Unloaded Carry

[scottw]

Carry Loaded

I will give you my $0.02 cents worth and based on fact. First in a panic situation you will never know how you will act until you have been through it once. Second you cannot control the sympathetic nervous system and it is the one that controls adrenaline and heart beat. That is why running and trying to see is not the test and is void. You have to have accelerated heart rate with adrenaline and a F OR F reflex that kicks in. Second after the heart rate under stress reaches 155 bpm the first thing that goes is fine motor skills. AS the heart rate goes up you start losing hearing and tunnel vision sets in. Don't think that can be controlled. I used to feel the same way and now carry loaded with a DA that way I feel safe and don't need to worry about what if.

 

[Shweboner]

I'm sure that you were not serious...

Not really, but I just do not see any benefit to the practice?

If you are going to be prepared enough to carry a gun, why would you not have it ready to use??

 

[Srigs]

Slow and if you don't have access to both hands it is a very poor and short CLUB! :banghead:

 

[1911 guy]

Never been in a CCW shooting, but...

Everyone I talk to and all the folks who seem to know about such things say weapon presentation falls into two categories. 1) Plenty of time and 2) No time at all. Either a situation is spiraling out of control and you have time to make ready or else it's on you from nowhere and is over just as fast. Frankly, my luck has always been bad So I'll carry loaded and topped off just in case.

 

[Lucky]

Wayne, all I know is that I was told steady breathing will help keep one's wits about them in a crisis. I don't know why I have to breath in through the nose though, maybe to keep the breathing slow.

However, don't all Israeli's carry with empty chambers? If you always practice Israeli draw then it would become pretty fast, right? Funny thing, I think I saw pictures of Iranian forces doing the same thing.


MachIVshooter could you describe the 1-handed slide rack of the 1911 a bit more? I'm new to mine.

 

[Big Calhoun]

I used to leave the chamber empty but finally am at a 'place' where I can leave one in. The biggest obstacle was the wife...anti-gun and all. But I have her warmed up now.

In a home defense scenario, I wouldn't want to give an intruder any type of heads up other than "GET YOUR CARCASS ON THE GROUND!". In a concealed carry scenario, I just feel you'd be wasting critical reaction time by having to rack the slide.

 

[Rickstir]

I carry three different weapons, depending on the conditions. A 92FS, a Taurus snub nose .357 revolver, or recently a Bersa Thunder Concealed Carry in.380. Every one has one in the pipe, the autos have the safety off. The way I train is draw, acquire, fire, move. Doesn't matter which gun I have, they all work the same way in this set up. I don't have much to think about, and I like it that way.

 

[WayneConrad]

Lucky, That makes sense. I hope I did not offend you with my bit of humor. Now that I reread it, it seems sarcastic. I didn't mean it to be.

 

[yy]

<i>probably not</i> good for tunnel vision

Tunnel vision comes from your brains reaction to stress. Adrenaline is part of it but not the end all.

I suspect having the ritual of raking while clearing leather would not help disspell tunel vision _if_ other parts of your training fail to disspell.

Whether your brain shuts down in stressful situations depends entirely how used to stress you are. This is part of the reason people "default to training" when it's on.

Untrained people freeze. this can be true in a shoot out or in a shooter game. As a funny aside, my brain shut down the first time I played Medal of Honor and was immersed in all the loud explosions. I haven't always shut down in a shooter game. I did well in Socom with the stealth on.

Getting used to stress is an important training. So is getting muscle memory. And so you hear singers do sprints and then sing at the top of their lungs -- stress the lungs and getting used to it. You might hear academic test preparation that includes jumping jacks and then sit down and do ten math problems -- stress the heart rate and getting used to it. You might watch SEAL training on cable that includes severe sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion and then do complex problems -- hey, it's training.

The freeze definately happen in traffic too. I once walked into the path a dare-devil scooter -- the rider froze and didn't change path. Fortunately I acted and side stepped just in time because I was mentally prepared.

But seriously, have you ever driven your car and observe a flying debris smack your window? I noticed that most people freeze. I strongly suspect this is because driving passively everyday serves as training. So most freeze when they should either swerve or shield their eyes. Think about it. You would duck or shield a ball or rock flying your way if you were walking, right?

 

[beardxxxd]

seatbelt
kinda off topic

BUT

when u get into your car do u think.. when i see the accident coming ill hurry up and put my seatbelt on time?

just wondering

 

[Auslander]

You need to train...

IF you carry with an unloaded chamber you need to train the same way.

Starting with the pistol holstered, chamber empty and concealed you need to practice drawing the weapon, charging it and firing at the target.

You need to do the same drill while running toward the target, away from the target and perpendicular to the line of sight to the target.

You need to shoot and shoot and shoot until you never have to think about what you have to do.

 

[CobraF100]

I'm not going to side with Loaded or Unloaded...Some unlucky person may find out witch it is

BUT

1-Truth..most officers that have been shot,were officers shot by their own gun...

-This is the reason that most law enforcement agencies have gone to the "Retention Style Holsters" (locking Holsters,These Type holster's positively locks the gun making snatching extremely difficult from the front, rear, top or side)

http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=3&id=32628

2-If you were to carry "unchambered" and someone was able to get a Gun from you,this person will be unlikely to check to see if you had it loaded....Gives you "time to escape"

3-Most people that carry CCW (85% maybe more) have NOT taken any classes on self Defence or any Defensive classes for that matter to properly defender off an Aggressor...
(I dont care how Macho/Big/Bad/Strong you think you are,you know nothing till your in the situation)

Well maybe I sould not put the percent in but in my last Class I took our Instructor gave us this info.It was on paper but I had no need for it i thought.

4-Most "I say MOST" BG's,once they see you have a Gun even if they have one will not stay to fight they will "Flee the Seen"




How you carry is up to you but like everyone says you need to practice on how your going to carry.

 

[Tess]

3-Most people that carry CCW (85% maybe more) have NOT taken any classes on self Defence or any Defensive classes for that matter to properly defender off an Aggressor...
(I dont care how Macho/Big/Bad/Strong you think you are,you know nothing till your in the situation)

Can you cite a source, please?

 

[CobraF100]

Tess Quote:
3-Most people that carry CCW (85% maybe more) have NOT taken any classes on self Defence or any Defensive classes for that matter to properly defender off an Aggressor...
(I dont care how Macho/Big/Bad/Strong you think you are,you know nothing till your in the situation)


Can you cite a source, please?

Well maybe I sould not put the percent in but in my last Class I took our Instructor gave us this info.It was on paper but I had no need for it i thought.

I can say that for the people that I know personaly (27) that are "NON-Law Enforcement" ,I can only say that I know of 6 of them that have been through some of the Self Defensive classes,This includes the ones that are taking Martial Arts classes.


I'll edit my post to make all happy.

 

[Lucky]

No problem Wayne, i'm not swift enough to catch most things.

Wikipedia says tunnel-vision is related to a lot of causes, but if you look through them the common trend is blood, or blood pressure, or oxygen. So I think my self-defence teacher was right and it's a symptom of poor breathing. I think, and it was a while ago, but I think I remember hearing that tunnel vision was due to the rods and cones, and one was more reliable than the other. The tunnel-vision pictures in Wikipedia show the tunnel-vision as being black-and-white, so I'm thinking that's the right track.




"Tunnel vision is the loss of peripheral vision with retention of central vision, resulting in a constricted circular tunnel-like field of vision.[1]


Tunnel vision can be caused by:

* Alcohol consumption causes tunnel vision [1]. In addition, the vision becomes blurred or double since eye muscles lose their precision causing them to be unable to focus on the same object. This tunnel vision partially explains that accident rate is much higher with drunken driving.
* Retinitis pigmentosa, a disease of the eye.
* Sustained (1 second or more) high accelerations [2]. Typically, flying an airplane with a centripetal acceleration of up to or over 39 m/s2 (4gs) with the head towards the center of curvature, common in aerobatic or fighter pilots. In these cases tunnel vision and brownout may proceed to or g-force induced Loss Of Consciousness (g-LOC).
* Hallucinogenic drugs.
* Glaucoma, a disease of the eye.
* Extreme fear or distress, most often in the context of a panic attack.
* Altitude sickness, hypoxia in passenger aircraft [3]
* Exposure to oxygen at a partial pressure above 1.5-2 atmospheres, producing central nervous system oxygen toxicity, notably while diving. [4] Other symptoms can include dizziness, nausea, blindness, fatigue, anxiety, confusion and lack of coordination.
* Other loss of blood to the brain.
* Prolonged exposure to air contaminated with heated hydraulic fluids and oils, as can sometimes happen in passenger aircraft [5].
* Pituitary stalk mass (i.e. tumor) compressing optic nerve fibers
* Severe cataracts, causing a removal of most of the field of vision"

 

[swingset]

I had a discusion this weekend regarding carrying a semi with nothing in the chamber. While racking while drawing does require additional practice we came up with a theory... Not sure who brought it up, but the thought that having to rack the slide (like the Israelis) may serve to break tunnel vision and auditory exclusion. It sounds logical, but I am not sure when tunnel vision, auditory exclusion... would set in, and if racking the slide would be sufficient to break this.

Any thoughts?

Yeah, first thought is that's a dangerous and stupid theory for self-defense.

 

[george29]

Whatever your personal theory, Israeli doctrine is unchambered only, seems to work for them. They DO practice a lot.

 

[strambo]

An extra split second to asses the situation is one of the reasons I have heard the Israelis do this. However, when you train racking the slide into subconscious competence (what some call "muscle memory") it would defeat that reason.

Check out Mike Kanarek and his Israeli Combat Shooting Method DVDs if this style is of any interest. http://fight2survive.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=26

A while back I looked into getting a H2H instructor cert through him...am going a different route though. I liked some of what he had to offer and his expertise and attitude seemed very good. If I wanted to learn more about Israeli shooting style I'd go to him. Don't know anyone else in the US who teaches it.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I have been wrestling with my own reluctance to carry an auto with "one in the pipe". I have decided I have to get over me hesitation and just take the extra care I feel will be needed. As many have pointed out to me, in a similar thread I started, in a life or death situation the spit second it takes to rack a slide can make you the second fastest shot in the fight.

 

[MachIVshooter]

MachIVshooter could you describe the 1-handed slide rack of the 1911 a bit more? I'm new to mine

Put your thumb through the trigger gaurd and your index finger on the plunger, then squeeze. Won't work if there is a guide rod.

Sorry if it's a little fuzzy. Not easy to snap a photo with your left (my weak) hand while doing something like this with your right, especially when the camera is designed for right handed operation. For this manuever, I would also normally anchor the butt of the grip against my body for stability, lest your finger slip from the plunger.

 

[GEM]

The tunnel vision under discussion is a selective attention effect and not one due to physical illness or drugs. The Wikipedia piece is not relevant to the discussion.

One has limited attentional resources or computational power. Under stress for some other reason, you focus your attentional resources on one channel of information with priority. You filter or or do not allocated resources to other channels. Thus, you don't appropriately process them.

This is quite different from rods, cones, retinitis pigmentosa, etc.

Better terms and the ones more used in cognitive science are selective attention, attentional spotlight effects, perceptual narrowing.

In the case of racking - that won't break such an effect - if anything it adds to the capacity load and further degrades your ability to notice things in the environment.

I have a PhD in this stuff - not zombie combat techniques.

 

[tpelle]

In all of the reading I've done, the only organizations that require those carrying handguns to carry empty-chamber are military organizations - and these only in "modern" (post WWII) times. This includes the Israelis, where "reservists" (just about everybody) carry some sort of weapon most of the time.

In military organizations, handgun training is taken much less seriously than is training with rifles. Handguns are secondary weapons, issued to officers as "badges" of rank and for last-ditch self defense, and to folks like vehicle crewmen for whome a long gun would be an encumbrance. Because handguns are secondary weapons, what training there is is more "familiarization" than anything else, and without any expectation of achieving any great degree of competence. Empty-chamber carry is mandated so as to reduce the risk of accidental discharges which may result in friendly casualties.

You make sure you're better trained than that, don't you?

 

[MrTwigg]

Bad idea.

 

[strambo]

In military organizations, handgun training is taken much less seriously than is training with rifles. Handguns are secondary weapons, issued to officers as "badges" of rank and for last-ditch self defense, and to folks like vehicle crewmen for whome a long gun would be an encumbrance. Because handguns are secondary weapons, what training there is is more "familiarization" than anything else, and without any expectation of achieving any great degree of competence. Empty-chamber carry is mandated so as to reduce the risk of accidental discharges which may result in friendly casualties.

You make sure you're better trained than that, don't you?

This is very true and I run into many NCOs/Officers who don't chamber their M9s because they don't feel comfortable. I have put my firearms insructor training to good use teaching my team members gunhandling and shooting skills when I can. We have very limited training time, but I have had them drawing, shooting at 3-15 yards, shooting on the move, M4 to M9 transitions and turning and shooting from every direction. A lot of it was a bit over their heads, but they had to get up to speed...they were all safe though. Trying to drill SCAN!!! into their heads too.

 

[rockstar.esq]

So to recap we have the group that like the therapeutic benifits of racking the slide prior to defending themselves. We've also got a comment about getting shot with our own gun. We've also got a group that seems to think whatever the Isralies do is well founded. Seriously if you CCW you do so to protect yourself and others. If you want therapy for excitement induced by violence take up football or fencing. Complicating a situation where your last ditch solution to survival is a handgun is sort of a prime example of Darwinian logic. Sometimes thinking too much ain't good for your health. Getting shot with your own gun is a function of two simple things. First you suck at CCW. The public shouldn't know you're packing. Second you let a lethal threat get WAY too close. Friendly people you don't know groping for your sidearm aren't going to hug you! I'm all for debate however I'm hearing a lot of folks who're sounding like they've forgotten the main reason for CCW in the first place.