On rare occasions, yes I do. What I always carry, nowadays though, are extra magazines.
True Story: A number of years ago I was practicing at a remote local gun range (A large, really nice, but very isolated place where I usually got to practice in the best way I know how - all by myself!) when I shot my S&W Model 29 completely, '
dry'. I'd gone through about 75 rounds; and I didn't have a single cartridge left! So, one last time, I opened the cylinder, relaxed, turned around, and - voilą, all of a sudden - I saw this slender, swarthy, very neatly dressed man standing about 25 feet away from and directly behind me.
Where he came from I could only guess? Right off, I liked his clothes! He was casually, but expensively, dressed in the same manner that I used to do before I retired. That was all fine; but, what bothered me about him was he had this big, rather strange, leering grin on his face! Somehow, his wide grin gave me the impression the guy thought he, '
owned' me.
As I walked back to the bench I was holding the Model 29 in my right hand with the cylinder open, two fingers curled around the top strap, and my thumb against the cylinder. All of a sudden, and in a rather ominous sounding voice the fellow says to me, '
You shot 'er dry; didn't you!' That was it! I didn't need to hear anything else.
That guy had done an excellent job of sneaking up on me while I was busy engaging a row of targets by firing and speed loading my way across the line. Except for my SUV the parking lot appeared to be empty; so he'd already walked quite a distance in order to get behind me! (Probably along the tree line at the edge of the lot.) I immediately recognized that I, now, needed to distract him; so, I held up the empty 29, flashed the open cylinder at him and replied, '
You mean this?'
He laughed at me and said, '
Don't you know that you should never do something like that, and - especially not - in a place like this!' He was perfectly correct, of course; and, while he was speaking, I used the time to reach behind my left hip and draw a fully loaded, S&W Model 59. (My, '
Serpico pistol'!)
All of a sudden like, he lost his scat-eating grin! That Model 59 made the silly little Sterling pistol he was holding look like a peashooter! With the encounter between us already decided, I said to him, '
Enlighten me!' '
What kind of game are we playing, here?' Nothing came of this event. Nothing came of it, probably, because I'd been carrying a large and exceedingly formidable, second pistol!
Funny thing is, though, that morning, as I was carrying my range bag to the truck, a very quiet, '
voice' had whispered in my ear, '
Go back to the house, get your Model 59, and take it with you today.' I swear! It was that same quiet voice which, over the years, I've learned to never, ever ignore. (Because every time I haven't listened something really bad has happened to me; but, then again, as I've discovered: One of life's greatest lessons is, in fact, to learn '
How' to listen!)
