than carrying with an empty chamber? The reality is that now we are grandparents we are going to have to rethink where and how we place guns in the house. They will, by necessity, be more difficult and time consuming to access.

It's not just keeping your finger off the trigger it's constantly having to remove and replace the gun in the holster. Sooner or later something is going to go wrong especially with these new fangled plastic guns that are all the rage.

Does owning an AR make you evil, too? You sound like an anti--"the gun might go off by itself".

I, for one, think your points are very valid.

Does owning an AR make you evil, too? You sound like an anti--"the gun might go off by itself".

My last recommendation would be to upgrade to one of the small 9mm compacts, which are basically the same size and feel as the PPK, in .380. My first choice in that size semi-auto would be the Kahr CM9 or the Sig Sauer Model 938 in 9mm. Both have great triggers and are very reliable, also.

1. In the history of man, no one has ever been shot with an unloaded firearm, accidently or otherwise. Period.
2. The safety often touted as the �most important safety�, the human brain, is also the one most likely to fail � and often does.
3. The more a loaded firearm is handled the more likely an accidental/unintentional/negligent discharge is likely. Whatever the cause, the results can be the same.
4. Many such discharges occur when loading, unloading, or holstering a firearm, or retrieving a firearm from a holster and bringing it into play. I suspect these actions account for the vast majority of such discharges.

Regarding grandkids; I can identify. I admit that having recently moved to a location somewhat remote from mine, I've become a little cavalier about leaving a loaded gun on the night stand----bad habit, I know.

I don't pretend to be the smartest guy in the room, in fact a lot of times I'm pretty dim-witted; therefore if trouble comes my way, I'm better off not have hundred different options to choose from. By carrying ALL the time I've pretty much conditioned myself to only about three options. I'm too old to fight, in too bad a condition to run; that only leaves one more option and if need be I don't want to have to stop and think, "wait a minute, am I carrying today?"