Quote:
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It's hard for me to imagine as many years as I have used a 1911 that I might forget where the safety is because I carried a double action revolver the day before.
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It's not a matter of truly
forgetting where the safety is. It's a matter of having built a physical habit for how you manipulate the gun, a skill that you have engrained to the point of automaticity. With a defense gun, you should help those programs run as efficiently as possible since your life might depend on them working right the first time.
Here's an example of what I mean. The first time you put a teenager in the driver's seat of a car, he has to learn where all the levers and knobs and buttons are. He looks down at the brake and gas pedal, asks which one is which. He carefully studies the P, R, N, D, L2, L1 marks as he slowly puts the car into gear. When that new driver needs to stop the car, he has to consciously
think which pedal to press -- and sometimes he gets it wrong. (Don't ask me how I know this. After teaching five teenagers to drive, trust me, I know this!)
A few years later, that same guy walks out to his car, slides into the driver's seat, pops the car into reverse, and backs out of the driveway while thinking about last night's hot date. If another car moves in front of his on his way to work, he steps on the brake smoothly, reducing his speed by just the right amount -- and he's probably still thinking about that hot date. The mechanics of driving the car take very little of his conscious thought, or none at all. That's a motor program trained to the point of automaticity.
One week, this guy's own car goes into the shop, and he gets a rental car to replace it. In his own car, the gear shift is on the steering column. When he gets into the rental car, he notes that the gear shift is between the seats. No big deal -- he knows perfectly well where that gear shift is, once he's looked at it. He's not going to consciously forget it.
The next morning, though, he walks out of his house, pops open the door to the rental car, and slides into the driver's seat. He's still thinking about that hot date as he puts the key into the ignition, glances behind him, and --
turns on the windshield wipers.
Why'd he do that? His conscious mind knew perfectly well where the gear shift was, that it was between the seats. But his hands had a motor program they'd trained to automaticity, and his hands went to flick the gear shift on the steering column.
That is why changing from one gun to another can be a problem. When you carry a gun, you're counting on your ability to get the gun into gear in time to save your own life. And you know that your conscious mind will be thinking about the criminal problem, not about the mechanics of running the gun.
pax