To cock or not?

[MLeake]

The world is generally neither a fair nor rational place. As noted, some prosecutors are not friendly toward self-defense use of guns in the first place, and may look for vulnerable angles.

Also as noted, lawyers may have better odds of getting a civil win for negligent homicide/manslaughter than they would for a valid, justifiable, SD homicide.

So.... it has been attempted, and at least in one case (according to the Ayoob article) it seems to have been attempted, successfully.

And once again, legal issues aside - the advantage to a DA system is that it makes accidental pulls of the trigger less likely, when under stress. From a practical standpoint, at typical SD ranges, there is no real advantage to cocking a DA hammer, and there are definite disadvantages (legal exposure; possibility of an actual AD/ND; even the split second of time required to cock the hammer).

If you want to use a DA system, learn how to shoot DA. You might be surprised at the results that can be achieved.

Examples: I just picked up this Smith and Wesson 442 for the first time, yesterday. Added CTC J-frame grips. Test fired it using standard pressure, flash-suppressed Buffalo Bore 158gr LSWCHP at an advertised 850fps.

At five yards, bottom group shot using laser, middle and upper groups shot using fixed sights:



Of course, those were fired fairly slowly, to check point of aim. (I'll adjust the laser next time out; gun hits about 4" above the dot at 5yds, and I'd prefer it to be about 1.5" high and .5" left, to minimize parallax over distance.) For defensive purposes, this big group consists of 15 rounds of the 158gr LSWCHP loads, fired as fast as I could bring sights back on target, again at 5 yds:



Note: reduced scale silhouettes; for perspective, on the aimed fire targets, both the bottom and middle groups would fit inside the trigger guard of the 442.

Note2: I mostly shoot SA autos; DA revolvers are secondary for me. Imagine what you could do if you really practiced....

[Don P]

As stated by some to a degree, if the firearm presented did NOT defuse the situation ( showing you mean business) what makes one think cocking the hammer will be the deciding action. Like stated no external hammer or DAO making a AD difficult under stress.

[BlueTrain]

If cocking the hammer makes it seem premeditated, does not cocking the hammer make it seem unintentional? Really, I don't think you can win.

The official and semi-official (meaning trainers who want to appear official) have flip-flopped on this point over the years. In the 1950s the practice was to cock the revolver. For that reason there was a fad for very wide hammer spurs and triggers (or trigger shoes) to facilitate this practice. Basically I'd say it was an outgrowth of a lot of time on a target range. In any case, the object was the same, to hit the target. But you will remember that the older Colt revolvers were fairly stiff and even now, everyone wants their revolver to have a trigger job because it helps so much in double action shooting.

Does getting a trigger job result in a "gunfighter's gun?"

At one time the practice was even in official government publications. I have a copy of a British Navy manual that describes the official practice of cocking the hammer in the shooting procedures. One handed, too!

[MLeake]

... the argument isn't about "pre-meditation." If anything, it's about the opposite.

In order to establish self-defense, one has to acknowledge that yes, one did indeed fire the shot(s).

OTOH, if the prosecutor, or a lawsuit happy attorney, can convince a jury that you fired accidentally, due to having armed your hair-trigger SA mode, then self-defense goes out the window. You shot the decedent, but you didn't mean to. It was an accident... which means negligent homicide or manslaughter to a prosecutor, and a big civil payout to a litigator.

In other words, it complicates your defense in criminal or civil court by opening up the avenue of a possible AD/ND.

As a practical matter, it does complicate the scenario where the BG surrenders, and now one is covering him with a cocked revolver. What is your decocking procedure for that scenario? Do you really want to have a 3-5lb trigger while you watch for any further actions from the BG?

[BlueTrain]

I understand what you're saying. However, the whole thing is contrary to the principle of not pointing your gun at something you don't intend to shoot. That's probably something bad we get from television and the old movies. But I was also trying to point out that doing anything at all to your handgun could be considered a Bad Thing and to be avoided.

[MLeake]

... the rule about not pointing the weapon at something we don't want to shoot hits a very big obstacle, when the need to cover somebody arises. We don't want to shoot them out of hand, but we may want to shoot them if they move.

The 4 Rules of handgun safety are great, but they don't address any number of possible scenarios in a SD event.

[Idahoser]

Originally Posted by Ronbert

The technique is used in TV and movies to make the scene more dramatic.

that's my take, along with racking the slide on a pistol or shotgun. The first thing you're gonna hear from my gun is BANG. 'Cause if I have to pull it out you already used up your last chance.

[MLeake]

... probably was in vogue at the time when most American shooters practiced shooting one-handed, with the other hand tucked in a front pants pocket. Both methods are still viable, but most trainers don't seem to consider them optimal.

Which takes us back to the advantage to mastering DA fire that does not have to do with theoretical legal complications:

It's faster to pull the trigger through than to cock the hammer before pulling, and it doesn't require a shift in grip position by the shooting hand. Speed and a strong grip, when the threat is close, are definite pluses.

[azredhawk44]

How about we all just get some decent training, and continue to train ourselves, in proper gunhandling instead?

You don't touch the trigger until you're 100% confident you want a hole in whatever the sights are covering. Until then, finger alongside the frame.

"Keep yer boogerhook off the bang switch."

Police wouldn't carry Glocks if an SA trigger was unacceptable (I contend that Glocks ARE essentially SA since they are 90% cocked on slide actuation and tend to have a ~5lb total trigger pull), since most legal challenges to shootings are mounted against police rather than plain old folks.

In an emergency we don't rise to our potential... we sink to our level of comfort. Make sure you've trained yourself so that you're ONLY comfortable with proper gun handling, including keeping your finger off the trigger until something NEEDS a hole in it.

In order to establish self-defense, one has to acknowledge that yes, one did indeed fire the shot(s).

OTOH, if the prosecutor, or a lawsuit happy attorney, can convince a jury that you fired accidentally, due to having armed your hair-trigger SA mode, then self-defense goes out the window. You shot the decedent, but you didn't mean to. It was an accident... which means negligent homicide or manslaughter to a prosecutor, and a big civil payout to a litigator.

I'm curious how it's possible to have a prosecutor or plaintiff "take away" your claim of intentionally shooting someone.

Plaintiff: What happened?

Defendant: He raised a crowbar and took a step towards me from 15 feet away, so I shot until he stopped coming towards me.

P: Nah-ah... you accidentally shot him!

D: No I didn't. He threatened me in a very meaningful and tangible way, and I deliberately added lead to his torso to increase his weight, until gravity put him on the ground. Took a few hits. I lost count at the time. Coroner tells me it was 8 before he gave up. Then I stopped. On purpose.

P: Nah-ah. It was an accident.

D: Whatever. Retard.

[HarrySchell]

Not much to add but if you are using a SA semiauto, you may not want to carry it with the hammer down on a loaded chamber. Older 1911's and clones can fire if dropped properly in that condition. They should be carried with an empty chamber, hammer down (the Israeli custom) or cocked and locked.

And I second the advice against looking at a weapon as a deterrent. In all likelihood, this is not the first time the BG has broken into a place or confronted someone with the intent of doing illegal things. He has experience you don't have. Those are the rules you need to work with, even if it is YOUR first time being confronted by someone who intends illegal things.

Making life safer for criminals produces more criminality. If the BG you face really doesn't want to risk stopping a bullet, confident presentation of a ready-to-use firearm is likely what he is looking for in his decision to flee instead of fight. Any hesitation by you decreases the chance he will act on his flee emotions. That is not good for anyone.

IMO, you want the BG to look into the abyss, and really not want to go there. Those who decide to fight, who don't care, require immediate, direct dissuasion by gunfire.

[MLeake]

... if I am forced to draw a weapon on somebody, because he is behaving in a threatening manner that would justify deadly force, then my finger will be on the trigger.

If I were moving through a hallway or trying some clearing maneuver, then I might have a low or high ready, with finger on the frame.

If I had drawn preemptively, because something went bang in the night, I would keep finger on the frame.

But if the threat is there, and identified, my finger's on the trigger. Don't know how fast you are go get your finger into the guard, to pad or joint on trigger, but I'll bet it takes more time than if the finger is already there.

Keeping the finger off the trigger while moving makes sense; keeping the finger off the trigger at the range or while hunting makes sense; keeping the finger off the trigger while face to face with the threat makes no sense to me whatsoever.

As far as training goes, more is always better. But again, as far as training goes, name a tactical / defense instructor who trains shooters to cock a DA revolver in a confrontation. There may be some out there, but I don't know of any.

[MLeake]

... I find it kind of silly, too. Yet I read of just these sorts of things happening, covered in articles by Massad Ayoob.

[BlueTrain]

How would they know for sure if your revolver was cocked in the first place? I probably wouldn't remember and the bad guy probably wouldn't know unless you purposely showed him, which has been suggested. It certainly shows what all you are getting into with a shooting.

Now, concerning the cocking thing and so on, the techniques are still being debated today. After all, it was only relatively recently that shooting with two hands (on a one-handed gun) was considered the thing to do. Before that, the argument was between some form of point shooting and what amounted to target style aimed fire but both pretty much one handed. I imagine the only reason that two handed combat shooting took off was the use of very small targets and a scoring system that favored small groups on the target. Proponents of the older (not much older, however) came from a completely different environment and with entirely different real world experiences. None of the above seemed to be especially concerned with a home defense scenario beyond mentioning that a shotgun was very handy.

Apparently in the hypothetical situation, you can't win and I can easily believe it would be an uphill fight. All the same, I still wonder how often it makes a difference. Among other things, it would be a detail that you would never read about in the paper.

[MLeake]

.... I suspect that also has a lot to do with it.

I'm not too worried about overzealous prosecutors in my neck of the woods. In Atlanta, that might be a bit different, but up here in the foothills, they look a lot more favorably on CCW and SD/HD.

Still haven't seen a good argument in favor of cocking a DA, though. Potential downsides, both theoretical (legal issues) and practical (time to cock, shifting of grip) have been brought up, but the argument against them has been that, well, legally it shouldn't matter... What is the Pro argument for cocking the DA?

And, like I said, I tend to favor SA autos. I might have a K-frame as a nightstand gun, but normally it's a 1911. I'm all for training, but for me that includes training to shoot a DA as a DA.

[Nnobby45]

All day, actually. Owning a DA gun is a commitment to shooting it as designed. It's not really that steep of a learning curve if done right.

Ah, true. But a curve that many have not yet learned to negotiate.

And, unfortunately, they seem to be the ones who dominate "Should I cock my revolver because I don't know how to pull the trigger properly and hit the target" type discussions.

[Erik]

A good shoot is a good shoot,and a bad a bad. And whether the hammer was cocked or not, in and of itself, has nothing to do with making the determination.

Note: The example given was of the DA claiming the shoot was bad by painting the discharge as negligent. That's not a hammer up or down based argument, but one of accidental/negligent discharge.

[Musketeer]

Its all about what a prosecuter can convince a jury of gun ignorant people to believe.

Exactly, so do not needlessly provide him with ammunition.

[BlueTrain]

Well, a double-action revolver (and some automatics) are designed to be fired in two different ways. That's why they're called double action. Then there's "double action only," which is a bad name for how it works.

[Jim Watson]

I believe it was M. Ayoob who once described the city PD that had its officers' revolvers set up DAO (OK, Jeff Cooper disciples, "trigger cocking") because the mere display of a gun had quit intimidating suspects. So the troops had gone to cocking their guns to show their determination, with the attendant risk of AD. It may have been pre-autoloader Los Angeles or other large jurisdiction.

I know of a couple of cases arising from a different direction, the practice of arming poor dumb weak females with revolvers because they are not strong enough to rack a slide or smart enough to learn what all the buttons and levers do. Well, these two women were not so dumb that they could not figure out that pulling a 12 lb DA with one finger was not much easier than hauling back on a 16 lb recoil spring with both hands. They soon realized that cocking the hammer for a 3 lb trigger pull made it much easier to get hits. That worked fine on the range but when it came time to check out a bump in the night, they habitually eared back their hammers first and then went through the house. One made it all the way through and slipped when decocking; leaving a hole in the floor. One started at a shadow and wounded a water bed, fortunately missing the membrane and just chewing up the rail padding. No doubt if they had taken the Thunder Ranch SAA class, they would have had better technique.

[OldMarksman]

How would they know for sure if your revolver was cocked in the first place?

That misses the point.

The question will be, was the shooting justified, or not?

Should one happen to fire when it was not justifiable, the result will be catastrophic.

One way that that might happen is an inintentional pull of the trigger.

Here's a good read on the subject, with a couple of relevant excerpts.

...people who carry a revolver for self defense should practice almost exclusively for double action fire, ... there are almost no situations in which single action fire is appropriate in self defense. ... A cocked revolver is dangerous in the adrenaline dump of a lethal force encounter. ... Its too easy to fire when you don't mean to.

In a nervous situation, a cocked revolver is dangerous. When you're really nervous or scared, the heavy double action trigger pull is an asset rather than a liability. I can hear you say, Keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire, and that's true, but ... people don't always do what they're supposed to do in the stress of a deadly encounter.

http://www.snubnose.info/docs/daovdasa.htm

[Don P]

Then there's "double action only," which is a bad name for how it works.

Why is this a bad name for a handgun that does 2 functions when the trigger is pulled? Guess a single action is a bad term also cause you gotta cock da hammer and den pull da trigger??? Dat waz 2 actions(double)

[BlueTrain]

No, a double-action only revolver (or automatic) cannot be cocked, even if there is an exposed hammer. The term is contradictory in that it means "it has two actions but only one way works." But I assume everyone knows the difference. Pulling the trigger on any revolver fires the gun, no matter what else it does.

Do you dig what I mean?

[Aguila Blanca]

I was trying to think of an erudite way to express just how silly I think the premise in the original post is, but I can't.

I'll let the fact that I carry a single-action 1911 cocked & locked speak for itself.

[silvercorvette]

I was trying to think of an erudite way to express just how silly I think the premise in the original post is, but I can't.

I'll let the fact that I carry a single-action 1911 cocked & locked speak for itself.

The original post is one big pile of ain't right

I haven't read the replies yet so I don't know if I am repeating what was said already. I will read the entire thread when I finish posting.

My question is this: a friend claims that in a justified self defense shooting, the investigating DA can use whether you cocked the hammer or not against you

I also carry a 1911 which is cocked and locked and is designed to be carried that way, but assuming you carry a revolver which is not designed to be carried cocked how would anyone known EDIT I strongly advise you to never carry a cocked revolver, and to use the revolver double action. Cocking a revolver is for shooting log distance accurately, if you are far away there usually is an opportunity to retreat

Therefore my friend strongly recommends against carrying anything with an external hammer.

pure nonsense police have carried revolvers with exposed hammers for more years than most of us have been alive. I carried one (S&W .38 revolver) for 20 years when I was a cop.

My position is that showing the pistol is the warning, cocking the hammer is the very stern warning and the rest is what it is whether the hammer is internal or not

This is so wrong for so many reason. What happens if your thumb slips on the hammer as you cock it and the gun fires how do you explain the dead body. which leads to reason #2 You NEVER EVER pull out a gun unless you intend on shooting someone. Pulling out a gun to scare someone is called brandishing and it is against the law.

Which leads to #3 one of the rules in fire arms is to never point one at something you don't intend to destroy.

What happens if you take out the gun and you are not legally justified to use DPF (deadly physical force), your bluff fails and you can't legally shoot so now you have a choice of standing there looking silly with a gun in your hand you can't use. Or you get scared and fire the gun and shoot a person that you legally have no right to shoot.

As far as I am concerned if the gun comes out of the holster I am going to shoot immediately. I will not be engaging an any discussion

To me the decision to cock the hammer in front of the would-be-assailant gives him another opportunity to walk away before something bad happens. It lets him know I'm really serious about this and yes this could happen.

The smart thing is for you to walk away if there is trouble about to start, having a gun is a big responsibility but you only use it as your last option. Unless they are in your house walk away if you can unless doing so will mean you or a loved one will loose their life

I should also mention that I'm fully aware of the "I have a gun, don't make me shoot you" line. I guess I should have mentioned that the complete order would start with the verbal warning.

I would not tell anyone I have a gun, I would try to avoid the situation before it got to that point. When you carry you should have a high level of situational awareness and spot trouble before it starts so you can withdraw before the gun becomes necessary.

If you carry a gun you should be prepared to use the gun without a debate if you start a conversation and hesitate the attacker will see it as weakness and probably take away your gun.

make sure you know the law and justification for use of DPF

If you are unprepared to use DPF and pull out a gun thinking it will scare someone away then I suggest you get a gun with a trench sigh like the Colt "New Agent" so it won't hurt as much when it gets shoved up your butt when your bluff fails.

[silvercorvette]

It pretty much echoes what I was getting at, but he/she posted first

NEVER cock the gun to show the BG you're serious !! If you just want to scare him you shouldn't have a gun in the first place.Don't engage in conversation .If your life or safety is in immediate danger don't talk just shoot. Don't try to be nice to someone who's there to harm you.
After all he may be mentally ill, sociopath, psychopath, high on drugs or alcohol , they're all unpredictable and dangerous.