SPEAKER_00 0:22

What's up, y'all, and welcome to another episode of Behind the Holster. It's a concealed coalition podcast. And today, our sponsor is Kangaroo Carry Holsters, the best holster you're never going to see. Kangaroo Carry.com. They're going to get you the best shoulder holster on the market, made right here in the US of A. I got my boy, Mr. Yates Crawford, back with us. How are you doing today, Yates?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

I'm good, man. I'm good. It's um, you know, our topic, though, today is really gonna hit behind the holster, and I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

It is. It is 100% behind the holster.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

And I will say thanks again to Kangaroo Carry Holster. They're the best sponsor we got. I mean, they they're consistent. They're consistent. Every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Mullets, all day long, mullets, mullets. Today's topic, yeah. This is a fun one. Uh, this one is carrying a firearm with one in the chamber or not in the chamber. And let me just let me just set the stage for this. That myself and Mr. Yates Crawford here, we've had some conversations about this offline. And I think we have some difference of opinions. And so it's gonna be really cool to kind of flush those out today uh and let the world hear them. We're just gonna let the world hear how we really feel, Yates. So, first of all, let me just preface again by carrying without one of the chambers. So if you're going to conceal carry or open carry and you decide, you make the choice that you're not gonna put around in the chamber. Some would also refer to that as, excuse me, uh condition three, I believe it is, if you're talking to some jar- Israeli, Israeli carry is what historically referred to.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Right. That's because when they train the Israeli army, they train them to not have one in the chamber, I believe just to prevent to prevent negligent discharges, if that would so to expand on that, so why it happened, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So a lot of folks aren't familiar with the history on that. So at that time in history, there were many guns that were not drop safe at that time. So that was a concern. The other issue was is they were issuing many different types of weapons, or they were all handguns, right? Like they were not talking about different platforms, but they were issuing different handguns with different uh methods of activating or deactivating the safeties. So it was adopted as not a tactical advantage, it was a training regimen, right? If we do, if we keep everybody the same, we're good, right? We don't have to cover the Breda here, the the whatever here, and this and that. So it wasn't a tactical advantage, it was more so to keep training consistent.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense. And and so throughout uh really the last six, seven years and a lot of classes that we've trained, this has been a hot topic for people coming up and asking us questions. From Concealed Coalition, uh, a lot of the the uh people that we see in our classes are the new shooters, the people who are just buying firearms, who are kind of getting into the space, maybe haven't been to the range a whole lot. And so that's really one of the coolest types of people because we we get to introduce them the right way into firearms and and not uh you know scare them, things like that. So I get this question a lot. And I'm gonna give you my experience and my story really quickly of kind of just starting out. You got married. I got married in um my wonderful wife uh in 2016, and she wasn't very um familiar with firearms. I will say that she was raised in the South, and she's uh if you ask her, like she supports the Second Amendment, she supports the right to own and carry firearms, and so but she had never really been trained on them, never really shot them. And and so for her, when when we kind of moved into this space, it was she was very scared and nervous because at that point, shortly after we had Ella, uh, who was six months old, and so her her mindset goes into firearm in the house, child in the house. And without proper safety protocols in place, I can understand that, I can understand that fear. And so for me, I had to create these processes of safety inside of my house to make her feel comfortable with me carrying a firearm. So the one agreement I made with her in the very beginning was that I would never have a loaded firearm in the house. Now, some people will look at me and say, I can't believe you did that. That's crazy. An unloaded firearm is just as good as a paperweight. I've heard it all. Okay, I get it. But here's what I had to deal with. I had to deal with my wife, who is not yet so comfortable as she is today with firearms. And so I had to make a compromise with her in order to have the firearms in the house. Okay. I'm not gonna pull that hole, it's my house, I do what I want, because we all know that ain't true. She wears the pants, it's her world, I live in it, and I love living in it. That's another podcast. That's a whole nother podcast for another day. But but I was willing to make that agreement with her because I was gonna have firearms in the house to protect her, protect my daughter, protect myself. And if that's the way that made her feel comfortable. But here's the trick is that I trained for that. So when I would wake up in the middle of the night, my gun's in a safe right next to the bed, I knew there wasn't one in the chamber. So what do I do? I have to, of course, get all the ammo out the room, right? Snap caps, put them in the gun, and I have to practice jumping out of bed, fingerprint, open racks live. I had to instill that in here to make it so when I got up, I wasn't just grabbing gun, pressing trigger. So I understand the difficulties of it. I don't recommend it long term, but for that moment in life and that journey that we were on 10 years ago, that's what fit my lifestyle. So would I rather not have a gun in the house at all? Or would I rather have a gun in the house with an empty chamber yet train that way? So that was my story. And then, of course, over years and more training for her, right? Got to the point to where, of course, I'm carrying with one in the chamber and everything in the house is in the chamber, but in a safe. So we've evolved. But when someone asks you that question, Yates, they come to class, they say, Mr. Yates, Mr. Yates, should I carry with one in the chamber? I want to hear your feedback on that.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

Well, it is a touchy topic, I will say, but my direct answer to that is going to be yes. We are using this as a life-saving tool that is our our tool of last resort, right? I.e., a deadly weapon. And so in that moment, we're if if and when we've determined that we must utilize that thing, it's got to be an action. I think there's two different conversations here. There is inside the home, which some people may not look any differently at, and then there is out in public. And a lot of the misconceptions I find from folks who believe they'll be able to pull this off out in public, frankly, come from a position that that lacks training. And that's okay. But there are these misconceptions that exist is that I'll have time. I will have both hands free to perform this action, which rarely are the case. We can never have enough time. We can't buy more time. And what we often see from the use of force incidents taking place with concealed permit holders, and they're recorded, and we've got all this wonderful CCTV footage, is that situations are not ideal. Again, meaning we don't have much time, we don't have, we have very little space, and oftentimes we have our other hands consumed with something, whether that is groceries, whether that is carrying a child, whatever that may be. And then in addition to that, is what we often see is folks not take the measures that you have concerning inside the home and practicing that. You know, much like Israeli carry is they adopted it, whether it was correct or not. Well, we're kind of having that discussion today, but what they did do with that is they made their training relevant and that they built that repetition on the range. And what I often find is people don't do or don't replicate what is actually going to happen to them in real life in their training or the range environment. And if it's not relevant to what you're choosing to do in real life, then it's not going to work in real life. And that's our big issue. But yeah, you look back at the time, you know, the Israeli carry, and you and you were correcting condition three, you know, I looked it up because I was just curious. I knew there was a Bretta, uh, the Breta M1951 was really popular at the time that Israeli carry came about, the Browning High Power, of course, the 1911. At that time in the 50s, it was the Colts, right? We didn't have this big renaissance of all these 1911 manufacturers out there, the Walder P38, the CZ75, all these guns function just a little differently. So if you're having to mass issue all these different models of guns, maybe because of buzz budget constraints or availability, it makes sense. But when that moment is determined that we need a deadly force tool to defend ourselves, you likely aren't going to have the time. And due to the stress and the physiological things that are happening to you at that time, if you haven't practiced this and you haven't integrated this into your training, you're very unlikely to do it, is what we found.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I I agree. I agree with that. I think my my stance on it is that if someone were to come up to me and they have come up to me and said, hey, you know, because you're you're right, this is a controversial topic. Some people are gonna go all the way one way and say you can never carry without one in the chamber. And then some will go the other way and say, Yes, you can. I think to your point, a lot of it revolves around the training. If you're if you and everyone who owns their firearm and chooses to conceal carry gets to make their own choice. Okay. Whatever they choose, that's on them. At the end of the day, you have to train for whatever that choice is. If you're training with one in the chamber and you're practicing drawing and getting on target with one in the chamber, then that's how you practice. If you're not carrying the chamber, you have to practice drawing and racking that slide, but you're not guaranteed to have time to do it. I agree with that. We also don't know what sort of situation that person's gonna be in at the time when they have to draw their firearm. None of us can dictate that. They can't dictate that. We know stories and we tell stories in classes of Chris when he walked out of the gas station and he sees the man beating on the woman and he chooses to pull his firearm. In a case like that, would he have had time to rack his slide if he didn't have one in the chamber? Absolutely. Because it wasn't his life, right? In that moment that was at stake. So in situations like that, it probably would not matter very much. For me, I think about the new shooter, someone who's probably never carried before, someone who probably just bought a firearm, maybe the only time they've been to the range is for the qualification. I mean, we've we've met a lot of people like that. And so I think for that person, if they ask me, hey, do I have to carry with one in the chamber? I can't look at them and say, you have to carry with one in the chamber, because I feel like I'm doing them a disservice. And the fact that when we look at level of training, it doesn't really exist. We can both agree that a concealed carry class, really, no matter what state you take it in, is not a real firearms training class that's going to tell you how to holster, how to draw from a holster, which holster to buy. So it's hard for me on my conscience to say you have to carry with one in the chamber. My answer is the end goal is that you do carry with one in the chamber. And so my recommendation for you is to go get as much training as fast as you can so that you can get comfortable enough to then carry with one in the chamber. Because if somebody's not used to it, I wouldn't want them standing beside me, nervous, with a brown in the chamber, not educated enough, not trained enough, and then pull that firearm next to me because I think more bad things are likely to happen than good.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, the way, the way I ultimately see the question is that it's truly a statement. Right. If somebody asks, should I or must I or do I have to dot dot dot carry with around in the chamber, what what they're really saying to me is that I'm not comfortable with this firearm yet. And that's okay. And that's okay. So then that's where I would likely, for me, well, I shouldn't say likely, I have, I've countered, is and I would say, hey, is instead of asking yourself, right, you're the you're the new shooter, new gun owner, instead of asking that question, you're really staying stating, I'm not comfortable carrying a loaded gun yet. So for me, in in the understanding of we're trying to our best to be professional one educators as well, is say, hey, maybe you're not ready to carry a firearm yet. And I believe that's a legitimate question. So at the end of the day, I do agree with you on this is I don't feel it's it's fair to use the verbiage have to. For me, it's you definitely should. And so then we ultimately get to, hey, you're really not comfortable carrying this gun yet. Because here's what I have found historically. Folks who take a hard stance of, hey, I carry a gun with the with the empty chamber, or you should carry a gun with an empty chamber like me. What we find is when we go back and revisit with this person, maybe a few months or maybe a couple years later, guess how they're carrying now with around in the chamber, right? Something along the line is they've they've kind of seen the light. They're now more comfortable there, they feel more competent, whether they truly are. We can't always state to that, right? But they feel more comfortable and they certainly feel more confident, and now they're carrying with around in the chamber. So that the reality is people who do decide to take up this, what is a big responsibility, right? To carry a weapon in public concealed, is they do find out that hey, this this makes sense. Like they eventually get to that point. I don't know of a single long-standing concealed permit holder who has been carrying without a round in the chamber. If you're out there, drop yourself in the comments. Drop your drop drop drop a comment, let us know. But if you've been concealed carrying consistently for 10, 15, 20 years, and you'll still you're still carrying with around in the chamber or with around not in the chamber, let us know. Because I it it's not a thing I Yeah, and here's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

If you are watching this video, I'd love to, I'd love to kind of get that feedback. Go leave a comment that says, you know, I carry with one in the chamber or I carry with one out and uh not in the chamber. And there's no judgment on on either way. I think a lot of it boils just boils down to the comfortability of it and and training. When you look at some of the safety aspects of it, and this is what some people will will say of why they do it, and it's because of the safety of they have kids around them a lot. Okay. Let's just for my wife, for instance, we've got five kids. Three are uh our three youngest are eight and seven. And if she's out with them, I would I would venture to guess with the training that she's had, she probably wouldn't feel comfortable with one in the chamber if they were in her vicinity. Now, that's kind of like you're risking something either way. If you have one in the chamber, in her mind, if you have one in the chamber, she's risking something happening, whether it's in her purse in a holster. The risk is one of my kids goes in her purse for something and has access to the firearm. That that's a risk. If she doesn't have one in the chamber, her risk is that she's not gonna have time to chamber around prior to whatever event is happening. There's risk either way in her mind. And for her, she has to decide, and and this goes for me, I think everybody, honestly, when you make decisions, even about where your firearm is in your house, how you keep your firearm in your house, what type of safe is it in in your house? There's typically always going to be a risk one side of the other, and you have to determine which one you're more willing to risk. Just for instance, a small thing, well, small thing, but I've I've I've got some hate for this in Louisiana. For someone to conceal carry in my house, they have to have my permission. So they have to ask me, hey, do you care if I carry in your house? And for me, honestly, man, my my answer is I would rather you don't. And I'm pro I'm pro-gun, train firearms for a living, but I would rather you not. Why? Because I'm risking two things. If I allow you to carry, I'm risking what condition is your firearm in? What type of holster do you have it in? Do you have to go to the bathroom and you set it on the back of my toilet and leave it, right? All those things are real, they happen and they're risks. So if I say yes, you can carry, then I'm risking those sense. If I say no, you can't carry, what am I risking? I'm risking then that my house gets robbed in the moment that they're here and they don't have a firearm to defend themselves. So, which more as a father am I willing to risk? Bro, you can leave that gun in the car. You have to go one way or the other, and everybody gets to make their own choice of what's worth risking. So I think it's the same way with not one in the chamber. You're risking something if you don't. You just have to make that decision of there, there, there's worth there is that compromise, I think is what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

There, there, there is a compromise. For sure. So yeah, I I don't know where else we really go on this one, man. I mean, it's not the longest of podcasts, but it is, hey, you it's a compromise. And I and I truly believe everyone knows that. But what I what I don't think a lot of people are willing to admit that that have asked that question, maybe to their spouse, to their firearms instructor, is really what they're saying, it's it's not a question, it's a statement, and it's hey, you're not comfortable carrying a gun at this current point in time. And that's okay. Jody and I are are very different than mo I don't want to say most, but many people in the in this industry. And hey, if you're not comfortable carrying a gun, we're not gonna attempt to push you towards it. There's there's other means, there's other tools. Granted, they're not deadly force tools, typically, but again, as we often discuss in our various classes, I you know, I know I do, and I know Jody does as well, is hey, a gun's rarely the right tool, anyhow. So we probably should be carrying these other things. Definitely flashlight, definitely OC or pepper spray. We've talked about that before, and I'm sure we'll do a show where we go into those items, those tools a little more in depth. But yeah, it's um we're not gonna force you to carry a gun. Nobody's gonna make you do it. It's okay if you don't want to, but definitely take take what precautions. I I think we can kind of leave it at this, right? Take the precautions you feel necessary to keep your family safe. I mean, it's ultimately your life, your family, your house, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

That's what that it's it's all on you. That's right. It's all on you. You get to make that choice. Only thing I can recommend. Either way you go is never stop training. Never stop training. And I'm gonna go one step further than that because I do think it's different. Never stop getting educated and never stop training. Getting educated and training is two different things. Getting training for me is putting my hands on something. I'm in a range, I'm in a shoot house, I'm somewhere. I think I can be educated in many different ways, whether it's presentations, whether it's online training, whether it's podcast, you can get educated. So continue your education, continue your training, Mr. Yates. I appreciate uh your input today. I think it was all perfectly on point. Check out our YouTube membership. Uh, y'all, I think we've got some links down below where you can get extra footage of bigger, better, badder topics for myself, Mr. Yates. We've got some pretty cool guests coming on the show here in the next couple weeks. We appreciate y'all's time. Stay safe, stay concealed, subscribe, click the link below, leave some comments. And guess what? If you join our membership, you actually get to dictate what our shows are about. Click the links below, check them out, be safe.