It is not the time to take a gun off safe that puts me off having a safety in a self-defense firearm. It is that I can’t guarantee I will remember to deactivate the safety in the stress of a life and death encounter. Sure you can try to train for it, but you just can’t guarantee you will have the presence of mind to take the safety off when that machete wielding perp is closing in on your 21-foot buffer distance.
Without a safety, you aim and go bang. With a safety, if for any reason during the stress of combat you forget to take off the safety, you aim and go “what? huh?” And that can be the difference between life and death.
Kudos to all you who know you will not have the problem. With me, I can’t so guarantee and so I would rather have a semi-auto that behaves like a revolver. Aim and go bang and use your trigger finger for a safety. Off target, off trigger.
Fair points.
I have trained with pistols with a thumb safety so long I’ve tried to “click” the non-existent thumb safety on my revolver before.
And I’ve been known to “click” it off on my Ruger when I don’t like the looks of a situation, but no where close to ready to draw and shoot.