Month: May 2019

One aspect of emergency preparedness is knowing when to vacate the home (bug out) and regroup at a safer location. To do so, many preparedness enthusiasts choose to create a purpose-made bug out vehicle to enable this relocation.

We here at Keep and Bear, LLC prefer to keep things realistic. That means unless fantasy vehicles are your hobby, odds are you’re not going to mod an old Deuce and a Half or store a Damnation Alley Landmaster in your back yard anticipating radioactive armored cockroaches.

The more measured approach is to select a vehicle that will serve in an emergency evacuation scenario, and will hopefully fit in with all your other daily needs. This can be difficult in some circumstances, such as needing a highly efficient vehicle for a long commute, that would fare poorly if roads became cluttered with debris.

Below are some considerations when selecting your next vehicle to have some BOV capability. The headings are not in ‘weighted’ order of importance.

Power

During the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire which enveloped nearly 1.5 million acres of land, many Canadians were forced to flee in vehicle. There are hours of harrowing Youtube footage showing a relatively orderly evacuation process. As seen in the video, vehicles were perilously close to the blaze. Certainly there were those who evacuated earlier, and those who came later at even greater danger.

One person who was interviewed regarding vehicles for this made the claim “larger pick up trucks with the ability to push stalled vehicles out of the way were more successful in escaping the situation”.

Independent of the nature of the emergency, stalled vehicles will be a problem. There will be those who didn’t gas up, or were at the low end of their fill cycle when the emergency hit. There will be people attempting to escape in vehicles that are not mechanically sound, but it’s all they have. These vehicles become problems for everyone behind them, and having a vehicle that can push things out of the way is a BOV must-have.

Terrain capability

The most frequent emergency travel conditions are weather related. The two threat components include wind and water. Wind is likely to blow down trees, cover roads with branches and debris, and make many rural or semi-rural routes impassable.

Depending on one’s location, water accumulation is likely to be another issue with roadways making them impassable.

For either of these, vehicle ground clearance is important. The ability of the vehicle suspension to stay above debris and have the suspension travel to go over larger debris objects means a faster evacuation since one does not have to stop to deal with smaller obstacles.

There are full books written on good suspension systems as well as off-road capability, and very knowledgeable clubs devoted to doing so. Partake in these clubs! The vehicle does not have to be pushed hard or beaten to death, and modern trucks and off-road-intent SUVs can handle some significant terrain challenges. Understand your vehicle’s capabilities.

Water accumulation is especially hazardous since it can hide significant terrain features, such as a washed out road, sink hole, or sharp objects that will destroy tires. Furthermore, water entering the air intake system of the vehicle can hydrolock the engine. At best it is a time consuming fix, and at worst it can result in the engine’s destruction.

If one’s threat matrix has a high risk of flooding, a vehicle with a reasonable lift kit and a well-equipped snorkel system is a valid investment. The snorkel reroutes the vehicle air intake system through a snorkel that is usually 2-3 feet higher than stock. Well equipped snorkel systems also include routing axle breathers and in some cases exhaust pipes to a higher point on the vehicle.

One of the biggest factors in terrain capability is 4 wheel drive. In reality, 4WD is actually one rear wheel and one front wheel providing propulsion. With some modern trucks, electronic locking is available to ensure both rear and/or front wheels spin. 4WD is one of the most important factors that should be considered in a BOV.

Access for tools

If road debris is very likely (and it is), then getting at the tools to clear the path becomes important. Having a chainsaw, gas, a couple shovels, and some utility straps or chains readily accessible will make an evac go more quickly. Pick up trucks with a bed divider can help ensure the stuff you need right away is conveniently accessible at the rear of the bed, while the not-as-important-for-an-evac stuff stays securely in place near the front of the bed.

This type of accessibility can be more difficult in other vehicles, such as a sedan or enclosed SUV. In these cases, plan on either using the trunk or a vacant rear seat, or in the case of an SUV a rear cargo area divider, if available, for tool access . The tools WILL get dirty and muddy and need to be put back in the vehicle interior. Try to keep in mind this is an emergency evacuation scenario and something that will clean up isn’t an immediate concern.

Your spare tire and changing equipment should be equally accessible. If you must remove multiple containers from the vehicle to get at the spare, it is time wasted that may be crucial in an evacuation.

Recovery

A BOV intent vehicle should have recovery points. These are the hooks you see on Jeep bumpers or the D-shackles on some aftermarket offroad bumpers. All vehicles have tie-down points to facilitate shipping. Know where yours are and ensure they can be used as a recovery point if stuck. If you modify them, ensure they are rated for 3-4 times the vehicle weight.

A winch helps ensure the vehicle can self-recover if it becomes stuck. It consists of a high torque motor and spool which reels in a steel or synthetic (better) cable. Winching is an involved skill to do successfully and safely, and should be a part of your training. Again, get involved, even if only briefly, with an offroad club or take a class in this.

Vehicle reliability

We need it to go. Period. The vehicle must operate as intended when we ask it to. Most modern vehicles are quite reliable. While some have interesting quirks, they shouldn’t let you down. In the truck arena, Toyota is generally considered to reign supreme with the Tacoma and Tundra, though Ford and Chevy still make the list.

Along with reliability in design, regular maintenance is a must to ensure your BOV will perform as intended when you ask it to. We all tend to ‘get to that repair’ at some point, while eking out as much value from the vehicle as we can, but if you have a vehicle that will be intent as the family BOV, stay on top of its maintenance.

Ensure your vehicle has a full size spare. ‘Donuts’ (small spare tires designed to accommodate up to 50 miles or travel at low speeds) are utterly unreliable in an evacuation scenario.

Hauling capacity

Depending on the nature of an evacuation, you might be hauling a lot of stuff, or your go-bags only. A well-prepared go-bag is essential, but if you can save even more stuff from damage, you’ll do it. A BOV with hauling capacity facilitates this.

The first factor in hauling capacity is the weight/volume in the vehicle and its bed (if applicable). A Chevy Silverado Crew Cab bed has 72 cubic feet of cargo space and can bear nearly 2000 pounds of weight. A Toyota Tacoma bed approaches 37 cubic feet in volume and an bear 1175 pounds. For a hasty evac, either of these are sufficient to haul the ‘what you can grab’ items. For an evac with significant forewarning, more items might be removable.

For that, the tow rating of a BOV can be important. A trailer for extra gear, or better yet a camper or enclosed trailer with some living accommodation helps ensure you will have lodging, even if hotels are full. Most half-ton trucks (the compact trucks such as the Colorado, Ranger, and Tacoma) can tow approximately 7000 pounds maximum. Full size pickups can tow a typical 9500 pounds or so. These are maximums and if terrain and debris are a factor, the truck/trailer combination may not be capable of traversing the exit route.

For a decent blend of transporting volume and having livable space, the hobby of “overlanding” (motorized exploration travel, think backpacking from your vehicle) has produced many trailers that double as equipment storage, a galley, and a sleeping area via roof top tent. These types of trailers might be an excellent blend of utility and bug-out capability. (It’s also a growing and rewarding hobby…)

Mileage and range

Before the late 2010’s, we’d have to agree that vehicle mileage was the sacrificial lamb in these considerations. All of the characteristics that make a good bug out vehicle are typically not so good on gas mileage. But with manufacturers upping their fuel economy games, this is not as true as before. The Chevy Colorado with diesel engine can get 28 mpg. The full size Ford F-150 can get similar highway efficiency.

New non-diesel trucks are still capable of 22 mpg combined, which is a reasonable bump from just 2 decades ago.

Mileage and fuel capacity culminate in ‘range’, the total distance a vehicle can go without refueling. Some smaller vehicles sacrifice fuel capacity for mileage. Trucks typically do not. For a new vehicle shopper with BOV-intent, some vehicles offer multiple size fuel tanks. Get the larger one.

A Chevy Suburban only gets 19 mpg combined, but with its 31 gallon fuel tank, gets a range of 589 miles. A Chevy Colorado with diesel tops out at 580 miles range. A Ford F-150 diesel has a combined mileage of 24 mpg. With the available 36 gallon fuel tank, this yields a staggering range of over 800 miles.

It is important to remember that an evac situation will most likely not yield this kind of mileage. Getting 1/2 the anticipated mileage is close to worst case.

Mechanical vs Electronics

There is a LOT of talk about BOVs being as mechanical as you can get them. Carburators, manual transmissions, virtually no electronics… There are a lot of old school survivalists that swear by old vehicles that are still on the road. The notion is that mechanics are more reliable than electronics.

A lot of this can be confusion over causality, though. Newer vehicles with thinner metals increase efficiency, but make them less tolerant to rusting. Massive heavy engines made from recycled anvils are phenomenal for longevity, but don’t really help efficiency. Crush zones on vehicles that make occupants far safer means vehicles will be declared totaled with a lower threshold of damage than their Ford Flintstone counterparts. There’s a lot of reason there seems to be more older cars on the road than old ‘newer’ cars.

Electronics does not automatically equate to unreliability. Due to electronics vehicles have more power than ever using less fuel than ever to achieve it. Yes, electrical issues can be harder to pin down, but the free market is providing with things like OBD2 bluetooth devices that let you read trouble codes from an app. The shadetree mechanic is evolving with vehicle technology.

Muh Eee Emmm Peees!

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a phenomenon resultant from a nuclear blast or possibly an intense and targeted coronal mass ejection (stuff from the sun jettisons away from the sun and hits Earth). Preparedness enthusiasts tend to keep this idea in the back of their mind, as even a rudimentary nuclear device can produce a substantial EMP. If such a device is detonated far overhead, the coverage area of a single EMP can be significant. EMPs are measured in volts per meter of open space, meaning that two points, 1 meter away, could have a voltage drop of 20 kilo-volts or more. Considering most solid state electronics are rated for not more than 50 volts, the idea that all electronics will be fried is a common one.

Many BOV builders prefer all-mechanical systems just for this eventuality. Many store extra electrical parts (such as spark plugs, condensers, computer modules, and more) in a Faraday cage (an enclosure meant to attenuate an EMP charge).

The reality of an EMP is that they do exist, though the risk is extremely low. The Carrington Event of the late 1800’s disrupted telegraph communications. It is important to remember that telegraph lines in those days were unshielded, and there was no real idea that such a phenomenon existed. Modern vehicles have decent hardening and shielding in place, and the vehicle itself is not a long antenna (meaning, it doesn’t have a large area in which to absorb EMP energy). Fantasy preppers believe most vehicles will fry. Engineers who test for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) immunity aren’t so sure that the vehicle body and internal circuit hardening (usually properly placed ceramic capacitors) won’t provide sufficient shielding to allow the vehicle to run after an EMP strike.

If EMP is on your “I’m concerned” list, storing extra parts for your vehicle in a proper Faraday cage will be important. (Dismiss anyone telling you that a microwave oven or a shipping container are suitable Faraday cages. They are not.) Discussing your concerns with a qualified mechanic who can identify absolutely critical systems to making your vehicle run will be worth it.

And back to reality

The reality is that 90% of all threat events will be shelter at home. For the remainder, when the home is not an option, we need to have a safe, effective, and capable vehicle to get us away from the threat and to safety, however far that may be. While everyone’s needs may vary, it is hard to argue against a mid or full sized pick up truck with 4×4 as a suitable BOV. The platform offers extensive modification capability (there are custom mods out there for virtually any application) to ensure your vehicle is appropriate to your needs. With significant payload and towing capability, a fair amount of personal property can be saved. Depending on the nature of the threat, modern vehicle travel ranges can put your family well outside the area of effect on a single tank of fuel.

The age-old dilemma shooting sports enthusiasts face is spending their hard earned money on a new gun, accessories, training, or ammunition. Yes, a new gun is shiny and cool. Yes, accessories can act as a force multiplier and increase the versatility of your platform. Yes, training can transform you (eventually) from a jellyfish into John Wick. All of these, though, depend on ammunition to make it go. Unexciting. Non-glamorous. Ammunition.

In order to enjoy the shooting sports more, more ammo is highly desirable. Here are some tips on getting more bang for your buck. (See what I did there?)

Inventory control: Determine how much ammunition you need each month. If you’re in a shooting league and are going through 500 rounds a month, your needs are different than a casual shooter expending one magazine at Uncle Joe’s farm visit every few months. Plan on having an inventory of 5 – 10 times your monthly need. This will help ensure you can go several months in between finding excellent deals, as well as accommodate extra shooting or training opportunities.

Understand the name of the game is $/round: With some ammo coming in 50 round boxes, 250 round value packs, 350 round buckets, 600 round packs, and 1000 round bulk packs, it can be hard to determine what is a good deal. Always divide the package cost by the number of rounds to determine a “cents per shot” value. For instance, $13.99 for a box of 50 rounds comes to $13.99 / 50 = 27.98 cents per shot. As of this writing, 9 x 19 mm comes in at about 23 cents per round for new ammunition (115 grain FMJ). Using once-fired brass reloads for range practice (from a reputable reloader), that cost can drop to 15 cents per round. Some places will even discount you further for bringing them once-fired brass.

Choose firearms chambered for cartridges with economy of scale: In other words, ammo that manufacturers have dedicated mass-production capability to will be cheaper than those that have not. Currently, 9 x 19 mm and 5.56 x 45 mm (and .223 Remington) are the most-produced cartridges in the world. Next up are the .45 ACP and .308 Winchester. If you plan to shoot a lot, do yourself a favor and get a 9mm handgun. It will be far cheaper to shoot than .380 ACP, .40 S&W, .357 Sig, etc. If your go-to cartridge is the .43 ACME Obscurus, it will be unlikely you’ll find sales on it, as only so much is produced each year.

Determine your “buy” threshold: Just like the stock market, set a cents per round value that you will act on when you encounter it. Have some money in reserve ($200 is a fair amount) that you WILL spend when you find that deal. Ensure you include shipping costs if applicable, and be sure you discount out-of-state purchases their sales tax, if applicable.

Identify reload sellers in your area: Google “ammunition reloaders <your town>” for a list of commercial reloaders in your area. Quality can vary from business to business. Do online reviews of each place. Local training-only businesses can guide you to what has worked well in their classes. Gun stores may not be so forthcoming since they have shelves of ammo they’d rather sell you.

Always be shopping: Subscribe to multiple gun-sales emails. Cabelas, Dunhams, Midway, and more have daily and weekly specials. When the cost per round is sufficiently low to justify the order (with shipping) or driving to the store, make the purchase. Even if you don’t have your full allotment of $200 (or whatever it is) saved up, spend what is in your allotment. The name of the game is cartridges on your shelf.

Use a Rewards credit card: The average homeowner spends $1000/month between needed stuff for the house, groceries, gasoline, etc.,. Additionally, some utilities can also be paid by credit card. An easy way to get more ammunition is to simply shift expenses you are already incurring onto a rewards card, such as a Cabelas credit card. Of course, be financially responsible and pay stuff off, but there’s no reason not to use the rewards offered as a supplement to your ammunition purchasing power. An advantage to this is that the discount applies to anything in the store, not just range-intent ammo.

Pro-tip: If you buy ammunition, store it in its packaging. Yes, it’s neat to make a treasure-chest-looking bulk ammo container of loose rounds, but keeping ammo in its original boxes lets you retain TRACEABILITY. If there’s ever a recall on ammo, you will have brand, manufacturing date, and lot number, available to determine if the recall affected you. If you dump it all into a bulk box, you’ll have nothing more than a very nervous feeling until it’s all shot up.

Dry-fire practice: Loading your gun’s chamber with nothing costs you 0 cents per round! Yet trigger control is one of the two biggest factors in improving handgun accuracy (the other being sight alignment). Dry fire practice can be done at home (ensure you are safe!) and even 5-10 minutes per day can yield improvements in a short time.

Shoot .22 intermittently: If your firearm has a .22 LR equivalent training gun or a swappable magazine and barrel assembly, shooting .22 is a decent way to develop shooting skills on the cheap. As just stated, trigger control and sight alignment are the biggest contributors to handgun accuracy and both can be practiced with a .22 training gun. The shooter MUST take caution, however, since he will not be practicing grip control and recoil management with .22 LR practice. This is why it’s best to use the .22 LR as an intermittent practice cartridge.

Get something for your money: For amateurs, it can take somewhere on the order of 1000 rounds downrange to move past the notion that you have a repeated explosion going off in your hands and just being excited you’re shooting. At some point, new-shooter anxiety wears off and improvement-intent training kicks in. At this point, every dime and quarter you send downrange should mean something. You should be getting something for your money. Repeated holes in center of target is great. What’s your grouping on controlled pairs (double taps)? What’s your grouping on move-and-shoot? A fun day at the range is GREAT! Do it! But take the time to learn to really shoot as well. Improving your technique is more about YOU than metal on paper. Shift the focus to improvement. Treat rounds downrange as an investment.

Reloading (maybe): Reloading has a somewhat costly start-up expense as you buy the devices, scales, and other equipment necessary to do so. You then have to buy the consumables (casings, primers, powder, and bullets), then you must spend your time assembling the cartridges. For economy-of-scale cartridges like .223 and 9mm, it will take many thousands of rounds to overcome the start up costs and be money ahead. The more uncommon the cartridge, the faster the savings per round will overcome the initial investment. (An advantage to reloading is being able to tailor your cartridge specs to your specific needs, though.)

There are at least four “age-old” handgun debates, with passionate viewpoints on either side. Both sides have expert opinion with hand-picked data, both sides “weigh” the data differently (a fact that is 100% correct does not necessarily mean much to the argument due to relevancy), and both sides have ardent supporters of their stance with preference-based argument. Some common handgun arguments are

• Revolver vs Semiautomatic.
• 9 mm vs 45ACP.
• Colt 1911 vs Glock.
• Chamber empty or round chambered.

It is this last point that separates the casual concealed carrier with the more ardent personal protection practitioners.

Arguments for carrying an unchambered handgun:

Proof against negligent discharge. For most people, whether through lack of certainty in their equipment or their skills, carrying on an empty chamber is self-justified to preclude the risk of an negligent discharge (in this case, ‘negligent’ means a non-purposeful actuation of the trigger mechanism). Each day we put the gun on our belts and take it off at night. Sometimes, tasks during the day may require us to take it off to perform a thing. Add in PFZ’s (pistol free zones) where we must take guns off and put them on after leaving them, people could be handling the firearm multiple times each day. Since most people go through their day without having to draw the firearm in self defense, the likelihood of a negligent discharge is quite statistically higher than a defensive draw.

The fix for this possibility is to become more familiar with the firearm, and to utilize a holster that allows removal of the firearm from the body in-holster. Most concealed carry holsters will allow this by unbuckling one’s belt and pulling the belt from the holster’s belt loops. There is little reason (and no excuse) to be manipulating a firearm outside its holster during these administrative, daily tasks of arming and de-arming, save a morning press check.

Mechanical devices are not foolproof: A firearm can be a complicated device, with the concern of these mechanisms failing and causing an unintended discharge (in this case, ‘unintended’ means that the firearm discharged without a trigger actuation). For hammer fired handguns, the main firing mechanism is right there to be seen. It is a reminder that ‘stuff’ is happening inside the gun’s innards that some shooters just don’t have a grasp on. For striker-fired pistols, all the firing mechanism ‘stuff’ is inside. How does it work? How do we know it works?

This concern can be addressed with a two-pronged approach. First, we must indeed choose a firearm that has a solid reputation as a safe and reliable device. While unpopular, this means carrying proven designs by proven manufacturers with proven design verification testing. It means NOT being an early adopter of the newest greatest gun as your defensive tool.

As an example, when Sig Sauer introduced the P320, incidents of unintended discharges were soon reported from dropped handguns ¹. After lengthy evaluation of internal safeties, it was discovered that when dropped so that the handgun landed on the back of the slide, the mass of the trigger had enough inertia to result in trigger actuation. This trigger actuation caused the internal safeties to disengage (appropriate for a trigger actuation) and resulted in an unintended discharge. This was a product from a proven company with proven design verification testing. The design, though, was not proven. (Sig Sauer has since modified their drop test protocols.)

The second approach to overcome doubts of unintended discharge is to truly understand the firearm’s safety mechanisms. The ‘Glock safety’ employs a trigger safety that, effectively, puts the ‘manual safety’ disengagement as part of the trigger actuation. This safety disengages two internal safeties. The Beretta M9 and a few others have an external safety that rotates a transfer bar off-axis, so that a hammer drop never strikes the firing pin. Understanding the mechanics of the firearm’s internal and external safeties can go a long way to having confidence in chambered carry. Choosing a firearm with safeties commensurate with one’s preferences and confidence is paramount.

Time to be sure: Some concealed carriers argue that the added time to bring the firearm into a ready state by chambering a round affords them the time to be sure that lethal force is justifiable. The concern for certainty is to be absolutely commended. The mechanism by which that certainty is obtained is not necessarily the optimal means to do so.

See the “Immediacy of need” subheading below for an experienced rebut of this rationale.

Arguments for carrying a round-chambered handgun:

A tool of last resort: As taught in the NRA’s Personal Protection in the Home (this course was selected as satisfying the training requirements for a concealed pistol license in Michigan), the firearm is a tool of last resort. Accessing and producing the firearm is the last-ditch effort to protection when other options have failed, or the immediacy of the threat precludes other defensive options. In short, the defender is out of time and out of options, save using neutralizing, lethal force. As a tool of last resort, there are a number of sub-reasons to carry a round chambered.

Immediacy of need: After identifying a threat and determining strong verbal command and capability of lethal force is imminent, a protector must:
1) (CPL) Dig through at least one layer of clothing to access the firearm.
2) Draw the firearm.
3) Get on target.
4) Issue verbal commands to stop and make final assessment to shoot.
5) Disengage safety (if applicable) and engage trigger contact.
6) Confirm on target and discharge firearm.

Please go back and read these six steps while envisioning the duress of a lethal force conflict. Someone is shooting at you or charging you with a knife. With your current skill set, envision each of these steps, the time it takes to perform each one, and an assailant approaching quickly and stabbing, or shooting at you.

During each of these steps, time is going by. It’s time to be harmed or killed, but it’s also time that assessment will occur. “I gotta get this thing on target” and “this guy is really trying to kill me?!” is all being contemplated with the priority of survival instinct. In reality, step 4 is the crux of the argument: “Make final assessment to shoot”. Open-chamber carriers believe that adding a step to chamber a round creates this assessment. It does not. The assessment is already in the sequence. For the chambered-round carrier, he may take extra time if available to re-verify that assessment. For the open-chamber carrier, he must spend that time, even if that time is not available.

The anatomy of violence: Violent altercations are stark, inhuman events. One only has to watch defensive encounters on Youtube security camera footage to see hopeful, peaceable lives being cut short by those willing to do harm. It is both depressing and infuriating. During these altercations, there is frequently a struggle (physical force) to stop attacks and to get away.

FBI statistics for law enforcement officer-involved fatalities ² show that nearly 50% of fatalities occurred between 0 and 5 feet away.

Note that this table represents LEO’s who, by job duty, must engage hostile assailants. They typically establish contact with suspects or known criminals for purposes of apprehension. Their proximity to the suspect may be closer than the non-LEO civilian whose general priority is to retreat from threat of violence.

However, use of this data may be applicable since assailants typically want something from their target: money, jewelry, wealth, sexual access, or even the desire to commit harm. This typically requires obtaining proximity to target. For the LEO, they must engage, and for the non-LEO civilian, the assailant is trying to engage. In each case, there is one party intent on engagement. Thus, for the purposes of this article, these engagement distances will be used for non-LEO civilians as well .

If these distances are applicable, then the proximity between the assailant and the protector is indeed in melee range (within 0 to 10 feet provides an immediacy of hand-to-hand or handheld weapon threat) 57% of the time. With the assailant in range to lay hands on the protector, or the protector using hand-applications to prevent harm (blocking weapon strikes, for instance), drawing a firearm is a risky option as it turns the melee into a fight over the gun.

Assuming the protector can indeed make the minimum time and distance to draw the gun, he must ensure this is done so with both hands. In reality, both hands are not necessarily free to cycle the slide and chamber a round. Well-trained and equipped-with-intention protectors may know how to cycle their slide on a belt, table, or other protrusion, and have a firearm whose hardware allows for this action, but this should be seen as a secondary option rather than a primary-planned action.

Conclusions

The arguments for open chamber carry are borne, ultimately, from uncertainty and unfamiliarity. Uncertainty in personal firearm handling, uncertainty in the decision making process to use lethal force, and unfamiliarity with a handgun’s redundant safeties.

These factors can all be mitigated through training and knowledge acquisition. They are entirely in the gun wielder’s control to reduce the perceived risks and mitigate the actual risks.

What is less in the gun wielder’s control is the severity of an imminent attack, the timing of the attack, and the distances the altercation will take place in. These factors are a result of the interplay between attacker and protector. Carrying on an open chamber directly and adversely affects the protector’s ability to employ lethal force.

For a tool of last resort, a purposeful condition to delay its immediate use (open chambered carry) and require 2 free hands to bring it into the engagement imposes far more risk of harm than the avoidable risks perceived. The capability of an immediately deployable round-chambered handgun has benefits necessary to reduce imminent harm.

Sources:
1- Sig Sauer Confronts Further Reports of Possible Safety Defect in Popular Pistol. The Trace, Alex Yablon, 08AUG2017

2- Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2012 U.S. Department of Justice—Federal Bureau of Investigation, Table 36, Released Fall 2013