Originally Posted by HCM
FIFY.
FIFY.
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
SP's at the base gate - yup, BA Airman - Yup, EOD - Yup, OSI - yup. Erone else are carrying paper weights that they "qualify" with once a year.
Being "issued" a pistol and "using" a pistol are 2 different things.
I'm not intending to be a jerk but I've been at it for awhile, over half my life. The AF firearm "currency/proficiency" standards are not up to par - in any environment or geographic location.... Unless you are in a career filed (mentioned above) with a true demand for it and a budget to support it, it would be a great idea to provide training for yourself if you are responsible for carrying an issued pistol. Especially in condition "Amber" aka magazine loaded, weapon on safe, chamber empty.
KT
Last edited by KneeShot; 04-01-2018 at 03:27 AM. Reason: Clarity
Off safe as well
USAF has one chambered for as long as I was in, don’t think it’s changed any.
From my Army MP experience (1989 -1993) we were not allowed to carry ‘one in the chamber’.
I’m sure we could all debate the “why”. My experience was that they just didn’t trust us with one in the chamber simply because they didn’t train us. We only qualified semi-annually and never did any other pistol training. Same for our M-16’s. I started out carrying a 1911 and my last 6 months carried a M9. To top that off they only gave us 10 rounds of 9mm...which we split between two magazines...dont ask me why.
There was even a time frame when they put all our ammo in magazines then sealed them in plastic. We actually had to carry the ammo like that in our pouches which wouldn’t allow us to put anything in our weapons. Why you may ask? Because someone lost “a round” and, if you’ve been in the military you’ll understand this, no one could leave until that 1 round was found. After that happened a few times the sealed plastic bag shit started. Thankfully that only lasted a few months.
A lot of stuff I saw during that 4 years made absolutely no sense at all. I’m sure silly shit like that happens everywhere in the military.
Isn't the real question: why is LE training so poor that they can't teach their folks to swipe an ergonomic safety off before firing, especially considering the likelihood of a disarm attempt on a cop versus Soldier/Marine/Airman/Sailor/etc?
My agency is in the process of moving to the P320 and they only option we can't have is a manual safety. Since our rifles and shotguns have manual safeties, having a similar manual of arms for the pistol makes a lot of sense to me.
- It's not the odds, it's the stakes.
- If you aren't dry practicing every week, you're not serious.....
- "Tache-Psyche Effect - a polite way of saying 'You suck.' " - GG
I believe LE training in use of a safety is residue from days of carrying revolvers. Revolvers don’t have manual safeties, ergo when transitioning to semiauto pistols or long guns safeties were not used or desired as it was “too slow” to deactivate one, or cops couldn’t learn to use it under stress and would be found dead with their safeties on.
At least that was what I saw and heard from LE firearms instructors in the late 1980’s in my AO. They didn’t even mention trigger finger placement back then...but I was a “gamer” and knew about it from IPSC.
The argument for being able to be trained to wipe an ergonomic safety to the fire position under stress is bolstered by the design of most shotgun safeties. The Remington SG (both 870/11-87) were acceptable and in-service for decades. The use of their awkward cross-bolt safety was successfully imparted to new officers despite being decidedly less ergonomic than the current safeties available on Sig, S&W, H&K etc... pistols. If they could learn the SG safety, they should be able to learn the pistol's.
My department went to the Beretta 92 after the revolver era. I don't think it's a hold over from revolvers, given the 1911 was *the* semi-auto that had any real LE traction during the revolver golden years.
It's Glock. Glock came along and things that used to be important weren't any more and things nobody cared about before were now important ('tactile reset'...). Glock was the good-enough-and-cheaper option, it set the standard, and now we're still with Glock and close not-a-Glock proxies.
With the notion that a striker fired gun shouldn't have a thumb safety, modern retention holsters, and Glock still driving the bus you're unlikely to see any real push for thumb safeties on LE guns.
The military's culture and history is different. The "institutional memory" isn't Glocked up. I agree with the idea the military is much more afraid of NDs, it's also a "this is how we've always done it" thing.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
Same for other issued long guns, as well as single action pistols before agencies mandated everyone carry the same handguns.
I agree, there's really no excuse, imho.
There's nothing civil about this war.
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