Watch: Condition 3 Carry Will Get You Killed
billj 10.25.16
I know some people carry in condition 3 (full magazine, no round in the chamber), on the theory that a) it’s safer, and b) some part of the Israeli Defense Forces carry this way so anything they do must be awesome. But in the time you spend racking the slide after a draw you could’ve gotten two shots off, and in any sort of force-on-force encounter, fractions of a second count.
A video from the Active Self Protection FB group shows how this works in real life. The bad guy in this video is carrying in condition 3, and though he gets his gun out and into play pretty quickly, he still has to rack the slide, and this costs him precious moments. While he’s racking the slide, the two cops, one of whom he could’ve shot if it had been carrying in condition 0, get their guns out and ultimately put him down.
If you imagine the bad guy as a good guy and the cops as assailants, you can see just how big a mistake it is to carry without a round in the chamber. Yeah, you may practice drawing and racking, and you may be fast, but you’re handicapping and slowing yourself in a situation where you need every advantage you can get.
Just say “no” to condition 3 carry.
