There's another well-worn saying, which is
you fight with what you have, not with what you want.
What if what you
want becomes a bit cumbersome to carry concealed over time, and the ability to lawfully carry a concealed handgun starts to pall, or interfere more than you might wish regarding other activities in your daily life? It often results in the CCW weapon being left behind.
I saw this happen with more cops than I expected (as a young cop who was a gun enthusiast
). After a long day/night carrying a belt gun on a gun belt, the last thing a lot of cops wanted was to carry a gun on their own time. Dunno what the stats are nowadays, but as recently as 2012 I was hearing (in LEOKA and officer survival classes) that only as much as 20% of active cops said they carried off-duty. Sure, that might vary by geography of the LE and agencies being polled, and their experience, etc.
In one of the officer safety classes I attended, when the cops were asked for a show of hands of those who carried off-duty, it was more than half, but you might expect that when considering the nature of the class topic. It was almost the same in another officer safety class I attended a little earlier, but again, this was a class where people wanted to be there, so there was probably an interest at work regarding what comprised 'officer safety' while off-duty.
Now, when you consider that off-duty and honorably retired peace officers generally aren't subject to many of the same restrictions as CCW licensees (at least here in CA), you'd think it being easier for them to choose to be armed on their own time would mean they'd exercise that privilege more often right?
Don't get me wrong, as I'm not a proponent of making people carry weapons on their own time if they don't wish to do so. It's just as much a personal freedom to choose not to do so, as it is to be able to choose to do so, and I'm all about someone exercising their personal freedoms.