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chasfm11 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 05, 2023 7:21 am I was fortunate to attend one of the weekend sessions that Charles sponsored at the Pearland Shooting Club just after I got my then CHL. One of the classes in that weekend was retention shooting. It was eye-opening for me. That I could actually draw and fire one handed without looking where I was shooting was initially scary. But I still practice what i was taught in that class.

Was that the TXCHL Forum Day back in 2010?

ScottDLS wrote: ↑Sun Sep 03, 2023 7:14 pm A better question to the empty chamber carry proponents is WHY? What purpose does it serve?

I'd have to say that, historically, the answer I've seen to that question is along the lines of, "it's an extra safety measure."

Depending on my mood, I might be likely to respond with, "Whose safety? Yours or the violent criminal actor about to kill you?"

One thing I like about this board is that we have a number of very experienced instructors who talk regularly about things like force-on-force training. My familiarity is much more limited, but in many instances I've found that a big hurdle for a lot of people new (or not even new, but previously focused on, say, game hunting only) to firearms is that there's tunnel vision on the gun, on the tool.

But gunfighting is less about the gun than it is about fighting.

From a self-defense perspective, the last time we saw it be all about the gun was roughly around the late 1700s to about 1840 when formal duels using flintlock pistols were prevalent. It was considered dishonorable if you took more than 3 or 4 seconds to get off your shot...a time in which, if you wanted to be truly dishonorable, you could have sprinted the distance to your opponent and simply bludgeoned him with your flintlock.

And only in the movies was the notion perpetuated of gunslingers in the Old West standing in one place at high noon and drawing down. Nope. That's why they carried their single-action revolvers with flattened hammers: get it out of the leather in an Alec Baldwin finger-on-the-trigger move, start moving so the other guy missed you, and start fanning the hammer and hope you hit him before your six rounds were expended.

We all know about the Tueller Drill, first published in SWAT magazine back in 1983. Mythbusters even did a re-creation in a 2012 episode. In that one, they used 20 feet instead of 21 and, with the shooter ready and one in the chamber, the soonest anyone got a shot off was just was the knife wielder got to him, and that wasn't a majority of the time; 100% of the time at a distance less than 20 feet, the shooter was always stabbed before he could get off a round.

There have been numerous studies done dealing with law enforcement officers and data relating to distances in officer involved shootings. Some numbers in a moment, but I believe it's a safe assumption that law-abiding, non-LEO carriers will not only tend to be--but by law more or less have to be--less prepared than uniformed law enforcement officers. This isn't about training; it's more that a LEO can obtain a master grip on his or her weapon in a given scenario long before it would be permissible for a non-LEO civilian to do so. And we also have to consider that most non-LEO handgun carriers do so with the firearm concealed.

Truth is, a scenario where the bad guy who requires your gun be drawn is standing a clear-shot 10 or 15 yards from you is going to be rare. Before you can reliably determine the threat is truly a deadly threat to you or others, he's probably going to be much closer.

I don't know if the FBI abandoned the LEOKA program (Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted; https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/) or not, but the last data are from 2019. But in 2016 Marcus Young, then an instructor with the LEOKA program, compiled data from 1985 through 2014. Some numbers:

• Between 1985 and 2014, 69.7% of officers murdered with firearms in the line of duty were shot within 0 to 10 feet of the perpetrators.
• Of those incidents, 50.9% were events where offenders within 0 to 5 feet killed officers with firearms.
• Between 2005 and 2014, 62.2% of officers murdered with firearms in the line of duty were shot within 0 to 10 feet of perpetrators.
• Of those incidents, 44.8% were events where offenders within 0 to 5 feet killed officers with firearms.
• When the distance to the perpetrator increased to 11 to 20 feet, 1985 to 2014 accounted for 12.4% of the murders; that number was down up 2005-2014 to 14.4%.
• Distances of 21 feet and greater, by contrast, accounted for only 14% of all officer murders between 1985 and 2014, and 13.1% between 2005 and 2014.
• When the distance was known to be over 50 feet--less than 17 yards--the numbers were 5.9% for 1985-2014, and 5.8% for 2005-2024
• Statistics regarding distance were only tracked for officers murdered with firearms, but of the 1,880 total victim officers between 1985 through 2014 the statistics show that in addition to the 1,665 officers killed with firearms, 19 were killed with knives or other cutting instruments, 12 with personal weapons (e.g., hands, fists, feet), and 10 with blunt objects.

Inside 20 feet--and even more so inside 10 feet--self-defense involves a very different mindset, preparation, and training than does a "take careful aim and fire" at 10 yards.

You're at a point where milliseconds count. And the odds are pretty good that you won't even have time to get your off-hand on the gun, much less have time to rack the slide. You may need that hand to fend off an attack while you can bring your gun into play...or maintain retention of your gun.

Never mind that--let's think about Alec Baldwin again and his example of trigger control even when he isn't under life-or-death stress--trying to add the unnecessary mechanical operation of manually cycling a slide, I believe, actually introduces a greater chance of a negligent discharge.

Just my humble but lengthy opinion.

Mel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 10:58 am

03Lightningrocks wrote: ↑Fri Sep 01, 2023 9:52 am Since I don't live in a cops and robbers movie, I always have and always will carry with one in the chamber. I love watching these movies and counting how many times they rack the slide in the same scene involving a single assailant. Usually at least two... LOL.

In the movies, "racking the slide" is psychological. It means, "I'm getting serious now!"

Don't forget my favorite: the pump shotgun. In some scenes the trusty pump will cycle for the familiar, intimidating sound that means, "I'm really, really serious now"...and cycle, and cycle again. Yet nary a single shell is ever ejected from the shotgun.

Hollywood. Where expert knowledge of firearms and Alec Baldwin are synonymous.

carlson1 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 02, 2023 6:50 pm Carrying on an empty chamber as already been said is carrying an empty gun. The same thought as I will put my seatbelt on right before I crash.

It might even be more like falling in an elevator with a broken cable and no brakes, hurtling into the basement floors...and deciding you'll jump up as high as you can just before the impact.

Not only everything that Paladin noted, but any "writer" about firearms who keeps saying "jack the slide" has lost my attention, anyway.