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Originally Posted by Sharpsdressed Man
...Since most of us (probably better than 99%) will never be in a fast draw response to an armed threat, the likelihood of NEEDING the weapon to be in Condition 0 or Condition 1 is probably moot....
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This is fallacious reasoning. The likelihood of needing a gun and the likelihood of either needing it quickly or having a hand free to operate the slide and chamber a round are independent variables.
It may be very unlikely that you will ever need your gun. But it is considerably more likely that if you do need it you will need it quickly or need to put it to use with one hand.
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Originally Posted by Sharpsdressed Man
So, you have references to three shootings that, after debriefing and gathering the facts, indicated that utilizing the "Israeli Method" had caused failure due to the loss of one hand during the incident. The problem with stats, as I see it, is seldom would you be able to gather data on SUCCESSFUL use of the technique because there would be little need to break down a successful shooting,...
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More fallacious reasoning. If you need two hands but don't have two hands available, the outcome will be very unsatisfactory for you. If that's the case, it will be small comfort to you that perhaps that odds were against the situation occurring.
In any case, there is reason to believe that the use of one hand to manage one's pistol in a violent encounter isn't that uncommon. Looking at the NYPD annual Firearm Discharge Reports for
2007,
2009,
2010 and
2011, officers firing their handguns in the course of a violent encounter used one hand 30%, 38%, 50% and 29%, respectively, of the time. So at least the officers of the NYPD had occasion to use their pistols with only one hand a substantial portion of the time.
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Originally Posted by Sharpsdressed Man
...Go to the "Armed Citizen" column in the American Rifleman each month, and see the incidents where the citizen responded with a gun, and note if he/she would have had time to chamber a round while responding...
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I've read that column regularly for years and have seldom seen sufficient information to allow one to reasonably draw any such inference one way or another.
In any case:
- The point of a fast draw is not speed for its own sake. It's simply that if you do need your gun, you have no way to know in advance how much time you'll have in which to put it to use.
- When it comes down to it, it's really not a question of quick draw or fast draw. It's a question of how long it can take us to perceive the threat, determine the need to fire, deploy our gun and engage the threat with accurate fire, having made the decision that shooting is warranted.
- So how much time will we have in which to do all of that? I have no idea and neither do you. It's going to all depend on what happens and how it happens. We might have lots of time, or we might have very little. We simply can't know in advance.
- If we can't get done what we need to do in the time circumstances allow us, we will not be happy with the outcome. Good training and diligent practice can help reduce the time we need to be able to effectively do what we need to be able to do. And since I can't know how much time I'll have, I'd rather not give up time if I can avoid it.
- How to carry one's gun is, of course, a personal matter. But one is fooling himself if he insists that carrying without a round in the chamber does not put himself at a disadvantage.