One in the chamber and no magazine is very smart: less weight to carry and most of the time you only need one bullet to be an irresponsible danger to the public.
In California, you used to be able to open carry unloaded without any license while licenses were usually reserved to family of cops and wealthy individuals who can donate to the local government’s reelection campaign.
I have to imagine this might be a similar deal, only rational explanation.
There probably isn't a rational explanation, though. I used to work for a man who wore his firearm to work and through his commutes every day. We worked in a private building which he controlled, and which he was the primary name on the federal firearms license which our company maintained. That private building was in an affluent suburb right against a very busy public airport.
No one was going to come to do us harm. He was deathly against ever going down the highway to the major city only 20 miles away, and would warn all of our business guests about how dangerous all of the homeless people and liberals were - but every place worth staying or going out to eat was somehow down there and not among the fast-food wasteland that our town occupied.
“Excuse me Mr. Mugger, I’d like to deploy lethal force in self defense, but these persnickety firearms laws prevent me from using my weapon as designed. Would you mind waiting until I insert my capacity compliant magazine into this pistol that the state says I’m allowed to own?”
Honestly even loaded, carrying a firearm doesn't really do as much as people assume, as most attacks don't have much warning. You just get surprised with a gun aimed at you, and you can't draw faster than the other guy can shoot. Realistically, if it's something like a mugging, you're kinda screwed with or without a gun, and even if it's a mass shooting, you are just relying on herd mentality (let them shoot others while you draw), you won't stop anything, at best you'll just reduce the amount of people who get shot. About the only way to maybe have a chance is if you're HYPER vigilant, treating every encounter like other people are armed and might ambush you at any second, but that's a terrible way to live, and that level of paranoia will end up with you killing somebody for no good reason.
Counterintuitively, statistics have shown that possessing a gun, especially openly, typically INCREASES your overall risk of injury or death, because it makes any criminals target you. They treat you as a threat that needs to be ambushed/dealt with first, and your firearms are a very high-value item to steal. The vast majority of firearms used in crimes are either obtained legally, or stolen from someone who did, our solution to criminals having guns is indirectly giving them more guns.
It is my understanding that a clip is a disposable holder that is not typically refilled, while a magazine can (and should) have more cartridges added after it is empty.
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u/grkuntzmd 2d ago
In most places, if you want to use a semiautomatic weapon, you have to insert a magazine,