Cajun:
"Amphibious"?
About the console: May I suggest a cheap holster secured to something in the console.... This could make re-holstering safer at little cost (i.e., Uncle Mike's
).
bpickell:
Presuming your BG has any jail time, he's already been to the "school of crime", and probably knows how to switch off the safety on about any gun he's likely to run into. And double for LEO's weapons.... Besides, it's pretty simple - if there is a safety lever, it goes up or down. All he has to know is which way is "Fire", and unless he's just grabbed it out of your holster, or in your initial presentation, it's pretty likely to be "the other way" from where it is....
(There are some S&W guns, in particular, where the safety lever is a decocker, and springs back. The BG can ignore this type....)
Some guys carry S&W guns without a decocker (but with a safety) with the safety off - the fool thing is hard to move....
Just IMHO, the tough part is for us to learn to switch the safety off during presentation. Getting it back on before a BG can get it from you isn't likely to happen.... And, it's quite clear to me, at least, that you must turn the safety off during presentation or the gun is just an expensive club....
So, flipping the safety on (or dropping a magazine to engage a magazine safety) when somebody's trying to grab your weapon, is going to take more time (and probably more luck) than you have.
MANY downsides to carrying on an empty chamber, but that's really a heck of a lot safer in a grab situation....
(Many years ago, when I was working - rent-a-cop - in uniform, I used to run into suggestions to carry my "visible" sidearm
empty, and a good BUG to actually use, should it be necessary. Probably not a good idea for concealed carry folks....)
IMHO (I haven't handled one yet) the Shield's safety is such that leaving it on or off is your choice, and isn't likely to change it's state without you actually doing something to it. Not so, IMHO, with the larger M&P's. My 40C has never bothered to do it, but the rather large ambi lever set is asking for it. Since my EDC is an Officer's-sized 1911, I'm trained up on flipping the safety off anyway, which makes it a non-problem for me, but I don't see it as impossible. There is a mod out there for making the thumb safety stiffer (or looser - your pick) on the M&P's, and you can do the same to a 1911.
Adding a thumb safety to an existing gun? That can take serious changes to the gun's internals.... It's pretty clear that the thumb safety on the older M&P's required a completely different (and minus the "Hilary Lock") verson of the sear block, as well as a some new parts. Some areas require that fool lock, making the thumb safety version a tad harder to sell in those states....
It also helps when the design allows for an easy "upgrade" - the change in the M&P's looks to have pretty simple. I'm not sure if the original design presumed that this would be done or not. It appears that the thumb safety was designed in the original version. Looks to me like an ambi version for the Shield probably would be pretty easy to come up with, but as mentioned before, the cost of the mold changes to the plastic "frame" could be a killer.
Overall, don't expect to add a thumb safety to a gun that didn't come with one....
Regards,