Cycler

Sounds like a lot of work. I don't unchamber at night, only when at the range or cleaning or something.

I have another mag which gets my chambered rounds. Heckava lot easier than emptying a 17 round mag!

aaronu

Howdy all.

It's my first post. There's some good conversation on here and I figured I should sign up and jump in.

Keeping a firearm at the ready while you're asleep is a risk. We have to make our own decisions about risk and make peace with God (or ourselves, or nothing, etc.) but this is life and death stuff and we should know as much as possible about it before making that decision. Take this for what you paid for it. :-)

No matter how light a sleeper one may be, NO ONE comes awake instantly at full faculty. It takes a few minutes to hit 80% or so, and something like a half hour or more to get to 90%. Most of us are not close to 100% for an hour or better; maybe two hours for someone taking medications (example: long acting sedatives such as Benadryl) or maybe one glass of bourbon too many the night before.

There's also adrenaline surge. If it truly is an emergency where seconds count, the ensuing adrenal response puts the defender into a fight or flight mode. Capability for higher thought is diminished, as is the ability to feel pain and some other stuff. More blood pumps to the arms and legs. The defender becomes MORE able to wrestle, throw punches or run like heck and less able to operate tools and solve problems.

Also at first, our brains are even not fully capable of knowing we're not at full faculties, especially if we listen to our good friends Caffeine and Adrenaline. We are not as ready and engaged as we think.

Throw in chaos, confusion and low light.

The time it takes to open a pistol box, remove a gun lock, etc. is important time for your brain and body to wake up. Think of it as a litmus test. If you can get the box open, you're (maybe) awake enough to use a gun.

This is pretty well established stuff. Most of us are awake "enough" by the time we would need to employ a gun -- but the first few seconds are especially risky. You just woke up. It is dark. The dog is barking, a car alarm is going off, etc. You are trying to clear your head, hitch up your PJ's, understand the threat and OPERATE A DEADLY WEAPON.

You wake up only as fast as you wake up. Training and sometimes combat experience mitigates this to an extent, but how many of us (as an example) load up snap-caps and have the spouse set the alarm for a random nighttime hour?

There are real examples that back this up. The one I've heard most frequently is the guy whose phone rang in the middle of the night. He woke out of a dead sleep, answered the phone with "HELLO?" and blew his brains all over the missus because he answered the magnum handgun instead of the phone.

Also if someone shoots a friend, harmless drunken neighbor, kid coming home on a surprise visit, etc. on accident, maybe a few extra seconds opening a lock would have given them enough presence of mind to ID the target better before firing. There are way too many examples of this sort of tragedy. Just ask your favorite anti-gunner organization for details.

That's my .02.

I have small kids, so I err on the conservative side gun safety at the cost of slower access if and when I ever need to draw.

I am firmly in the "keep it locked up" camp. When I carry, I carry a DAO semiauto in condition 3. I'll rack a round if I don't feel safe or if I need to draw the gun. At home, everything that I am not actually carrying is locked up. With the exception of my two carry guns, everything is stored unloaded with empty mags.

That's the choice I made.

Cheers,

Aaron

XD 45

unholster and lay on nightstand and reholster next time i carry

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Hotbrass

No.

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Keep your powder dry

Butch

Ready to roll next to the bed. Don't want to be looking for a gun when a stranger comes calling.
They'd have to get past Cujo anyway . It'd be easier to just pick a different home.

cuban11182

Shotgun full up in the tube safety off and trigger already pulled so all i have to do is rack it. I also keep my revolver in a fobus holster on the nightstand.

MNBurl

All my carry guns remain loaded.

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MNBurl

Side Guard Holsters

"If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking" - George S. Patton.

bizexpert

IN that pleasant season of the year when the April showers and the soft west wind make the grass and the flowers to spring up in every mead and heath, and birds welcome the shining days, it is the custom with people from all parts of the country to set forth on pilgrimages to foreign lands, and more especially to pay their vows at the shrine raised in Canterbury to the holy martyr St. Thomas à Becket.

At this time of the year, I, Geoffrey Chaucer, the writer of these Tales, was remaining at the sign of the Tabard, in Southwark, ready to set forth on my pilgrimage to Canterbury. In the evening a company of about nine and twenty persons, bound on the same errand, had assembled in the inn, with all of whom I had made acquaintance before sunset and had agreed to journey in their company the following day. Before I enter upon my tale, the reader may desire to know what were the character, condition, and exterior accomplishments of my fellow-travellers. These, as they appeared to me, I supply as follows.

The first in order was a worthy Knight, a worshipper from his youth of chivalrous and all gallant deeds, a lover of truth and honour, frankness and courtesy. He had served with renown in his Lord's wars against the Heathen, the Russian, and the Turk, had fought in fifteen

p. 2

battles, and in three tilting matches had slain his foe. With all these rough and unchamber-like accomplishments, he was in his demeanour and address as meek as a young maiden. No villainous or injurious speech was ever heard to pass his lips—in short, he was a perfect knight of gentle blood. As regards his furniture and equipment, he rode a good and serviceable horse, which had become staid and somewhat the worse from hard campaigning. His dress was a short fustian cassock, or gaberdine, soiled and fretted with his armour, for he had newly arrived from foreign travel, and was proceeding straight to the shrine of our holy martyr at Canterbury.

He was accompanied by his son, a youth about twenty years of age, who acted as his Squire. The person of this young man was tall and well-proportioned, of great strength and activity. Being a bachelor and a lover, he was delicately attentive to his external appearance. His hair, which flowed in rich and natural curls upon his shoulders, was carefully disposed. Hoping to win his lady's favour, he had behaved with bravery in three several expeditions—in Flanders, in Artois, and in Picardy. His gown, which was short, with long open sleeves, was as fresh and gay as a spring meadow embroidered with flowers. Singing and piping all day long, he was as cheerful as the month of May. In addition to all these graces, he was a fine horseman, a tasteful writer of songs, excelled in the tournament and the dance, could write and draw with ease and elegance, and, what is esteemed a principal accomplishment in a squire of high degree, he was worthy to carve at table before his father. Courteous,

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humble, and dutiful was this fair young man, and withal so devoted to his lady-love that he would outwatch the doting nightingale.

One other attendant, and no more, had our Knight upon the present occasion, a Yeoman, dressed in a green coat and hood. He had a head like a nut, * and a face of the same colour. In his hand he carried a sturdy bow, and at his side under his belt a sheaf of bright sharp arrows, winged with peacock feathers. His arm was defended by a bracer; on one side hung a sword and buckler, and on the other a well-appointed dagger, keen as a spear. At his breast hung a silver ornament, also a horn, the girdle or baldrick of which was green. He was a thorough forester, and skilful in all manner of woodcraft.

There was also in our company a Nun, a Prioress, called Madam Eglantine, a demure and simply-smiling lady, whose sharpest speech was, "By Saint Eloi!" She could chaunt by heart the whole of the divine service, sweetly twanging it through her nose. She was mistress of the French language, as it is spoken at the school of Stratford-le-Bow, but the French of Paris was to her unknown. Her conduct at meals was precisely well-bred and delicate, all her anxiety being to display a courteous and stately deportment, and to be regarded in return with esteem and reverence. So charitable and piteous was her nature that a dead or bleeding mouse in a trap would wring her heart. She kept several little dogs, which were

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Sportsterguy

Cuban,

You might want to read your owners manual on properly chambering a round with your semi. Just a suggestion. It's a no-no with certain semi's.

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Sportsterguy

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Join the NRA today, or don't complain when your guns are taken away!

gimpy

I have three different pistols in the rotation for CC. All three are kept loaded with a round chambered ready to go at a moment's notice. The only time they are unloaded is for cleaning prior to and after range work. I don't worry about set-back because no round gets loaded back into the weapon more than twice before being expended at the range. It can be expensive, but I always know that I have fresh ammunition in my weapons.

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"Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual change; but this change is not [an improvement]. For everything that is given, something is taken."
Ralph Waldo Emerson