Most important lessons learned from carrying?

I get that, completely

However, the bulk of us aren't Jerry Mikulek or Hickok45. A lot of us don't have the money or time to practice with hundreds of rounds a month with many different firearms.

There's another old saying "beware of the guy with one gun, he probably knows how to use it"

I, as well as others with continue to carry what is good for the occasion. You carry whats good for you........And we'll all be happy-prepared and safe.

BTW SC has open carry too.

I would NEVER want to be hickok45......He's just a shill for Bud's Guns in Tenn.
 
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Unless you love paying lawyers and dealing with years of hassle, carry but actively try to AVOID using your firearm. If a situation feels "off", get out. Walking away (if it's a viable option) is cheaper than shooting someone. De-escalate wherever possible. Seek to avoid confrontation. Be Gandhi, not Rambo. Shooting someone should always be an absolute last resort. You can win a civil suit after a legit shooting and still end up bankrupt.
 
Agree

I've heard guys on here, and seen guys in person carrying different firearms all the time. I hear putting guns in "the rotation". To me, that's a mistake. You need to know your EDC as the saying goes "like the back of your hand".

Revolver today, 1911 tomorrow, Striker fired with no safety the next. It's just causing confusion that need not be there. Because god forbid if the time ever comes? You have to rely on that muscle memory with your heart pounding out of your chest.

Stick with one gun.

What is the practical consideration? The assumption is that the stress response will cause loss of voluntary motor control and only pre-programmed muscle memory will be functional. I considered this to be an unproved or at least over-simplistic teaching. There are certainly anecdotes which would suggest that there is credence to the teaching, there are also anecdotes to the contrary.
The US Marine Corps has studied the question and has determined that about one in ten Marines are of a type who do not suffer from any diminished capacity during an extreme stress response. You are scared but you can still think. The Corps has a way to find these individuals and assign them to the squad automatic weapons, a dramatic improvement in unit effectiveness. (Please correct me anyone as I am no expert, with my thanks.) I know that my father, my brother, and my daughter are all such, and I have reason to believe it is true for me also. I believe there is a genetic component to this. (Again please correct me.)
Similarly, there are one in ten individuals who are paralyzed by the adrenalin dump and would fit the description you reference. I also feel that most people will fall closer to the panic side of the spectrum than on my side.
Anecdotes- If you read about a bad thing happening and you are bothered and want to change your strategy, do it. I will need more evidence. There are people who heard stories of their particular Sig pistol going off uncommanded, so they are now carrying on an empty chamber! I will NEVER do that!
Training- You cannot prepare for everything, but you can train for a fight. Standing at the line holding the pistol and slowly squeezing the trigger does what exactly?? People are doing things at the range which will not help them win a real gunfight. Most gun ranges have safety protocols that prevent realistic practice.
One Gun- I can say that I agree that there is some validity to the idea. If you can shoot a double action revolver well, then you will shoot other pistols well. But my friends who shoot the 1911 very well, cannot take my Smith 3rd Gen 457 or 6906 and hit well with it double or single action! However it will be well enough. If you carry like you practice, same type holster, same type trigger action, same safety system, there is a speed advantage with your first shot. But being honest, that additional speed is practically never decisive in a fight. My speed has more to do with the kind of cover garment than anything else. I can draw from under a suit coat fastest, then from a Levi jacket, but slowest of all from under an unbuttoned shirt.
Rotation of various pistols- I was practicing shoot and move with a 1911 and got held up trying to rack the slide by pulling on the back instead of using the slide lever. That gun had recoil buffers installed which were preventing me. I took those out and I practiced until it became automatic for me to use the slide release on every pistol. I can go between revolvers and traditional DA/SA pistols with absolutely no issues at all, but if I carry a 1911 I am going to forget to operate that safety, maybe? But I never have, and since I can still think under extreme stress, it might not be a problem. But if it is, when the gun don't go boom, I am gonna be able to duh wipe the safety and get off the shot. I suspect that those who have a rotation of pistols, might ought to practice with them until they can see a favorite. When I saw that I could do so much better with my 457 than the others, that became the EDC.
Defensive encounters are incredibly complex. Remember that a gunfight is more fight than gun! Please correct me anyone with my thanks and thanks Miracle Man for this thread! Enjoyed it so much.
 
I do have an reference for this one, Massad Ayoob wrote an article several years ago in which he said (Paraphrased) If you're ever involved in a self-defense shooting outside of your house at some point they're going to ask you why you were even carrying a gun.

He said that you're better off if you can tell the police that you always carry a gun no matter where you go and today was no different.

I don't remember how he worded it but if it comes out that you sometimes do carry and you sometimes don't carry the cops are going to ask you what was going on that day that was so special that you thought you needed a gun.

This is bad, outdated advice from Ayoob.

When the Police arrive you should only make basic statement to them such as “I was attacked by that individual. He was armed with a gun (or knife), made statements that put me in fear of my life, was close enough to harm me so I had no choice but to defend myself. You will find the gun (or knife) he was armed with over there”.

Then your next statement should be “I want a lawyer and I will not answer any more questions until I speak to one”.

The Police are NOT your friend and you should not treat them as such.
 
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This is bad, outdated advice from Ayoob.

When the Police arrive you should only make basic statement to them such as “i was attacked by that individual. He was armed with a gun (or knife), made statements that put me in fear of my life, was close enough to ham me so I had no choice but to defens myself. You will find the gun (or knife) he was armed with over there”.

Then your next statement should be “I want a lawyer and will. Ot answer any more questions until I speak to one”.

The Police are NOT your friend and you should not treat them as such.
I agree with most of what you said but that question may come later , not at the scene .
 
This is bad, outdated advice from Ayoob.

When the Police arrive you should only make basic statement to them such as “i was attacked by that individual. He was armed with a gun (or knife), made statements that put me in fear of my life, was close enough to ham me so I had no choice but to defens myself. You will find the gun (or knife) he was armed with over there”.

Then your next statement should be “I want a lawyer and will. Ot answer any more questions until I speak to one”.

The Police are NOT your friend and you should not treat them as such.

I'm much more likely to follow Ayoob's advice than yours.

You didn't read what I wrote. I didn't say anything about what you say when the police arrived.

I very specifically wrote it as At Some Point.

At Some Point you're going to have to explain your actions to the police. You can't just shut up and plead the fifth forever.

I agree with most of what you said but that question may come later , not at the scene .

Everybody's got to prove that they're smarter than Ayoob
 
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Smoke;141760687 I very specifically wrote it as [I said:
At Some Point[/I].

At Some Point you're going to have to explain your actions to the police. You can't just shut up and plead the fifth forever.

Actually yes you can. It is up to the State to prove your guilt. Your attorney can enter your plea to the Court. You can not be compelled to take the witness stand and testify. A good attorney can advise you what questions and information to give to the Police to present your actions in the most favorable light. Or to put it another way Just Shut Up.

It is called the CRIMINAL Justice System, not the VICTIM Justice System for very good reasons. It is up to you if you want to talk to the Police Department without talking to and having a lawyer present during questioning.

Everybody's got to prove that they're smarter than Ayoob

Well I never made any claim to be smarter than him but I will stack my formal education and college honors against whatever education he has. Ayoob is not a lawyer and I believe never been a full-time Police Officer. He found a career as a writer in gun magazines before the Internet. With the Internet better information can be shared and discussed.

Or you can follow the advice from what he has wrote in magazine articles and books.

p.s. I edited Post 50. I apologize for the incomplete sentences and poor gammer. I must have still been mostly asleep.
 
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This is bad, outdated advice from Ayoob.

When the Police arrive you should only make basic statement to them such as “I was attacked by that individual. He was armed with a gun (or knife), made statements that put me in fear of my life, was close enough to harm me so I had no choice but to defend myself. You will find the gun (or knife) he was armed with over there”.

Then your next statement should be “I want a lawyer and I will not answer any more questions until I speak to one”.

The Police are NOT your friend and you should not treat them as such.

Good advice. +1
 
Actually yes you can. It is up to the State to prove your guilt. Your attorney can enter your plea to the Court. You can not be compelled to take the witness stand and testify. A good attorney can advise you what questions and information to give to the Police to present your actions in the most favorable light. Or to put it another way Just Shut Up.

It is called the CRIMINAL Justice System, not the VICTIM Justice System for very good reasons. It is up to you if you want to talk to the Police Department without talking to and having a lawyer present during questioning.



Well I never made any claim to be smarter than him but I will stack my formal education and college honors against whatever education he has. Ayoob is not a lawyer and I believe never been a full-time Police Officer. He found a career as a writer in gun magazines before the Internet. With the Internet better information can be shared and discussed.

Or you can follow the advice from what he has wrote in magazine articles and books.

p.s. I edited Post 50. I apologize for the incomplete sentences and poor gammer. I must have still been mostly asleep.


And with all your formal education and experience you still misread my post.
 
Limiting yourself to only one potential carry gun is completely unrealistic for many people who have varying threat matrices and varying NPE situations they must negotiate on a daily basis. For me, sometimes the best choice is a 4" 629 in OWB with cover garment, and other times the best choice is a .22 NAA Mini in my jeans pocket. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of simple minds.

Never said I owned just one, said I carried just one. I've also said on this forum and elsewhere, you should be equally proficient with an auto loader, (All of them. 1911, da/sa, striker fired), and a DA revolver. If you aren't, you're not as good as you think you are.
 
I, as well as others with continue to carry what is good for the occasion. You carry whats good for you........And we'll all be happy-prepared and safe.

BTW SC has open carry too.

I would NEVER want to be hickok45......He's just a shill for Bud's Guns in Tenn.

I'm on board with that. Whatever you're comfortable with is the thing to carry.
 
Carry whatever suits you.....I like being proficient with anything my hands are on.

Randy
 
The challenge for me, going back to when I first started carrying in early '64, is how to reconcile the contradiction between size, weight, caliber, capacity and shootability vs concealability and comfort (and thus greater likelihood of carrying).

Over the decades that has led to carrying a fairly wide variety of handguns, both semi-auto and revolver. I have never had an issue with differing configurations of handguns. I have never found a handgun I just can't shoot. I do find however, that I shoot better with a revolver with grips that that fill the area between the front of the backstrap/behind the trigger guard but don't cover the rear of the backstrap, such as Hogue. This best fits my hand for DA shooting. On semi-autos I prefer a double stack magazine to fill my large hand.

This lengthy evolutionary process concluded in the late '90 when I purchased a Glock 26 (9mm). When I first bought this pistol, my bride, who was carrying a Walther PPKS, shot it and loved it. So much so that she wanted one. Nothing happened on that front for a number of years until she told me that I could either give her my Glock, then buy anything my greedy little heart desired, or she would buy one of her own. What a great opportunity for me. I thought about it for a couple of days and just could not come up with something that would better suit my needs than what I had. Thus she ordered her own and we are a two Glock family.

The very long series of decisions that brought me to where I am today are personal to my experiences, needs, priorities and preferences. Having done a bit of teaching I have always emphasized this personal element with the objective being to carry, not default to an excuse to leave it at home.

This puts me in the camp that prefers one EDC instead of multiple. According to at least one poster that means I fall into the ".....hobgoblin of small minds..." category. I did not realize an opposing opinion so defined an individual, and I am not convinced despite the assertion. I just see it as a cheap shot. Cheap shots lack class.

Aside from the above digression from civil discourse, I believe I have posted more 'likes' on this thread than any other since I have been a member.
 
never stop learning, when you go to the range push yourself. if you shoot ten rounds into a 10 inch circle at 10 yrds. your last time at the range up the anti. try it at 15 yrds.,ect. train don't practice.
the hardest thing to learn is how to separate the BS on webs site from useful tools to put in your tool box.
In the old days an expert was anyone from more than 100 miles away... today we are all experts with a key board..
 
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