I'm not saying all manual safeties are a major problem. Just that neither are hammer block safeties. Both are a matter of choice and require common sense to be safe. But some manual safeties are a lot safer than others. Talk to enough firearms owners and you'll quickly realize that some manual safeties are way too easy to disengage unintentionaly. Then you have a loaded firearm that requires very little pressure on the trigger to fire. If that don't make a person nervous it dang well should. Practice is a good thing too, just don't totally rely on it because the fact still remains that you don't know what you will do untill faced with split second decisions. While practice proved to make actions second nature to some, I've seen enough men faulter in combat to KNOW that it is a fact that it don't always work. I'm all for giving yourself every edge possible. Know your firearm, keep it in good working condition, know you loads, and yes practice, so you at least have an idea what you plan to do. If practice helps you do it easier then great. It should at least help you handle your weapon more efficiently. Theoreticly it should get you through but theories often fall short when reallity hits. You made a very good point and that is "mind set" is possibly the most important factor of all. It's said of James Butler Hickock. "That the man who wins a gunfight is the one who can calmly take deliberate aim and fire while bullets are whizzing past his ears." That is something you simply can't practice for. That requires real life exsperience. It requires steady nerves which not everyone has. Hickock proved that concept when he put one bullet through the heart of Dave Tutt, on the square of Springfield, Mo., at 75 yards. Witnesses said Tutt fired first. By the way, Tutt was well known as a good marksman but obviously his targets were'nt shooting back!
