Many years ago, when first running our gun store, there was a customer who came in carrying a 1911 type firearm in a fanny pack. Even then fanny packs were falling out of favor and were very obviously housing a firearm. We used to jokingly refer to them as “shoot me first packs”. So while discussing the pro and cons of how to carry it came out that he carried with the chamber empty. My reply was “what the hell are you talking about?” because after all the training I’d been through I couldn’t believe that folks still did that. He proceeded to tell me he was pretty quick getting the gun out of the pack and chambering a round and he believed it was another level of carrying safely. But I still couldn’t hide my disbelief and amazement that he would carry in that manner.
I’ve trained all over the country and I can deploy and shoot very quickly from a holster. So I figured I’d give this a little test and produced some dummy rounds for his gun and mine. After making sure all guns were not LIVE and double and triple checking I had him draw and chamber a round and fire. The results varied between 2.5 to 3.5 seconds. Then it was my turn and to draw from a holster using a revolver, all 6 rounds were “fired’ in the same amount of time as it took him to get off one round. It was his turn to be surprised because he honestly believed he was very quick.
I said to him “you’re dead” at least once before you even have a round in the chamber. If anything bad goes down you’re already at a disadvantage because you are the reactor. Why in the world would you want to give the THUG the final edge?…
After all we are talking about your life here. With more in store “training” and some range training he finally came around and now carries cocked & locked and NOT in a fanny pack.