I was in Austin (attending U.T.) back in Fall of 1990 when an armored car courier was carrying the moneybags out to the armored car from a local supermarket. While passing through the breezeway, a robber walked up behind him, shot him in the head, picked up the moneybags, stepped into a waiting car, and was gone before the smoke cleared. IIRC, the take was only about $50-80k. People will
murder you for a LOT less than that kind of cash. The most dangerous time for those guys is when they're out of their cars, making a routine pickup.
As long as they're safe about it, I've zero problem with them taking a firm grip on their pistols, everyime they make a pickup. After all, they carry the pistols for a reason. Always be clearly vigilante and convey that an attack will be met with immediate use of deadly force, and EVERYONE is thus a lot safer. That's what the concept of "An armed society is a polite society" is all about, is it not?
Funny story: I was on duty as a patrol officer one Saturday, and had shoved the department patrol cell phone into my pocket. When I squated next to my car to look under the passenger seat for the remote control for the dash radar (which the previous driver had let rattle around-- grrrr!), the suppository-shaped cell phone "squibbed" out of my pocket, unbeknown to me. I suddenly got a call of a theft-in-progress, and when I hopped in my car and backed out of my parking spot, I drove over the cell phone, causing it to fail that particular stress test. Finding it smashed in the P.D. parking lot an hour later, I proceded to the cell-phone store to procur another for our department. I walked in, asked a guy at a front counter who to talk to about that, and he pointed me to the very back of the store to speak to the shift manager. The shift manager saw me, in a very standard midnight blue uniform and basketweave gunbelt, and nodded. He stopped talking to the customer he was with, saying "Yeah, just a minute," and stepped to a back office. He came back out with a big (2 quart? One Gallon?) ziplock bag
full of bundled cash with a totaled reciept in it and a 6-digit hyphenated number on the front of it, and, saying ,"Here you go," handed it over to me and began to continue his conversation with his customer.
I smiled, handed him a paper bag with the earthly remains of the department cell phone, and said, "Thanks! And here
you go." He looked... confused.
"Wait...! Aren't you the...? You're not the... Your uniform is different!"
I had apparently preceded the armored car company pickup by a few minutes.
I look around, noting exits and anything I can use for cover. 
I've never seen ANY armed professional walk around like this (and I've seen this same guy do it twice) -- you put your hand on your sidearm and you're telling me you're about to draw. Is this normal practice (!), or would I be justified in noting the car number and phoning them up?
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