7 ms·

That may be personal preference, but IMHO there’s no reason to conceal carry if you’re going to do it without a round chambered. I’m a huge Sig collector and I

That may be personal preference, but IMHO there’s no reason to conceal carry if you’re going to do it without a round chambered. I’m a huge Sig collector and I’ve been a fan of theirs since the 90s. I’ve carried a Sig daily for 20+ years. I only carried a P320 for a few months until I finally downsized to the P365. But I’ve got to admit that their PR and response to these incidents is not a good look. But I am a bit confused as to what is causing these unintentional discharges. I know they had a problem that was addressed years ago so I’m not sure if the current problem guns are ones that were never sent back for modification or if there is some kind of unrelated problem. Regardless, I’ll still carry a Sig until CZ makes something comparable to a P365. But it’s unlikely that I’ll ever buy a new Sig again.

tshaddox 1y ago
> IMHO there’s no reason to conceal carry if you’re going to do it without a round chambered. Why is that your opinion? Surely there's a wide variety of plausible scenarios where carrying a concealed weapon without a round chambered is much better than not carrying a concealed weapon.
- jeffbee 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - rhcom2 1y ago
    There is definitely thinking among some who CC they're going to be John Wick but "good guy with a gun" is definitely not "totally imaginary". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shooter#/media/File:2000-_Outcomes_of_active_shooter_attacks.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shooter#/media/File:200...
    - Filmatic 1y ago
      2.8% is even worse than I’d have guessed. 2.8% of an already rare event is technically non-imaginary, but also definitely rounds down to imaginary. [edit] on top of that, is it even a one-digit percentage of that 2.8% of a rare event in which having a round chambered made any difference? Yet there are people confidently posting as if it’d be absurd to carry without a round chambered. That’s plainly nuts.
      - rascul 1y ago
        That's only active shooter events. There are other cases where armed civilians have stopped a crime. I don't have such data readily available, though.
        JKCalhoun 1y ago
        Only an anecdote here: a guy I know claimed to have "defensively" used his gun. When I pressed him, it turned out that he drew his gun on a guy "that looked like a dirtbag" when he was staying at a motel. From his point of view his life would have been threatened (he might not be alive today!) had he not presented his firearm.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      Estimate, if you can, the fraction of the "good guy" episodes that critically hinged on the 1s it takes to rack the slide. Personally I believe it's a good feature if a guy has to give it a think for 1-2 seconds before blowing away the guy in front of him in the line at Whataburger.
  - sonofhans 1y ago
    Yes, the only sensible reply in the thread. Everything else is theory-crafting.
    - stefan_ 1y ago
      Lots of live action roleplayers
    - avalys 1y ago
      Plenty of people spend time and money preparing for low-probability but highly catastrophic events. Purchasing insurance that covers your home for fire damage is one such example. The fact that the chance of a well-maintained home burning down is vanishingly small doesn’t make this an imaginary risk. Thinking about how to protect yourself from violent crime and deciding to purchase and carry a gun doesn’t seem fundamentally different.
      - gottorf 1y ago
        Yes, it makes me wonder whether all the naysayers have any sort of insurance coverage?
        jeffbee 1y ago
        There are no circumstances under which my fire insurance policy will accidentally go off and kill someone.
  - sugarplant 1y ago
    there are hundreds upon hundreds of videos online of self defense shootings, including some where the victim draws second and successfully defends against a shooter. a lot of them happen in brazil too. coming to a thread about guns to state a ridiculous opinion about conceal carry strikes me as something someone mentally ill would do.
- TheAmazingRace 1y ago
  Not OP, but having a round chambered can be advantageous in a self-defense scenario, where every second counts. Having to think to rack the slide before firing could be enough for your opponent to get to you first.
  - mywittyname 1y ago
    People take this "every second counts" idea as though it's axiomatic. I've been in my fair share of sus situations in my life and they've been either telegraphed (people starting with yelling, then intimidation, then getting into personal space) or ambiguous. I was recently at a block party with a loud DJ, and some guys fired several rounds and it took minutes to figure out what was going on. Even the first responders were amazingly sluggish in their response. Hell, I had a guy sneak up behind me while I was parked in my car, bang on my window and tried to start shit with me. I had enough time to shoot off a text to my wife to stay put while defusing him. So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations.
    - sugarplant 1y ago
      there are plenty of videos online showing situations where it did matter. if you google around for "Ring camera video appears to show man shoot assailant in self-defense" you can find one. some people do live in legitimately very dangerous places. whether one should carry chambered is a function of that.
    - TheFreim 1y ago
      > I've been in my fair share of sus situations in my life and they've been either telegraphed (people starting with yelling, then intimidation, then getting into personal space) or ambiguous. The problem is that in a "sus situation" you would not be able to chamber a round without brandishing the firearm, which in many situation would be illegal in a merely "sus" situation where you don't have a clear threat (brandishing laws, intimidation, etc). This is why many self-defense advocates encourage people to carry with a round chambered while also carrying something like pepper spray for situations where lethal force is not necessary. > So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations. Most people I've encountered who carry concealed would agree that you should try to keep yourself from being in common dangerous situations. The reason they carry is not for the avoidable situations, since they'd obviously just avoid them, but for the unavoidable situation. The vast majority of people who carry concealed never need to use their firearms, the point is to be ready to defend oneself and others if the situation should arise.
- katmannthree 1y ago
  Because if you're going to carry, you should choose something that's safe to carry with a round chambered (i.e. not a Sig P320). There are countless videos showing real-world examples of defensive handgun use. One common thread is that there's virtually no time between when you realize you're going to need your sidearm and when you need it. The extra second it takes to rack the slide and chamber a round can be the difference between surviving the encounter and not.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    > There are countless videos showing real-world examples of defensive handgun use. Tangential: if you enjoy watching that kind of content, I highly recommend the YouTube channel "Active Self Protection"
  - tshaddox 1y ago
    > One common thread is that there's virtually no time between when you realize you're going to need your sidearm and when you need it. I would be surprised if this is true for the majority of situations. I'm sure there are situations where you have very little time, but also many situations where the additional time it would take to chamber a round is negligible.
    - eYrKEC2 1y ago
      In addition to the lost time, you'll have a hard time racking the slide from the adrenaline dump. Also, the bad guys always have first-movers advantage and you're always playing catch up. After watching thousands of violent encounters on John Correia's "Active Self Protection" channel, I agree that round-in-the-chamber is absolutely necessary if you're carrying for self protection. https://www.youtube.com/@ActiveSelfProtection https://www.youtube.com/@ActiveSelfProtection
    - esseph 1y ago
      Most states prevent you from drawing without firing, because it is considered brandishing / threatening. So you either draw and fire and call the police and tell them what happened, or you don't and just... deal with the consequences of whatever happened instead.
- nosignono 1y ago
  When you draw from concealment, an experienced shooter needs only get their grip and an eye picture -- point gun at target and fire. You only need to train muscle memory to get into a firing position, which is also what you are regularly training every time you live fire or dry fire. If you don't have a round chambered, you need to draw, rack and release the slide, hope a round is properly chambered (in a panicked situation you might not rack the slide properly), then get into a firing position. This is a much more complex movement and evaluation of state. You are pulling the gun up, manipulating it with two hands, then moving it forward and finding your grip. In an emergency, that time loss and complexity of motion is considerably more difficult to train. Even experienced shooters will draw from a holster and immediately present their gun and try to fire, and then realize they don't have a round chambered, have to bring the gun back to rack the slide, and then present the gun again. You conceal carry because you want to be prepared at an emergency to deal with an imminent threat. Adding complex manipulations to that erodes your ability to do that, and any modern pistol should not fire unless you pull the trigger. They should be safe from drops, shakes, or manipulations. If your threat isn't "I need to have a firearm ready asap", then you should consider not conceal carrying, in which case you may want your pistol unloaded or unchambered.
  - fmbb 1y ago
    I’m a panicked position maybe you should not fire a gun. If you cannot even chamber a round who’s to say you can hit what you want to hit?
    - eYrKEC2 1y ago
      You're right, you should wait for the police, because when seconds matter, the police are minutes away.
    - 0x457 1y ago
      Well, at a range, sometimes can't properly rack the slide and still hit everything I wanted to hit. I got used to doing lock/release instead due to that skill issue.
    - avalys 1y ago
- chasd00 1y ago
  I don’t conceal carry but it’s commonly known that you don’t draw your weapon unless you’re shooting to kill. In those situations, if there was time to chamber a round then there was time to escape. If you draw your weapon as a warning or, worse, fire warning shots you’ll be arrested for brandishing at least.
  - impossiblefork 1y ago
    This dichotomy is obviously false though. If an attacker doesn't have a firearm you probably have time to chamber a round, if the attacker misses a shot at you you have time to chamber a round, if you have time to take cover you may have time to chamber a round and then be in an approximately 50-50 situation, etc.
    - klaussilveira 1y ago
      > if the attacker misses a shot at you you have time to chamber a round Is that based on recorded personal times, or are you just assuming? Because I can shoot the mozambique in 1.9 seconds. Chambering a round is much slower than that.
      - impossiblefork 1y ago
        I mean that you must take cover upon him missing, and then somehow reposition yourself and fight.
    - TheFreim 1y ago
      This might be the impression one gets from watching movies or television shows, but its not reality. Anyone who has either trained with a handgun, or even just viewed videos of real-world confrontations will know that this isn't the case. In many encounters you have almost no time. Racking the slide and acquiring the target adds a massive amount of time (its even worse when you are under pressure). Most defensive uses of a firearms occur at a short distance, less than five yards. It takes very little time to cover the distance. For those who are interested, here is a video covering what it looks like when someone with a knife runs straight at someone at 21 feet, you will see why the idea that people have time to rack the slide is absurd (https://youtu.be/_2zfw_4DYdQ?t=79 https://youtu.be/_2zfw_4DYdQ?t=79).
- BeetleB 1y ago
  I recently got into handguns and training. I recommend everyone who has access to it go into training where you take a real handgun that's been modified to shoot laser and has CO2 recoil. The setup is that you have a screen (perhaps all around you), playing out a scenario. You're in a convenience store, and something may happen that requires you to defend yourself. Even with a fair amount of training, the adrenalin surge is significant, and the time you have to respond is very limited. Doing this eliminated any illusions I had regarding guns and safety. There's little time to rack the gun to put a round in the chamber. And if you haven't done it, it's not easy to rack a gun (you need the right grip, angle, etc). And racking can fail. Even I, with very limited experience, have experienced multiple failures while racking. People mentioned videos where people practice doing all this, and time themselves. I saw a video where someone 3 yards away draws a machete and runs at the other person. The time he has to draw and defend is just not enough at 3 yards. One needs to actively dodge the machete while drawing. Adding the complexity of racking is almost a guaranteed failure. The person drawing was very experienced (and a handgun trainer), knew the attack was going to come, and still had a low success rate. Other things I've had to unlearn: "Why didn't they just shoot at the legs?" At short notice, in an emergency scenario, aim is very poor. People train for these situations to get a reasonable likelihood of hitting a person without needing to spend time aiming. And the primary way to do it is to aim at the body - not arms/head/legs. "Why did they have to shoot the person 3 times?" See above. Aim is hard, and there's a good chance of missing. When your life is on the line, you are not going to shoot once and check if it hit. You'll shoot 3 rounds quickly. When I did the simulator, I often shot 4-6 rounds without even realizing it (and was told by the instructor to keep it down). This may be hard for some to believe/digest. As I said, I didn't believe it until I was put in those (simulated) situations. Another thing I thought was crazy: People sleeping with a loaded gun by their bed. A guy did a video where an intruder was in the house and running towards their room. They timed different scenarios (unloaded with magazine on the side, different gun safes, etc). He succeeded only with one particular gun safe, and only with the gun fully loaded. If I ever keep a gun at home, it will not be for "defend against an intruder in the middle of the night". It's just too risky to keep a loaded gun next to your bed. But if you have good reason to believe someone is after you, this is the only way to go. Having said all that, if I carried a gun, I'd likely not have a round in the chamber. But that's really me saying I'm not going to carry a gun for safety purposes.
- esseph 1y ago
  There's been debate over this for decades that has run its course. The consensus is carry chambered or don't carry.
  - sneak 1y ago
    There is not consensus. I appendix carry; I’m not carrying chambered, period. My remaining options are to not carry, or carry in condition 3. I think that’s a simple decision. If I ever felt the legitimate need to daily carry in condition 0/1, I would move. Cities definitely, provinces generally, nations if necessary. Life’s too short. I’m not in the special forces. I don’t have to be ready for every conceivable scenario; just most of them. And that’s more than enough. If history is any guide, now’s the time when someone tells me that not wanting a loaded and cocked .45 pointed directly at my right testicle for 16 hours every single day means that I have a cheap holster or haven’t trained enough or don’t have the right pistol or something. (I’m fairly certain that none of these are true.) PS: A much more likely scenario than a knife guy charging from 20 feet is a routine encounter with an LEO who wishes to temporarily disarm me during a traffic or Terry stop. I absolutely do not trust some dipshit cop to remove a condition 0/1 pistol from my waistband without fucking it up, which would likely happen right around the time it is pointed at my femoral artery, or worse. Fuck that noise.
- Spooky23 1y ago
  A big part of the fantasy/thought process is you’re trained and vigilant, ready to respond in a split second to some threat in the Home Depot parking lot. The reality is… not that.
  - gottorf 1y ago
    The reality is that the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners who carry concealed strongly hope that they never, ever have to draw their weapon.
    - BeetleB 1y ago
      You're both right :-) The reality he mentions is very much a reality. Lots of concealed carry folks obsessed with always being vigilant. Good idea not to hang around them, because hypervigilant people are prone to see threats that aren't there.
- Merad 1y ago
  First, in most states it is not legal to point a weapon at someone unless you are in a situation where you're legally allowed to pull the trigger. That is, you are legitimately in fear for your life. In that situation you will likely have very little time to act in self defense. Second, racking a slide is an action that requires fine motor control. Under the pressure and adrenaline dump that accompanies a life-or-death situation, fine motor control goes to crap. If you are fumbling with your pistol, it's useless. Third, if you don't feel comfortable with your ability to safely handle a loaded gun, you probably shouldn't be carrying at all.
- abbycurtis33 1y ago
  There is overwhelming consensus that you should carry with a round in the chamber. Most gun fights happen close and fast.
OJFord 1y ago
And what's the reason for USAF personnel to conceal carry on a USAF base? Article doesn't even suggest it was.
- hollywood_court 1y ago
  I should have been more clear: if you're going to carry a firearm on your person, regardless of concealed or open, it should always have a round in the chamber.
  - OJFord 1y ago
    That may be your rule, for all I know it's the USAF's rule, but it's not the British Army's, and it doesn't seem logical to me in a military context. (I probably agree with you in the context of 'out in public and have decided you need a firearm', just not 'on a friendly military base and carrying a firearm as a matter of course rather than any acute reason'.)
    - aerostable_slug 1y ago
      The Royal Marines of 43 Commando guarding the nukes at Faslane have loaded weapons. The Security Forces at the base in question guard strategic nuclear weapons. The other USAF command most concerned is USAFE, where the threat of terrorism against a USAF facility is greater than in the mainland US.
      - OJFord 1y ago
        Sure, there are scenarios. Article describes a classroom or briefing type situation though, it's holstered but on the desk. This is not someone on duty guarding anything.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - curt15 1y ago
    The Israelis famously don't do this except for some special forces. Various videos put out by the IDF demonstrate racking the slide as they draw their weapon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swveA-_1dus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swveA-_1dus
wrp 1y ago
> The gun has been at the center of dozens of civil lawsuits claiming it has a design flaw, though judges and juries have delivered mixed verdicts over the company’s liability in these shootings. It does sound like there is a specific design issue to be discussed.
spacephysics 1y ago
Check out this video, the FBI report got released a few weeks ago. This was a FOIA’d report from 2024 of a police officer who had the P320 holstered, doing normal movements (didnt drop the holstered firearm) Unique case in that the FBI got the firearm still in the holster (it hadn’t been removed or the round cleared after the discharge) This is what has led to the recent uptick in Sig scrutiny, then unfortunately the OP incident happened and it’s rightfully so made Sig’s situation much worse https://youtu.be/LfnhTYeVHHE https://youtu.be/LfnhTYeVHHE
SoftTalker 1y ago
Carry a double-action revolver, with an empty cylinder under the hammer. No chance that dropping it or anything other than a trigger pull will fire it. If you need more than five rounds, you've already lost.

tshaddox 1y ago

> IMHO there’s no reason to conceal carry if you’re going to do it without a round chambered. Why is that your opinion? Surely there's a wide variety of plausible scenarios where carrying a concealed weapon without a round chambered is much better than not carrying a concealed weapon.

jeffbee 1y ago
[flagged]
- rhcom2 1y ago
  There is definitely thinking among some who CC they're going to be John Wick but "good guy with a gun" is definitely not "totally imaginary". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shooter#/media/File:2000-_Outcomes_of_active_shooter_attacks.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_shooter#/media/File:200...
  - Filmatic 1y ago
    2.8% is even worse than I’d have guessed. 2.8% of an already rare event is technically non-imaginary, but also definitely rounds down to imaginary. [edit] on top of that, is it even a one-digit percentage of that 2.8% of a rare event in which having a round chambered made any difference? Yet there are people confidently posting as if it’d be absurd to carry without a round chambered. That’s plainly nuts.
    - rascul 1y ago
      That's only active shooter events. There are other cases where armed civilians have stopped a crime. I don't have such data readily available, though.
      - JKCalhoun 1y ago
        Only an anecdote here: a guy I know claimed to have "defensively" used his gun. When I pressed him, it turned out that he drew his gun on a guy "that looked like a dirtbag" when he was staying at a motel. From his point of view his life would have been threatened (he might not be alive today!) had he not presented his firearm.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    Estimate, if you can, the fraction of the "good guy" episodes that critically hinged on the 1s it takes to rack the slide. Personally I believe it's a good feature if a guy has to give it a think for 1-2 seconds before blowing away the guy in front of him in the line at Whataburger.
- sonofhans 1y ago
  Yes, the only sensible reply in the thread. Everything else is theory-crafting.
  - stefan_ 1y ago
    Lots of live action roleplayers
  - avalys 1y ago
    Plenty of people spend time and money preparing for low-probability but highly catastrophic events. Purchasing insurance that covers your home for fire damage is one such example. The fact that the chance of a well-maintained home burning down is vanishingly small doesn’t make this an imaginary risk. Thinking about how to protect yourself from violent crime and deciding to purchase and carry a gun doesn’t seem fundamentally different.
    - gottorf 1y ago
      Yes, it makes me wonder whether all the naysayers have any sort of insurance coverage?
      - jeffbee 1y ago
        There are no circumstances under which my fire insurance policy will accidentally go off and kill someone.
- sugarplant 1y ago
  there are hundreds upon hundreds of videos online of self defense shootings, including some where the victim draws second and successfully defends against a shooter. a lot of them happen in brazil too. coming to a thread about guns to state a ridiculous opinion about conceal carry strikes me as something someone mentally ill would do.
TheAmazingRace 1y ago
Not OP, but having a round chambered can be advantageous in a self-defense scenario, where every second counts. Having to think to rack the slide before firing could be enough for your opponent to get to you first.
- mywittyname 1y ago
  People take this "every second counts" idea as though it's axiomatic. I've been in my fair share of sus situations in my life and they've been either telegraphed (people starting with yelling, then intimidation, then getting into personal space) or ambiguous. I was recently at a block party with a loud DJ, and some guys fired several rounds and it took minutes to figure out what was going on. Even the first responders were amazingly sluggish in their response. Hell, I had a guy sneak up behind me while I was parked in my car, bang on my window and tried to start shit with me. I had enough time to shoot off a text to my wife to stay put while defusing him. So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations.
  - sugarplant 1y ago
    there are plenty of videos online showing situations where it did matter. if you google around for "Ring camera video appears to show man shoot assailant in self-defense" you can find one. some people do live in legitimately very dangerous places. whether one should carry chambered is a function of that.
  - TheFreim 1y ago
    > I've been in my fair share of sus situations in my life and they've been either telegraphed (people starting with yelling, then intimidation, then getting into personal space) or ambiguous. The problem is that in a "sus situation" you would not be able to chamber a round without brandishing the firearm, which in many situation would be illegal in a merely "sus" situation where you don't have a clear threat (brandishing laws, intimidation, etc). This is why many self-defense advocates encourage people to carry with a round chambered while also carrying something like pepper spray for situations where lethal force is not necessary. > So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations. Most people I've encountered who carry concealed would agree that you should try to keep yourself from being in common dangerous situations. The reason they carry is not for the avoidable situations, since they'd obviously just avoid them, but for the unavoidable situation. The vast majority of people who carry concealed never need to use their firearms, the point is to be ready to defend oneself and others if the situation should arise.
katmannthree 1y ago
Because if you're going to carry, you should choose something that's safe to carry with a round chambered (i.e. not a Sig P320). There are countless videos showing real-world examples of defensive handgun use. One common thread is that there's virtually no time between when you realize you're going to need your sidearm and when you need it. The extra second it takes to rack the slide and chamber a round can be the difference between surviving the encounter and not.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  > There are countless videos showing real-world examples of defensive handgun use. Tangential: if you enjoy watching that kind of content, I highly recommend the YouTube channel "Active Self Protection"
- tshaddox 1y ago
  > One common thread is that there's virtually no time between when you realize you're going to need your sidearm and when you need it. I would be surprised if this is true for the majority of situations. I'm sure there are situations where you have very little time, but also many situations where the additional time it would take to chamber a round is negligible.
  - eYrKEC2 1y ago
    In addition to the lost time, you'll have a hard time racking the slide from the adrenaline dump. Also, the bad guys always have first-movers advantage and you're always playing catch up. After watching thousands of violent encounters on John Correia's "Active Self Protection" channel, I agree that round-in-the-chamber is absolutely necessary if you're carrying for self protection. https://www.youtube.com/@ActiveSelfProtection https://www.youtube.com/@ActiveSelfProtection
  - esseph 1y ago
    Most states prevent you from drawing without firing, because it is considered brandishing / threatening. So you either draw and fire and call the police and tell them what happened, or you don't and just... deal with the consequences of whatever happened instead.
nosignono 1y ago
When you draw from concealment, an experienced shooter needs only get their grip and an eye picture -- point gun at target and fire. You only need to train muscle memory to get into a firing position, which is also what you are regularly training every time you live fire or dry fire. If you don't have a round chambered, you need to draw, rack and release the slide, hope a round is properly chambered (in a panicked situation you might not rack the slide properly), then get into a firing position. This is a much more complex movement and evaluation of state. You are pulling the gun up, manipulating it with two hands, then moving it forward and finding your grip. In an emergency, that time loss and complexity of motion is considerably more difficult to train. Even experienced shooters will draw from a holster and immediately present their gun and try to fire, and then realize they don't have a round chambered, have to bring the gun back to rack the slide, and then present the gun again. You conceal carry because you want to be prepared at an emergency to deal with an imminent threat. Adding complex manipulations to that erodes your ability to do that, and any modern pistol should not fire unless you pull the trigger. They should be safe from drops, shakes, or manipulations. If your threat isn't "I need to have a firearm ready asap", then you should consider not conceal carrying, in which case you may want your pistol unloaded or unchambered.
- fmbb 1y ago
  I’m a panicked position maybe you should not fire a gun. If you cannot even chamber a round who’s to say you can hit what you want to hit?
  - eYrKEC2 1y ago
    You're right, you should wait for the police, because when seconds matter, the police are minutes away.
  - 0x457 1y ago
    Well, at a range, sometimes can't properly rack the slide and still hit everything I wanted to hit. I got used to doing lock/release instead due to that skill issue.
  - avalys 1y ago
chasd00 1y ago
I don’t conceal carry but it’s commonly known that you don’t draw your weapon unless you’re shooting to kill. In those situations, if there was time to chamber a round then there was time to escape. If you draw your weapon as a warning or, worse, fire warning shots you’ll be arrested for brandishing at least.
- impossiblefork 1y ago
  This dichotomy is obviously false though. If an attacker doesn't have a firearm you probably have time to chamber a round, if the attacker misses a shot at you you have time to chamber a round, if you have time to take cover you may have time to chamber a round and then be in an approximately 50-50 situation, etc.
  - klaussilveira 1y ago
    > if the attacker misses a shot at you you have time to chamber a round Is that based on recorded personal times, or are you just assuming? Because I can shoot the mozambique in 1.9 seconds. Chambering a round is much slower than that.
    - impossiblefork 1y ago
      I mean that you must take cover upon him missing, and then somehow reposition yourself and fight.
  - TheFreim 1y ago
    This might be the impression one gets from watching movies or television shows, but its not reality. Anyone who has either trained with a handgun, or even just viewed videos of real-world confrontations will know that this isn't the case. In many encounters you have almost no time. Racking the slide and acquiring the target adds a massive amount of time (its even worse when you are under pressure). Most defensive uses of a firearms occur at a short distance, less than five yards. It takes very little time to cover the distance. For those who are interested, here is a video covering what it looks like when someone with a knife runs straight at someone at 21 feet, you will see why the idea that people have time to rack the slide is absurd (https://youtu.be/_2zfw_4DYdQ?t=79 https://youtu.be/_2zfw_4DYdQ?t=79).
BeetleB 1y ago
I recently got into handguns and training. I recommend everyone who has access to it go into training where you take a real handgun that's been modified to shoot laser and has CO2 recoil. The setup is that you have a screen (perhaps all around you), playing out a scenario. You're in a convenience store, and something may happen that requires you to defend yourself. Even with a fair amount of training, the adrenalin surge is significant, and the time you have to respond is very limited. Doing this eliminated any illusions I had regarding guns and safety. There's little time to rack the gun to put a round in the chamber. And if you haven't done it, it's not easy to rack a gun (you need the right grip, angle, etc). And racking can fail. Even I, with very limited experience, have experienced multiple failures while racking. People mentioned videos where people practice doing all this, and time themselves. I saw a video where someone 3 yards away draws a machete and runs at the other person. The time he has to draw and defend is just not enough at 3 yards. One needs to actively dodge the machete while drawing. Adding the complexity of racking is almost a guaranteed failure. The person drawing was very experienced (and a handgun trainer), knew the attack was going to come, and still had a low success rate. Other things I've had to unlearn: "Why didn't they just shoot at the legs?" At short notice, in an emergency scenario, aim is very poor. People train for these situations to get a reasonable likelihood of hitting a person without needing to spend time aiming. And the primary way to do it is to aim at the body - not arms/head/legs. "Why did they have to shoot the person 3 times?" See above. Aim is hard, and there's a good chance of missing. When your life is on the line, you are not going to shoot once and check if it hit. You'll shoot 3 rounds quickly. When I did the simulator, I often shot 4-6 rounds without even realizing it (and was told by the instructor to keep it down). This may be hard for some to believe/digest. As I said, I didn't believe it until I was put in those (simulated) situations. Another thing I thought was crazy: People sleeping with a loaded gun by their bed. A guy did a video where an intruder was in the house and running towards their room. They timed different scenarios (unloaded with magazine on the side, different gun safes, etc). He succeeded only with one particular gun safe, and only with the gun fully loaded. If I ever keep a gun at home, it will not be for "defend against an intruder in the middle of the night". It's just too risky to keep a loaded gun next to your bed. But if you have good reason to believe someone is after you, this is the only way to go. Having said all that, if I carried a gun, I'd likely not have a round in the chamber. But that's really me saying I'm not going to carry a gun for safety purposes.
esseph 1y ago
There's been debate over this for decades that has run its course. The consensus is carry chambered or don't carry.
- sneak 1y ago
  There is not consensus. I appendix carry; I’m not carrying chambered, period. My remaining options are to not carry, or carry in condition 3. I think that’s a simple decision. If I ever felt the legitimate need to daily carry in condition 0/1, I would move. Cities definitely, provinces generally, nations if necessary. Life’s too short. I’m not in the special forces. I don’t have to be ready for every conceivable scenario; just most of them. And that’s more than enough. If history is any guide, now’s the time when someone tells me that not wanting a loaded and cocked .45 pointed directly at my right testicle for 16 hours every single day means that I have a cheap holster or haven’t trained enough or don’t have the right pistol or something. (I’m fairly certain that none of these are true.) PS: A much more likely scenario than a knife guy charging from 20 feet is a routine encounter with an LEO who wishes to temporarily disarm me during a traffic or Terry stop. I absolutely do not trust some dipshit cop to remove a condition 0/1 pistol from my waistband without fucking it up, which would likely happen right around the time it is pointed at my femoral artery, or worse. Fuck that noise.
Spooky23 1y ago
A big part of the fantasy/thought process is you’re trained and vigilant, ready to respond in a split second to some threat in the Home Depot parking lot. The reality is… not that.
- gottorf 1y ago
  The reality is that the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners who carry concealed strongly hope that they never, ever have to draw their weapon.
  - BeetleB 1y ago
    You're both right :-) The reality he mentions is very much a reality. Lots of concealed carry folks obsessed with always being vigilant. Good idea not to hang around them, because hypervigilant people are prone to see threats that aren't there.
Merad 1y ago
First, in most states it is not legal to point a weapon at someone unless you are in a situation where you're legally allowed to pull the trigger. That is, you are legitimately in fear for your life. In that situation you will likely have very little time to act in self defense. Second, racking a slide is an action that requires fine motor control. Under the pressure and adrenaline dump that accompanies a life-or-death situation, fine motor control goes to crap. If you are fumbling with your pistol, it's useless. Third, if you don't feel comfortable with your ability to safely handle a loaded gun, you probably shouldn't be carrying at all.
abbycurtis33 1y ago
There is overwhelming consensus that you should carry with a round in the chamber. Most gun fights happen close and fast.

OJFord 1y ago

And what's the reason for USAF personnel to conceal carry on a USAF base? Article doesn't even suggest it was.

hollywood_court 1y ago
I should have been more clear: if you're going to carry a firearm on your person, regardless of concealed or open, it should always have a round in the chamber.
- OJFord 1y ago
  That may be your rule, for all I know it's the USAF's rule, but it's not the British Army's, and it doesn't seem logical to me in a military context. (I probably agree with you in the context of 'out in public and have decided you need a firearm', just not 'on a friendly military base and carrying a firearm as a matter of course rather than any acute reason'.)
  - aerostable_slug 1y ago
    The Royal Marines of 43 Commando guarding the nukes at Faslane have loaded weapons. The Security Forces at the base in question guard strategic nuclear weapons. The other USAF command most concerned is USAFE, where the threat of terrorism against a USAF facility is greater than in the mainland US.
    - OJFord 1y ago
      Sure, there are scenarios. Article describes a classroom or briefing type situation though, it's holstered but on the desk. This is not someone on duty guarding anything.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- curt15 1y ago
  The Israelis famously don't do this except for some special forces. Various videos put out by the IDF demonstrate racking the slide as they draw their weapon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swveA-_1dus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swveA-_1dus

wrp 1y ago

> The gun has been at the center of dozens of civil lawsuits claiming it has a design flaw, though judges and juries have delivered mixed verdicts over the company’s liability in these shootings. It does sound like there is a specific design issue to be discussed.

spacephysics 1y ago

Check out this video, the FBI report got released a few weeks ago. This was a FOIA’d report from 2024 of a police officer who had the P320 holstered, doing normal movements (didnt drop the holstered firearm) Unique case in that the FBI got the firearm still in the holster (it hadn’t been removed or the round cleared after the discharge) This is what has led to the recent uptick in Sig scrutiny, then unfortunately the OP incident happened and it’s rightfully so made Sig’s situation much worse https://youtu.be/LfnhTYeVHHE https://youtu.be/LfnhTYeVHHE

SoftTalker 1y ago

Carry a double-action revolver, with an empty cylinder under the hammer. No chance that dropping it or anything other than a trigger pull will fire it. If you need more than five rounds, you've already lost.