There are so many threads on this subject that it's worthwhile just to state the facts and let the user decide:
1. The Israeli draw, with a bit of practice, will add about 0.3 seconds to your draw. That's it.
2. If you lack 0.3 seconds, you're already in a hand to hand combat situation. Your goal now is NOT to draw, but to escape so that you can.
3. The Israeli draw uses gross motor skills, the last to be affected by stress and panic.
4. An external safety, at best, is barely faster than the Israeli draw. Unlike the Israeli draw, it requires fine motor skills, the first to go under stress. Accordingly a highly stressed shooter may go blank, fail to release the safety or may activate an unintentionally released safety.
All fine motor skills lost under stress.
All the BS about how LE carries means exactly nothing to the many CCW and new shooters who are far less competent, do not train as much, have probably never been in a gunfight, and are highly likely to panic and suffer extreme stress.
Under these conditions, the Israeli draw makes a lot of sense. For most average or newer gunowners it will probably be safer AND faster.
Now I'd like specifically address some of the comments made:
Time to load one in the chamber is forever if you need to use the gun, regardless of what anyone says, it is an eternity. Remember, you also have to draw, aim, and fire. Simple math will show that loading a round equals four steps instead of three and thus also means more time.
Actually I probably overstated the additional time to rack and chamber at 0.3 seconds. And you don't have to be a trained Israeli commando either. Actually it is not really an additional step. You draw and rack as the gun is moved forward. The gun has to cover the same path whether it is racked or not. It did not take me much practice before my draw/rack was one smooth motion.
It is VERY important to realize that most of us have never been in a real firefight. It has been well discussed the loss of the fine motor skills needed to activate a safety are the first to go. Many people even pee their pants, and even experienced LE's have been known to go blank and/or shoot wildly at very short range.
The real honest truth is that when facing life and death, probably for the first time, the Israeli draw - which CAN be accomplished with the gross motor skills we have left - will likely be more reliably faster.
You lose one extra round you'd otherwise have.
If under stress, you can't perform fine motor skills, you will die with that one extra round.
Don't the police carry with one in the pipe?
This has been well addressed. Regardless of the fact that even experienced LE have been known to lose it, most of us are not police. We lack the training, exposure, experience and practice. We are FAR more likely to suffer from the debilitating effects of extreme stress.
Most of the arguments people have made to me for not carrying one in the pipe are variations of, "I'll never be able to remember firearms safety, so I should make sure I don't keep one in the pipe so everyone is safe.
It's not about that at all, in fact it's just the opposite. NOT carrying one "in the chute" will keep us safer, more reliably, than carrying one. The famous Fairborne and Sykes developed tactics in the early 1900's that continue until today. Their attitudes developed from their experiences in Shanghai, and from hundreds of interviews and visits with police departments around the country.
Their position: pin the safety and carry a full magazine with nothing in the chamber. They recognized nearly a hundred years ago that the safety was a detriment, not an advantage.
Ultimately, it comes down to removing as much uncertainty and chance as I possibly can for a situation which already has infinite permutations / factors I cannot control. Since I know that, I should do all I can with the factors I can control.
On that we agree. Relying on dependable gross motor skills does exactly that...
