I’ll say from 30 years in the military, the fact is, if you don’t carry and handle firearms routinely, chances are you’re going to lose it, violate the standard gun safety rules, or have a negligent discharge when you finally have to have it on you daily. Sure, the other fact is many live their lives without ever needing a firearm; others die in the street as young teens. Environment and certain cultures impact the threat more than anything. That doesn’t change the fact that lack of routine, practice, developing certain (positive) habits often leads to accidents when it comes to firearms.
The military is a great example. Most Soldiers who are not Infantry or certain combat arms only handle their rifle or sidearm once or twice a year for qualification. They don’t carry it every day, it’s locked up in the armory. Makes sense for garrison operations; but we don’t do that in combat. Even on the larger bases, Soldiers were directed to carry their rifle or pistol in Condition 3 (magazine inserted, no round in the chamber); same condition when flying. Sounds safe, but we ironically had dozens of ND’s from most of the support troops uncomfortable with the daily manual of arms. Heading out on a convoy or mission: Condition 1, chamber a round. RTB, and you go back to Condition 3. I hated the complexity as it caused a lot Soldiers trouble because they didn’t routinely handle firearms back home when on base; there was no need, but when that need became part of the mission protocol, they lacked the habits and routine of handling firearms. It’s not the military either, it happens in law enforcement all the time as I’ve read my share of reports. Now, not to bash “civilians” as many who take CCW seriously as the do their training are often more proficient than a majority of military and LE, but most aren’t not as proficient as they think they are. When the day or time comes you need to carry 24/7, chances are those people will have a much higher percentage of negligent discharges. It’s not an opinion, it’s a well-studied fact.
Should I even mention the number of UCMJ punitive actions taken from Soldiers not used to always having a rifle on them? M4’s were found in Porto-Johns/latrines, gyms, Green Bean coffee joints, dining facilities, left in vehicles, etc. Not developing and practicing good habits usually resulted in poor habits.
So, I won’t address the defensive aspect of always carrying your handgun, but there is enough data to support the advantages of making routine firearms carry/handling a habit-forming practice. If your environment is safe enough to not need to is irrelevant to that fact; your opinion about not needing to is based on the fact you haven’t needed to. That’s a personal choice, but I have done dozens of investigations as to what happens when you don’t and all of a sudden you need to.
ROCK6
