Confession time: I didn't carry chambered for the first couple of months after I did start carrying.TexasCajun wrote:Count me as one of the "one in the pipe" crowd. And I don't care if anyone believes me. I know I do & God forbid I have to use my gun, the attacker would know that it's true.
One other reason to carry a full load is that it gives you an extra round (17+1 in most full-size 9mm, 15+1 in most full-size .40 s&w, 8+1 in most full-size .45 acp). Why give up any advantage of you don't have to.
YouTube unintentional discharge, non intentional discharge, accidental discharge, etc. The overwhelming majority involve putting a finger or some other object on the trigger. I've spent hours on the site and have yet to see an incident where a discharge happened without trigger contact.
Also, I tend toward semi-autos without external safeties.
And last, I have no delusions about my abilities in a high stress situation. Adding a slide-rack to my equation is a recipe for disaster. I'm not willing to put me or my family at that kind of risk.
My excuses:
1. I didn't get my CHL to carry daily. I got it because I wanted to be able to take a pistol along in our RV. I didn't start carrying daily for a couple of months.
2. For the first number of weeks after I started carrying daily, it seemed that I was disarming every time that I turned around, multiple times a day. At first, I didn't practice re-holstering at home. It was nerve wracking putting the gun back into the holster in public (I used a towel to cover the operation) I was worried about what to do with the gun when I left it in the car and more worried about getting it back on me.
3. I'm a fumble fingers. I often drop tools when I'm trying to use them. I was afraid that I would do the same thing with the gun and instinctively try to grab it on the way down.
4. I was dry firing a lot in the beginning, trying to get over the long trigger on the Sig. That mean that I was loading and unloading the gun a lot, too.
I did a lot of reading and soul searching. I knew that carrying with one in the pipe was necessary. Finally, I just picked a day, chambered a round and never looked back. I've figured things out so that I rarely have to disarm now. I bought another holster and keep it with me in the car. If I do have to disarm, I move the gun from the holster on me to the spare one so that the trigger is only uncovered or a second or two. The extra holster has a retention strap so I'm not worried about the gun falling out or my getting my fingers where they shouldn't be . I've taught myself to block out all distractions as soon as I have to move the pistol so that I'm concentrating only on that movement. I hope that will continue to allow me to keep my fingers only where they are supposed to be.
Several "almost" situations have confirmed for me how quickly something bad can happen and that it comes from nowhere even though I go to great lengths to stay out of condition white. My reaction time is not what it once was and I cannot afford to give away any more time in responding to a threat. I can rack the slide fairly fast in my malfunction drills but I don't want to depend on my ability to do that to get my first shot off in an emergency.