I've had a tab open to remind me to write a post for almost a month now, and the need for the post to be written has evaporated.
However, the post I was going to link to still deserves the props. If you haven't read Mulliga's "Administrative Gun Handling For The CCW", you should. He has some good points there. The other tab I had open went to Kathy Jackson's answer to the question "Would You Carry a Gun to ______ ?"
I was going to tie these two together in a masterpiece of rhetoric as a rebuttal to... a rebuttal to... well, I can't really remember who I was going to rebut. I think it had something to do with the numbnuts that dropped his gat and drilled a bagboy, but I can't be sure.
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Hm. Hard to reconstruct from here what point you were going to make. Mulliga's piece doesn't really seem to say much of anything beyond "check the chamber," which isn't bad advice but hardly groundbreaking. Kathy Jackson just seems to be overanalyzing CCW, making it a bigger deal than it needs to be.
"Kathy Jackson just seems to be overanalyzing CCW, making it a bigger deal than it needs to be."
Really? I got exactly the opposite read from that.
I'm pretty sure that Kathy, like me, expends more anguished thought on what socks she's going to wear on a given day than what gun she's going to carry in what holster.
Hmmm...I'll side with Tam on this.
I, unfortunately, have to temporarily divest myself of both firearms at least once per day; I'm hard pressed to remember a time when I didn't mag & chamber check the gerbangers upon retrieval and reholstering, despite the apparent lack of disturbance to their temporary storage. Those pieces of metal are upon what I may depend for my life; why would I not make sure of their status?
And, RE: Kathy's post, except for the one daily place where it's forbidden for me to carry, I carry everywhere and don't go places where I can't, so it's natural to always have at least one gun on me at any given time. Usually two.
I'll agree with Tam - I know each AM what guns I'll have on me that day - the same ones I took off the night before; the color of socks, pants, jacket and shirt is a great deal more variable.
I find it difficult to find rebuttal material in either piece. The mantra of checking status every time your weapon has left your person is excellent advice and literally a rule to LIVE by.
Jackson's application of language is equal parts pithy and profound. The distinction that you don't carry TO some event but simply CARRY is lost on many individuals.
The undeniable fact is that you can't predict where or when you might meet the threat that causes you to be thankful you carry that day.
IIRC, that bagboy shooting touched off a pretty long comments war at SouthernFemaleLawyer.
To the grocery store guy responsible for the ND, his gun was probably something only carried "to" somewhere. The ND would thus be impossible for a person who CCWs regularly; all the chamber-checking, holster-wearing, and cleaning that a day-to-day gun toter engages in keeps him or her alert to the status of the firearm. I could drop my S&W on the floor in a Publix, and it wouldn't "go off;" I know all the fiddly metal bits inside still work.
The less you carry a gun around with you, the MORE likely you are to accidentally shoot someone...a counter-intuitive idea to people unfamiliar with CCW.
Yep, very few of us have enough guns with suitable holsters to worry about what gun to wear. It's more a case of "what do I have that will conceal the life preserver I must carry."
I possibly have more choice than most, but a suit or blazer looks odd many of the places I go. And doing some of the things I get asked to do. On a street that has such a bad reputation that I was once asked by a Moroccan if it was as
The first consideration is safety, the second, accessibility, and the third concealment.
Except on the occasions when conspicuousness is the most important feature.
Stranger
Chamber check (AKA looking for the ammo fairy or checking for Schrodinger's cartridge) is just one of those things you do, right?
Yup. Look and touch.
Hell, I knew that long before I owned a firearm (and before I had gotten the four rules formally told to me - possibly before Cooper formalized them; was it really in 2003 as Wikipedia would imply by linkage?). I can't think of where I picked it up - since I learned on bolt action .22lr rifles that were *always* handed to us bolt back (and no magazines), so I could see without making a big deal of it that the chamber was clear. I must have heard someone mention it one day and just had it click.
Admittedly, I have had to develop habits to deal with my (very mild, comparatively-speaking) ADD; so I am constantly "pocket-checking" for my wallet, keys, cellphone, etc. So it was more of applying a habit I already had to a new situation.
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