Opinion
“‘Foolishness’ is more than just being stupid. It is that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance” ~ Paul D Tripp.
Left-Over Foolishness!
Israeli ambulance drivers, courageously doing their best to save the injured on 7 Oct 23, are shown in a recently-released video deploying in an active combat zone and retrieving the wounded.
What follows is not intended to diminish their personal bravery.
We see one deployed driver maneuvering a gurney while simultaneously carrying a rifle.
His partner is nearby, providing security via a pistol (brand unknown). He is holding the pistol at eye level in his strong hand while pinching the rear of the slide with his left.
He obviously doesn’t already have a round chamber because he is accustomed to carrying the pistol with the chamber empty.
Yet, even now, he still has not chambered a round!
When he has to shoot, he obviously plans to pull the slide to the rear and release it quickly, then aim and press the trigger.
Some history:
Under the daring military genius Judas Maccabeus (called “The Hammerer,” he was the author of the famous Maccabian Rebellion against the Seleucids, celebrated by Jews to this day as “Hanukkah”), the world witnessed (for the first time since Southern Israel had been conquered by Babylonians in 586BC) an independent Jewish State emerge in Palestine and exist there for seventy-nine years, between 142BC and 63BC.
In 63 BC, Judea and all of Palestine became a vassal state under Imperial Rome, as did all other regions in the vicinity of the Mediterranean. In fact, the entire Mediterranean became little more than a Roman lake!
A politically autonomous Jewish state would not reemerge for another 2011 years when in 1948 AD, the modern State of Israel audaciously claimed its independence.
At that time, what would become “Israel” was a British protectorate, as frightened Jewish families from around the world flooded into the area in the wake of WWII and The Holocaust.
In 1948, the British were no more enthusiastic about the idea of armed citizens than they are today! The British Royal Family, along with nearly every other royal family in Europe, had been scared to death when they saw the entire Russian Romanov family (former Czar Nicholas II, his wife, and their five children) brutally murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918, just four months before WWI ended.
British King George VI and Russian Czar Nicholas II were cousins!
Ever since the British have wanted to make sure only government officials have guns, and they strictly imposed that philosophy everywhere they had influence.
Thus, when Israel was preparing to break away and become an independent nation, and local Islamics had every bit as much affection for Jews as they do today, Jews living in what would become The Nation of Israel began smuggling in guns. All kinds of guns were smuggled in with the assistance of Jewish families around the world!
In fact, so many different kinds of pistols ended up in Israel (many in poor repair), despite efforts by the British to stop it, that it was unofficially decided by Israelis that pistols would be routinely carried with an empty chamber, in order to cut-down on UDs (unintentional discharges)(at least theoretically).
Ever since, this practice has been known as “The Israeli Method.”
Of course, shortly after Israel was officially recognized by the UN as an independent nation (and has been ever since), modern, factory-produced arms and ammunition could be legally imported as well as domestically manufactured, so most of the “old generation” of worn-out pistols were promptly retired.
So today, seventy-five years after “The Israeli Method” was rendered irrelevant and unnecessary, we still see it blindly practiced by many in Israel.
We have mostly the British to thank for this ill-advised “cultural lag.”
In addition, I believe that nostalgically clinging to historically significant, albeit obsolete, methods represents a way some naive Israelis attempt to honor their history and founding heroes.
I get it!
Yet, I don’t “honor” George Washington by carrying a flintlock!
George Washington’s period weapons now properly reside in museums, while modern Americans carry modern weapons and adhere to modern weapon protocols.
Israelis need to catch up!
Their (and our) “continued good health” depends on it!
/John
About John Farnam & Defense Training International, Inc
As a defensive weapons and tactics instructor, John Farnam will urge you, based on your beliefs, to make up your mind about what you would do when faced with an imminent lethal threat. You should, of course, also decide what preparations you should make in advance if any. Defense Training International wants to ensure that its students fully understand the physical, legal, psychological, and societal consequences of their actions or in-actions.
It is our duty to make you aware of certain unpleasant physical realities intrinsic to Planet Earth. Mr. Farnam is happy to be your counselor and advisor. Visit: www.defense-training.com
I’m going on a limb here, l think it is the dumbest carry method l have ever heard of. I can’t think of one reason where that would be any advantage. Using a pistol in combat almost aways means you are using your weak hand for opening doors or something else. What if your weak arm was wounded? No, that method gives your adversary a few precious milliseconds to cap your ass.
Shouldn’t the guy wrestling the gurny have the pistol, in a holster; and the guy providing security be scanning over the rifle’s sights?
The most glaring error in the situation the author describes is not the empty chamber; it is the person with a handgun acting as security for a person with an undeployed rifle. That’s downright ludicrous.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say, regardless of your personal choice on which condition you choose to carry your weapon, what matters is that you make a choice based on reason, and then train yourself to shave off as much time as you can, in getting ready to pull the trigger.
Make your choice, train accordingly, and do it without denigrating anyone else. Deuces.
with modern striker fires.. there is absolutely no reason to carry without one in the chamber. Even on lazy days, I’ll throw my NAA32 in my pocket and not give it 2 cents of thought…. You have to work pretty hard at getting that gun to fire. I have a couple 1911’s but I don’t carry them, so I can’t speak to carrying them or Sig’s.