Originally posted by Hoptob:
G-manBart,
You obviously believe that your way is the right way, and that's fine and good. But I think your emotional tirade missed the point some of us were making.
Carrying condition 1 is not a free lunch - there is a price to be paid for speed. The price is higher chance of self inflicted injury. It's high enough to become a primary cause of gunshot wounds for cops. That's what worries some of us. If you want to imply that we are idiots or criminals - be my guest.
Mike
Mike,
First things first, that wasn't an "emotional tirade", it was a well-reasoned response to someone, that quite painfully, doesn't seem to know what they're talking about because their very statements contradict themselves. If that isn't exactly the case then it seems that they are making an emotion decision based on flawed logic. Neither scenario is really all that helpful for folks who might read this and I'll note he didn't reply to my questions to him, so that tells me something.
Second, the threadstarted posed a question to which, it now seems clear, he had already formed a definite opinion. So, was he asking the question to stir up a controversy or was he doing it to "convert" others? He certainly isn't going to change how he carries and he certainly wasn't asking for advice...although he posed it that way at first. Not exactly a fair, honest and unbiased representation any way you look at it. What good is asking a question you already have decided upon....just so you can read what others say and still disagree?
Third, where have you seen any documented, reliable data that the primary cause of gunshot wounds to cops are self-inflicted? Also, if you've seen that, are they fatal injuries or not? Suicide can be lumped in to accidental/negligent discharge statistics to skew the number since law enforcement has always had a pretty high suicide rate. Still, over the years I've looked and haven't found self-inflicted wounds to officers documented anywhere. The CDC seems to lump all gunshot wounds together and doesn't break out law enforcement specifically.
I have been in law enforcement for only 15 years, which isn't terribly long, but in that time I don't know a single person who's injured themselves with a gun. In fact, I don't know anybody who has a friend or former coworker that's had that happen. Now, maybe I've worked with all the best gun handlers around, but I pretty much doubt that. Sure, it has happened and will continue to do so, but it's not at a rate that should alarm anyone other than to increase the focus on training and preventing repeat mistakes that can be avoided.
I work in an agency with approximately 12,000 gun toters (was in two others prior to this). In the past year we've had zero self-inflicted wounds and two fatal wounds during an adversarial situation. I'm a firearms instructor, and I get notices about all the shootings both accidental and otherwise. I'm going off memory and think that the last self-inflicted wound we had was over a year ago, but it's possible that it was slightly less....not being in the office, I can't access the notice on it to check. In that situation, the drawstring of a jacket cought the trigger and caused a true AD (different from a negligent discharge)....put a slight crease on the agents butt, and a lesson learned for everyone about their clothing choices. That's bad, but even if there's one in a year out of 12K, that's not exactly what I'd call "dangerous". A lot more folks are going to be seriously injured in car accidents every year than that....we work to prevent them, but they're still going to happen.
Rather than discuss theories, look at REAL numbers. In 2007, there were 83 law enforcement officers killed accidentally. Of those 83, only four were killed by firearms. All four of those were situations involving a cross-fire or mistaken identity (thought to be the bad guy). Not a single one was self-inflicted. You can read it for yourself here:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/2007/accidentallykilled.html
The average cop gets a couple of days of range time and maybe 300-500 rounds worth of training at their academy. After that there is almost no training, only qualifying, which is nothing more than legal documentation. They then qualify from one to four times a year, but even four times, is a lot more than most places....once or twice a year is the most common I've seen. Almost anybody can train themselves to a MUCH higher standard than the typical cop....keep in mind I wear a badge and I'm gladly admitting this. Cops, as shooters, generally stink. Ask the few that you see at the range what they think about their fellow officer's gun skills and if they're not too embarrased, they'll tell you that for the most part they're terrible...sad, but true.
Go out once per month and shoot two hundred rounds with some sort of discipline/plan in mind and you're WAY ahead of probably 98% of the cops out there when it comes to proficiency. Using police training and proficiency as a model is a bad starting point...plain and simple.
Since this thread is about the Israeli carry method, you have to understand a little bit about it, to know whether it applies to you and the way you live, work, carry etc.
There aren't a ton of ranges in Israel, they have precious little time and money to spend on firearms training and they have some very unique living conditions. They found that giving largely untrained people loaded firearms caused problems. They also found that because of the unique conditions there, many of the armed folks didn't necessarily have to carry with a round chambered. They don't have many/any car-jackings, armed muggings, stick ups at 7-Elevens etc....those are true reactive scenarios. What they do have are checkpoints where terrorists/suicide bombers will try to get through. Bad guy comes through one side of the checkpoint, things don't seem right, they draw, rack the slide and order them to stop while safely behind barriers in case the bad guys blow themselves up. That is NOT what most people live like. The normal cops there train more like our cops do and many of them are authorized to carry with a round in the chamber.
The Israeli's also found that since they were dealing with quickly trained people on a budget, the empty chamber, draw, rack, fire training also reinforced and dovetailed with emergency action drills. If you press the trigger and the gun doesn't go bang, you smack the mag, rack the slide and evaluate whether you need to shoot. Half of that action is identical to what you do when you draw to engage, so the two compliment each other and save training time.
Put all that together and it's a pretty unique set of circumstances and it led to some pretty unique solutions, but they don't necessarily apply here.
In your reply to WC you said that with the scenario of two people side-by-side, one with a loaded gun and the other with an empty chamber, the speed for three hits would be the same.
If that's true, then the person with the fully loaded weapon doesn't know what they're doing and need additional training. In the matches I shoot, we are often forced to do this exact scenario (well, without the other person). I know my times to draw and hit a target at various ranged down to the tenths of seconds required. I also know how long it takes to draw, rack the slide and shoot and it's not even remotely close. Pick a 10yd target, which is less of a disadvantage than something closer. I can reliably react, draw and put a solid hit on that target in 1.0s all day long and faster when I'm really on (like .8s). If I have to rack the slide, I'm going to be right about 2.0S if I get it perfect. If I fumble it, even slightly, it's way slower. In fact, I can draw and put six rounds (center hits) into a target at 10yds in 2.0s reliably. So, I've hit the bad guy six times before the slide racking guy of equal skill gets off his first shot....no contest, end of story, the timer doesn't lie. Not everyone will have the same numbers, but nobody is going to be as fast, or faster when racking the slide.
At close ranges like 1-3yds, the difference is going to be even bigger since I can fire almost immediately after the gun clears leather and not have to bring the gun all the way up, rack the slide and then shoot....anybody can test this and see for themselves, but the results are going to be the same for everyone.
The thing that none of the few folks advocating carrying an empty chamber will address is probably the most important. If they feel the need to carry a gun for the unlikely event that they'll need it, why won't they carry it with a round in the chamber for the more likely chance that they won't have two hands free if the unlikely event does happen? Like I said before, only one of the guys I know who's been forced to shoot someone would have had time to rack the slide, or had both hands free to do so. The three times I had to reactively draw on someone I would not have had time to rack the slide. Luckily I didn't ever have to shoot, but at least I would have been able to do so if needed.
It's like the folks that say "I only carry when I think I'm going to need it". Well, if you REALLY thought you were going to need it, you'd carry a long gun, a spare gun, bring friends with guns or go somewhere else and avoid needing a gun in the first place. It's absolutely illogical when you boil it down to facts and reality rather than whimsical assumptions.
Again, everyone needs to ask themselves how they'd like to be wrestling with a monster thinking how nice it would be to have a round in the chamber of the now useless gun they went out of their way to buy, learn to shoot and carry.
If someone feels they want/need to carry a gun to defend themselves then they need to learn to do it the right way and not kid themselves that they're "safer" by carrying with an empty chamber...there isn't a free lunch to get around that. In fact, it goes opposite of cardinal rule #1....treat all firearms as if they are loaded. If you do that, it doesn't matter if it's got a round in the chamber, does it? R,
