This seems to suggest carrying with a chambered round. Is this prudent without an external threat? They can drop the thing, or some kind of impact can yield a “design problem”. Can’t they just chamber when there’s a need?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-person_rule
The P320 is known to have accidental discharges for civilian owners (honestly - don't buy one). But Sig Sauer has stated that the M18 military version did not have those problems. We will need to wait on the results of the investigation to find out.
[0] An extra duty typically assigned to junior enlisted - we only armed up during exercises. Which brings back a story - we were waiting on the trucks to take us to our posts, and the room was full of Airmen armed with M16s and M60 machine guns. And we were all watching Justin Wilson cooking up some delicious Cajun food on the TV.
More lies and misdirection on Sig's part. The only mechanical difference is really the manual safety (which works on the trigger and not on the striker), and if we're being generous the second would be the spanner screw. They should have the upgraded FCU, but in the civilian world there are still reports of the issue even after the upgrade.
I’m a huge Sig collector and I’ve been a fan of theirs since the 90s.
I’ve carried a Sig daily for 20+ years. I only carried a P320 for a few months until I finally downsized to the P365.
But I’ve got to admit that their PR and response to these incidents is not a good look.
But I am a bit confused as to what is causing these unintentional discharges. I know they had a problem that was addressed years ago so I’m not sure if the current problem guns are ones that were never sent back for modification or if there is some kind of unrelated problem.
Regardless, I’ll still carry a Sig until CZ makes something comparable to a P365. But it’s unlikely that I’ll ever buy a new Sig again.
Unique case in that the FBI got the firearm still in the holster (it hadn’t been removed or the round cleared after the discharge)
This is what has led to the recent uptick in Sig scrutiny, then unfortunately the OP incident happened and it’s rightfully so made Sig’s situation much worse
Why is that your opinion? Surely there's a wide variety of plausible scenarios where carrying a concealed weapon without a round chambered is much better than not carrying a concealed weapon.
If you don't have a round chambered, you need to draw, rack and release the slide, hope a round is properly chambered (in a panicked situation you might not rack the slide properly), then get into a firing position. This is a much more complex movement and evaluation of state. You are pulling the gun up, manipulating it with two hands, then moving it forward and finding your grip. In an emergency, that time loss and complexity of motion is considerably more difficult to train.
Even experienced shooters will draw from a holster and immediately present their gun and try to fire, and then realize they don't have a round chambered, have to bring the gun back to rack the slide, and then present the gun again.
You conceal carry because you want to be prepared at an emergency to deal with an imminent threat. Adding complex manipulations to that erodes your ability to do that, and any modern pistol should not fire unless you pull the trigger. They should be safe from drops, shakes, or manipulations.
If your threat isn't "I need to have a firearm ready asap", then you should consider not conceal carrying, in which case you may want your pistol unloaded or unchambered.
If you cannot even chamber a round who’s to say you can hit what you want to hit?
Second, racking a slide is an action that requires fine motor control. Under the pressure and adrenaline dump that accompanies a life-or-death situation, fine motor control goes to crap. If you are fumbling with your pistol, it's useless.
Third, if you don't feel comfortable with your ability to safely handle a loaded gun, you probably shouldn't be carrying at all.
I would be surprised if this is true for the majority of situations. I'm sure there are situations where you have very little time, but also many situations where the additional time it would take to chamber a round is negligible.
After watching thousands of violent encounters on John Correia's "Active Self Protection" channel, I agree that round-in-the-chamber is absolutely necessary if you're carrying for self protection.
So you either draw and fire and call the police and tell them what happened, or you don't and just... deal with the consequences of whatever happened instead.
I'm not sure how many other states work this way, but in Florida, brandishing is considered non-deadly force as a matter of law[0]. So the standard for self-defense is different between brandishing and firing: deadly force like firing requires a higher degree of threat to be considered justified self-defense[1].
[0] https://reason.com/volokh/2023/05/24/loading-and-openly-carr...
[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
If someone is going to attack me with a knife, but then I draw a gun and they run away, surely that's not illegal because I didn't shoot them.
1. Could you have reasonably escaped?
2. Could you have reasonably de-escalated (or were you the one who escalated to get here)?
3. Can you convince a jury (and the cops) that your life was in danger? If there are no witnesses, this is tough. Typically you're allowed to use deadly force only if you fear loss of life/limb. Yes, yes, plenty of cases where juries ruled in favor of the shooter when there was clearly no risk of loss of life/limb.
4. Do you have the relevant insurance to cover your legal defense costs? If not, you'll likely make a plea deal with the prosecutor even if you were clearly in the right.
I would say if the guy lunged at you with a knife and you drew your gun and he ran away, you'll be fine if there are witnesses.
It seems like then it would be legal to draw a gun without firing if it was in self defense? I have a hard time believing that there are any cases where shooting someone in self defense would be legal, but scaring them away wouldn't.
And this is the crucial bit, quoting the article: “The court decided the principle also applies to people who merely use the threat of force — meaning one cannot pull a weapon in self-defense if there are other means to escape, even if the person is threatening them with death or bodily harm.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/minnesota/news/minnesota-supreme...
The whole point of "stand your ground" is that you do not have the responsibility to escape.
Source: https://www.dischleylaw.com/blog/2024/june/understanding-the...
I would take almost any criminal charge over being forced to kill somebody.
If I hadn’t been willing to brandish at least once, I would have had to shoot to kill, and that sucks bad. Being in a gunfight is the last thing that I want besides being dead or severely injured.
That's like saying "I only wear seat belts on the freeway" or something equivalently vapid.
Tangential: if you enjoy watching that kind of content, I highly recommend the YouTube channel "Active Self Protection"
500ms, just enough time to open up console and type noclip to escape
This is only true for Usain Bolt. Chambering on draw adds 0.5s or so.
For me, that's acceptable for any scenario outside of a pistols at dawn duel in front of an old west saloon.
Probably not much less likely than a lot of the scenarios people are fantasizing about in here.
Now, in my 49 years i've been in only one situation where i was attacked, beat up, robbed and would have been justified to use lethal force in my defense. Had i been armed I would not have had it together enough in the amount of time i had to chamber a round, aim, and fire. Unless your brain is trained to respond there just isn't time to think through anything, it's like your mental capacity just grinds to a halt in those moments. If you have it together enough to chamber a round, aim, and fire you have it together enough to use run-fu and escape the situation.
finally, once again, i don't conceal carry and thank my lucky stars my job doesn't involve making decisions like draw and fire or don't. Maybe someone with more training and experience will weigh in in this conversation, i'm just giving my two cents.
If an attacker doesn't have a firearm you probably have time to chamber a round, if the attacker misses a shot at you you have time to chamber a round, if you have time to take cover you may have time to chamber a round and then be in an approximately 50-50 situation, etc.
Most defensive uses of a firearms occur at a short distance, less than five yards. It takes very little time to cover the distance. For those who are interested, here is a video covering what it looks like when someone with a knife runs straight at someone at 21 feet, you will see why the idea that people have time to rack the slide is absurd (https://youtu.be/_2zfw_4DYdQ?t=79).
If you're rooted as a tree, of course you'll be killed. You must make use of your own movement to create time, just as Nadal does when he step diagonally back from the ball 'sal y entra'.
people posting talking about combat rolling and chambering after their assailant misses a shot. what the fuck lmao
I generally try to show them a little bit of grace. For many people their sole exposure to firearms is through video games, movies, and television shows. They have a strong "knowledge" of how things work and genuinely have no idea that their ideas are at odds with reality. Its similar to how non-tech people think "hacking" works.
Is that based on recorded personal times, or are you just assuming?
Because I can shoot the mozambique in 1.9 seconds. Chambering a round is much slower than that.
The consensus is carry chambered or don't carry.
I appendix carry; I’m not carrying chambered, period. My remaining options are to not carry, or carry in condition 3.
I think that’s a simple decision.
If I ever felt the legitimate need to daily carry in condition 0/1, I would move. Cities definitely, provinces generally, nations if necessary. Life’s too short. I’m not in the special forces.
I don’t have to be ready for every conceivable scenario; just most of them. And that’s more than enough.
If history is any guide, now’s the time when someone tells me that not wanting a loaded and cocked .45 pointed directly at my right testicle for 16 hours every single day means that I have a cheap holster or haven’t trained enough or don’t have the right pistol or something. (I’m fairly certain that none of these are true.)
PS: A much more likely scenario than a knife guy charging from 20 feet is a routine encounter with an LEO who wishes to temporarily disarm me during a traffic or Terry stop. I absolutely do not trust some dipshit cop to remove a condition 0/1 pistol from my waistband without fucking it up, which would likely happen right around the time it is pointed at my femoral artery, or worse. Fuck that noise.
I've been in my fair share of sus situations in my life and they've been either telegraphed (people starting with yelling, then intimidation, then getting into personal space) or ambiguous. I was recently at a block party with a loud DJ, and some guys fired several rounds and it took minutes to figure out what was going on. Even the first responders were amazingly sluggish in their response.
Hell, I had a guy sneak up behind me while I was parked in my car, bang on my window and tried to start shit with me. I had enough time to shoot off a text to my wife to stay put while defusing him.
So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations.
The problem is that in a "sus situation" you would not be able to chamber a round without brandishing the firearm, which in many situation would be illegal in a merely "sus" situation where you don't have a clear threat (brandishing laws, intimidation, etc). This is why many self-defense advocates encourage people to carry with a round chambered while also carrying something like pepper spray for situations where lethal force is not necessary.
> So I personally think people with good situational awareness have plenty of time to act appropriately in a variety of common dangerous situations.
Most people I've encountered who carry concealed would agree that you should try to keep yourself from being in common dangerous situations. The reason they carry is not for the avoidable situations, since they'd obviously just avoid them, but for the unavoidable situation. The vast majority of people who carry concealed never need to use their firearms, the point is to be ready to defend oneself and others if the situation should arise.
As another commenter pointed out, drawing your gun in those situations is usually a pretty serious crime (supposedly even showing that you're carrying a concealed gun to ward people off is a crime in some jurisdictions - I haven't verified).
So not sure what the point of your comment is. You're describing scenarios that are irrelevant to the thread.
Oh, and just BTW, lots and lots of cases of people acting like you ending up dead. Acting appropriately in dangerous situations doesn't mean you will come out on the better end.
if you google around for "Ring camera video appears to show man shoot assailant in self-defense" you can find one.
some people do live in legitimately very dangerous places. whether one should carry chambered is a function of that.
I recommend everyone who has access to it go into training where you take a real handgun that's been modified to shoot laser and has CO2 recoil. The setup is that you have a screen (perhaps all around you), playing out a scenario. You're in a convenience store, and something may happen that requires you to defend yourself.
Even with a fair amount of training, the adrenalin surge is significant, and the time you have to respond is very limited. Doing this eliminated any illusions I had regarding guns and safety. There's little time to rack the gun to put a round in the chamber. And if you haven't done it, it's not easy to rack a gun (you need the right grip, angle, etc). And racking can fail. Even I, with very limited experience, have experienced multiple failures while racking.
People mentioned videos where people practice doing all this, and time themselves. I saw a video where someone 3 yards away draws a machete and runs at the other person. The time he has to draw and defend is just not enough at 3 yards. One needs to actively dodge the machete while drawing. Adding the complexity of racking is almost a guaranteed failure. The person drawing was very experienced (and a handgun trainer), knew the attack was going to come, and still had a low success rate.
Other things I've had to unlearn:
"Why didn't they just shoot at the legs?" At short notice, in an emergency scenario, aim is very poor. People train for these situations to get a reasonable likelihood of hitting a person without needing to spend time aiming. And the primary way to do it is to aim at the body - not arms/head/legs.
"Why did they have to shoot the person 3 times?" See above. Aim is hard, and there's a good chance of missing. When your life is on the line, you are not going to shoot once and check if it hit. You'll shoot 3 rounds quickly. When I did the simulator, I often shot 4-6 rounds without even realizing it (and was told by the instructor to keep it down).
This may be hard for some to believe/digest. As I said, I didn't believe it until I was put in those (simulated) situations.
Another thing I thought was crazy: People sleeping with a loaded gun by their bed. A guy did a video where an intruder was in the house and running towards their room. They timed different scenarios (unloaded with magazine on the side, different gun safes, etc). He succeeded only with one particular gun safe, and only with the gun fully loaded.
If I ever keep a gun at home, it will not be for "defend against an intruder in the middle of the night". It's just too risky to keep a loaded gun next to your bed. But if you have good reason to believe someone is after you, this is the only way to go.
Having said all that, if I carried a gun, I'd likely not have a round in the chamber. But that's really me saying I'm not going to carry a gun for safety purposes.
It's probably best to be realistic about what is possible. If somebody tried to whack you on the sidewalk with a machete, they would win 100% of the time, because you're not living 24/7 in a hyper-alert paranoid state keeping an incredibly close eye on everyone 360° around you. Unless you've drawn your weapon 100s of times in near-miss scenarios on people who look like they might be grabbing a weapon because their phone is in a coat pocket or something, it's just the truth. If you're going to live in a society you just kind of have to accept that you could hypothetically be killed in broad daylight by a very-motivated someone with no real opportunity to defend yourself. Happens to organized crime members all the time, and obviously they have way way more reason to be paranoid than regular people.
This is absolutely true, but security in depth, right? Just because it's easy for you to die in public, whether from a premeditated attack or an accident, doesn't mean it's pointless to add on a few layers to make that less likely. After all, everything happens in the margins.
including accidentally shooting yourself, accidentally shooting the wrong person, getting shot by someone else who misread who was the good guy with the gun and the bad guy with the gun, and turning it on yourself when the pressure of it all gets to be too much.
Keep in mind that your point is orthogonal to the topic of whether you should have a round in the barrel or not. Everything you say here applies to both cases. (Well, OK, there's a tiny marginally higher chance of accidentally shooting yourself).
Making it very clear that he owns a gun effectively drives all of them away.
But that's where you make clear you have a gun. Concealed carry, by definition, is hiding that fact. There are pros and cons to open carry, but IMO, if you want the gun to act as a deterrent, open carry probably is a lot more effective than concealed carry.
But let's extend the distance to 5 yards. Or 8 yards. Or whatever. There is a distance threshold where racking vs not racking makes a difference. It's not a thin threshold. You probably gain a decent number of yards by not having to rack.
Lots of things can go wrong while carrying a handgun (with or without a round in the chamber). I don't recommend people do it unless they are aware of a specific threat. But once you are under a specific threat, then it doesn't really make sense to carry it without a round in the chamber.
To me this sounds like not putting your seatbelt on in case you ever need to get out of your car underwater: you're improving your chances at a statistically-unlikely event (home invasion) by making your chances worse at a much likelier event (accidental discharge).
What pray tell is this hypothetical threat? Who is this attacker who comes in your bedroom in the middle of the night to use lethal force against you, but gives you time to rouse, grab your weapon, and acquire target? Or they wake you by running in with full knowledge committed to memory of the layout of your house and your sleeping arrangements so that they can beat you to your gun safe? They’ve cased the joint but they’re not going to wait until you come out to get in your car in the morning?
If you believe someone is after you, your resources would be better spent getting support from others, or physically securing your living space, or getting the hell out of dodge.
I said "if you have good reason to believe someone is after you". That precludes hypothetical threats.
People sometimes make enemies who threaten to kill them. Some of them actually try to kill them. Some of them are people who know them and their house/apartment intimately. Start looking around. Lots and lots of cases of people who get out on bail and kill the person in the next few days.
> They’ve cased the joint but they’re not going to wait until you come out to get in your car in the morning?
If you're going to kill someone, are you going to do it that openly, when it may be easier to do it in the home?
> If you believe someone is after you, your resources would be better spent getting support from others, or physically securing your living space, or getting the hell out of dodge.
I actually agree, with the caveat that only the last one works, and is not feasible for many.
If forced to choose between rampaging through someone’s house in close quarters combat, or waiting outside for them to come to me, I’d pick the latter.
And many wouldn't.
> A lot is feasible if your life is at stake.
I won't argue the point - people have different opinions on this, and it's not a topic you're going to get a "clear correct" answer for. The point still stands: Some people choose not to leave, and then their options become limited. They often have to live the rest of their life in fear, and not everyone can get a new identity.[0]
Also, as I and others have pointed out - just the mere fact that you have a gun, are trained to use it well, and keep it on/near you at all times will deter a significant percentage of problematic people.
The other thing to point out - this thread is filled with the extremes (including my examples). It's not always the case that someone has planned to kill someone. There is a continuum of threats.
BTW, try living in the rural[1] parts of my state, where everyone has a gun, and the police funding is low, and often the 911 operator will tell people "Sorry, we're out of resources and it'll take at least 30-60 minutes to get to you. Do what you can to defend yourself"[2] People routinely take advantage of the fact that the police will not get there in time, and not having a gun is inviting such folks.
[0] A coworker's father recently passed away. When it happened, he revealed to me that he had lived much of his life in fear that his father would show up at the door with a gun and shoot him. Even when he lived in a different state. Not exaggerating to say he was relieved when he died. Weirdly enough, he got a gun only after his father died.
[1] And by rural, I still mean a proper city where you have neighbors next to you, etc.
[2] Paraphrasing an actual 911 call.
Yeah, many people are stupid and/or crazy or just hotheads making rash decisions in the heat of the moment which kind of blows apart your rational calculus of armed deterrence.
I don’t know what your state is. I live in a rural part of my state, and the open warfare you’re describing doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard about. I think it might be time to move, friend. Whatever’s holding you there can’t be worth your life.
people actually do commit random violence in home invasions by the way. your having chosen not to look into it at all or read the news ever doesnt negate this. its to say that random violence in home invasions is common, but the point is that it does happen. and i think people should have a very effective means to defend themselves.
theres even been a serial killer that committed home invasions by claiming to be police upon breaking in. this also happened recently with those politicians that got assassinated.
if you dont want to have a firearm thats your choice. dont see why you think this is necessary for other people though.
so a police officer shows up at your door. you’re going to greet them with a gun drawn? that will get you killed.
i do own a firearm, but i don’t walk around with it like a cowboy. and i discourage others because of all the risks mentioned.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt
As of 2010, about a million home invasions per year in the US, 250k of which end up with the occupier (owner, renter) being a victim of some violent crime.
Not a lot ending in death though.
Also I think the numbers went down a bit from 2010.
lol. a threat of violence can exist without the gun. im glad you are confident in your ability to beat any random, unknown stranger (especially tweakers) in a tussle. as someone with bjj and boxing experience i would say this is unbelievably arrogant though.
>look up the statistics instead of getting scared watching the news.
ive seen the same ones that the other guy replied to you with. this is almost not worth replying to because you are just being snide and dismissive. to reciprocate, do you realize that the statistics (which you havent actually read) aren't the governing force of what happens to you in your life? statistics are a model of reality. for example, what do you think the odds would say that between when i replied to your post yesterday and now, that i experienced a break in where someone was trying to climb into my son's room at 3 in the morning? do you think my first thought was about the statistical likelihood of it? for the record i live in one of the safest states in the US. life isn't a spreadsheet with numbers on it, genius. if you are comforted by those numbers, good for you. telling others to not be scared of bad things happening to them is peak dork arrogance.
The reality is… not that.
The reality he mentions is very much a reality. Lots of concealed carry folks obsessed with always being vigilant. Good idea not to hang around them, because hypervigilant people are prone to see threats that aren't there.
It does sound like there is a specific design issue to be discussed.
If you need more than five rounds, you've already lost.
This policy should tell you something about the actual cost/benefit of private arms as far as overall safety goes. Cuts through the noise and hypotheticals rather nicely.
Yes, most people will feel quite safe in a secured facility with controlled access, simialar to court houses. Imagine living in a place where everyone has been vetted and the perimeter is secured with armed guards.
Also, everyone I talked to who found suspicious activity while on guard duty confessed to me that they were terrified in the moment even though they were trying to project authority on the outside.
These are Security Forces personnel guarding strategic nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. To illustrate the priority of their mission, Global Strike Command ordered that the troops normally carrying pistols be issued assault rifles in their stead.
(I probably agree with you in the context of 'out in public and have decided you need a firearm', just not 'on a friendly military base and carrying a firearm as a matter of course rather than any acute reason'.)
The Security Forces at the base in question guard strategic nuclear weapons. The other USAF command most concerned is USAFE, where the threat of terrorism against a USAF facility is greater than in the mainland US.
The barrier solves an old problem - what action to take when a vehicle fails to stop at a checkpoint. Most of the time, it's drunks or minor crazies. Lethal force is excessive and car chases on base are dangerous. Barriers became standard for DoD installations around 2005.
The context of who is carrying these pistols in this command may also help: they're issued to the Security Forces guarding strategic nuclear weapons (and their delivery systems). It is the highest priority security mission in the military.
This is extremely mature technology. People have been churning out defect-free designs for many decades. It is surprising that a company with the engineering experience and pedigree of SIG Sauer would design something with this issue. It would be like if Airbus designed a plane where the wing sometimes fell off mid-flight.
Not that rare. Gen 1 and 2 Glocks had slam fires (that's right, "Safe Action" Glocks... the irony). The XDS had doubles or slam fires. I'm sure there were others, and now the P320.
Most modern pistols have multiple internal safeties to prevent firing without a trigger pull. There's something extremely wrong with the Sig 320.
That said, given all the stories I've read, I can't imagine carrying a P320 with one in the chamber.
Proponents of having a loaded chamber value having the firearm immediately ready, because a situation where they actually need to draw on someone/something may not have time or space to use both hands to rack their pistol before someone/something is on them.
Those who want an empty chamber consider the increased safety vs potential malfunctions/accidents to outweigh the risks of being less able to respond to a small subset of threats.
I had to carry one in my vest in case of emergencies, and I never felt comfortable being one trigger pull from bang, while it's pointed at my waist for extended periods. Also, the double-action pull sucks, and it's harder to aim straight when putting so much muscle into the pull IMO. Had to have the finger on it in a certain way to get leverage. (The single-action pull after doesn't have this issue)
So, I would accept the weapon from the equipment guys, insert the mag, send the slide forward, put it on fire since that's what you're supposed to do... then put it back on safe.
1. When you need it you won't remember to chamber due to stress
2. stress causes fine motor skill distortion
3. Only draw when you are prepared to fire (or you end up dealing with Brandishing laws)
the stree messes with your memory, so the barista looks like a threat. the stress messes with your fine motor skill, so you hit the guy waiting for his coffee. and of course, you gotta shoot the rest so theres no witnesses to have you charged for not actually doing self defence
Depends how responsive you want to be.
A gun carried without one in the chamber is just a totem for emotional coddling, nothing more.