by Stradawhovious on Tue Sep 18, 2012 8:15 am
To the OP. Carry however you feel comfortable, but know a couple of things....
The vast majority of folks here who carry frequently.... I'd bewilling to guess 99.9%.... carry with one in the chamber, and none of us have shot ourselves in the leg as a result of that alone. Well, not that anyone has admitted to anyways.
The likelihood of you being able to identify a threat of GBH, then have enough time to unholster, rack a round into the slide, engage the target and pull the trigger before the threat overcomes you are almost nil....... but the are slightly better than you actually having the fine motor skills needed to perform those actions, or the mental focus to rember that you need to rack one into the slide under the stress involved. People that think otherwise either have never been in that type of situation before, or are Highly trained high speed low drag operators with years of first hand experience. (I will let you guess who is who here.) I understand your hesitation, but my recommendation would be to start now, rather than get into the habit of carrying on an empty chamber.
Personally I've never been in a situation where I have had to fire in self defense (thank God), but one time (and only one thankfully) I did have to draw due to a threat.... and let me tell you, the only thing on my mind.... and I mean ONLY thing..... was "Holy **** I have to get out of here or things are going to get terrible in a hurry". Instant adrenaline dump, my hands went cold, I got a bit of tunnel vision (never would have known it at the time, it's an amazing phenomenon), and If I had to use my gun, and it had an empty chamber, all I would have heard was a click. Guaranteed. Luckily retreat was possible and quick, and a 911 call took care of the situation... I assume it did anyways. I certianly didn't go back to check up on things.
If you're reading this, there are better than even odds you are a d-bag.
