Recently, another internet kerfuffle over – nothing, really.

The premise is that someone, somewhere carries a semiauto pistol for self-protection and carries it half-loaded. 

Bless his heart. 

The arguments were long and loud, in the style of the information two-track (through a farm field), and, in the end, no resolution was found. 

While going over the various (emotional, non-reasoned) arguments, I found some gems, paraphrased here as I don’t have permission to hold denizens of the digital world up to scorn and ridicule. 

The original poster noted that one side of the issue are, functionally, NDPs. Kind of like “non-player characters,” NDP is a Chuck Taylor term for “non-dedicated personnel.” Those are the kind with only the least passing familiarity/skills in the carry of firearms. A “Master-“ class shooter, according to his response, noted that he carries in Condition Three (“chamber empty, full magazine, hammer (if so equipped) down”) for personal protection, not on the range. 

Because you’re an expert in competing in certain range games makes you as proficient in personal security as the typical gun writer is knowledgeable about brain surgery. 

The individual starting the argument noted that the Condition Three crowd never seem to make it into a force-on-force exercise. If they do, in the midst of a pitched, entangled battle, they never seem to get the gun loaded – nor use the hands-on skills to counter the assault, gain distance and sort it out.

Strangely, those who carry “half-loaded” never seem to ask about availability of interactive roleplay training. He notes that those who say “you won’t have time to aim” in an assault figure they’ll have time to load the gun “when the flag flies.”

Or to get back to their vehicle for their “truck gun,” another innovation of insignificant utility.

Some say it’s personal preference and, forgive me for being conciliatory, but that is correct. You ride, you decide. I’m not for a law telling you how to carry that piece. If you want to be like the heroic but unprepared individual in Twin Falls who ran into a gunfight with a holstered, half-empty pistol, that’s your business. 

Congratulations. You gave us another casualty to deal with at a potential mass casualty event. And allowed the offender to continue his homicidal stupidity. 

Don’t want to carry “appendix” (sic) with your striker fired gun? Get a hammer-fired gun, perhaps a revolver. 

Or change your carry location. Or, if you prefer – and I do not recommend it – carry it half-loaded. 

Years ago, I had a trainer of firearms self-protection (using a foreign inspired training program and doctrine) chastise me online for carrying a gun in Condition One (actually loaded). I responded to him that carrying it in that fashion was obligatory by agency regulations (and common sense). 

Actually, I don’t approach the issue from the “speed to the first good hit” direction. I do insist on rational discourse, something that flees from the “outrage-addicted” crowd who concentrates on the emotional aspects. 

First is safety. Condition Three carry promotes violations of Rule 1, also a Cooper-inspired bit of doctrine: All guns are always loaded. 

Examine that for a bit: always. The approach to a gun that is – or may be – loaded is caution. Because Rule 1 is true, we never allow to muzzle to cover anything that we want to avoid destroying. That’s Rule 2. 

The problem with half-loaded/Condition Three/chamber-empty carry is that it allows you to handle the gun as if it’s not loaded. But without X-Ray vision, how can you know?

Rule 1. And if it’s Rule 1, it’s loaded. All the time, everywhere.

I know of around a dozen gun accidents directly attributed to Condition Three carry. In each case, the reflexive response was “it wasn’t loaded.”

Hence the ringing in your ears, the accelerated pulse with corresponding blood pressure, the appearance of a new hole in something (please, not “someone”) …

So Condition Three of a defense handgun is, demonstrably, unsafe.

Consider also the aftermath of a shooting engagement. Let’s say that you, the lover of the empty chamber, get involved in a shooting. Perhaps it loaded when you fumbled about with fingers that felt like bananas trying to rack the slide. Maybe you made the hit (please, no YouTube mag dumps) and he went down. Or ran off. 

Now what do you do?

There are likely other armed citizens about, some members of the constabulary, and you’re standing there with a smoking gun. 

Reholster it? No – that would be “unsafe,” in the Condition Three world. Unless you induced a stoppage (more likely in real life engagements than in range world), there’s another round in there and you can’t holster it like that. It “wouldn’t be safe.”

But now, post-engagement, and having faced a near-death experience (it was justified, right?), now you have to fumble around trying to unload the very implement that saved your life. Fingers cold and trembling from vasoconstriction, shallow and rapid breathing, pupils blown, you try to download the gun by one round. 

You did remember to pull the mag first, before trying to rack the slide with shaking hands, right?

Perhaps the downed offender reanimates (something that’s not rare in the world of the pistol fight). Or his pals show up. 

Or the sudden shout, POLICE! DON’T MOVE!

Yeah. Condition Three ain’t for me. You do what you want, but try to have your eyes open, examine the facts. 

Lose the fears and emotions, make your decision. I know what mine is. 

– Rich Grassi