The rabbi sent this for Sam. It’s from the Dean of Gun Writers, Massad Ayoub.
As you may know, The so-called Israeli Method of carrying an auto pistol with empty chamber and full magazine — better known stateside by Jeff Cooper’s terminology, Condition Three — makes safety sense for people carrying pistols that are not “drop-safe” and can discharge by firing pin intertia if sharply impacted on butt or muzzle. In the formative years of the state of Israel, many such pistols were in the collective armory there. With modern drop-safe designs such as the Glock, I see no good reason to carry with an empty chamber. As many have noted here on Glock Talk, it can fatally slow a defensive response, particularly if only one hand is available.
To me it's quite simple: A semi-auto with an empty chamber is not a loaded gun. Now it may be considered "loaded" from a legal standpoint, where the law distinguishes between a loaded and an unloaded gun, and we all know that the first line of the gun safety mantra is "treat all guns as if they are loaded", but from a practical standpoint, a gun that is not ready to fire is not "loaded." And carrying an unloaded gun makes no sense unless all you're doing is transporting it from one place to another.
It also makes some sense if you carry without a holster, but that itself is a bad idea.
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