Originally Posted by
Eurodriver
Good post, but why did it take five minutes to insert a mag and chamber a round? Are you "guestimating"? Five minutes is a very long time for anyone to get a handgun up and running, let alone someone who's been around firearms for 40 years. Maybe it was more like 30 seconds, but it felt like five minutes? I'm fairly confident you could disassemble, reassemble, and load your M&P in five minutes.
He beat me to it.
From a hardware perspective, it sounds like your best options are to either leave the magazine inserted with an empty chamber, or to not fully load the magazine for easier seating. I'm definitely not a fan of the latter, but your home circumstances are different than many of ours.
Software-wise, I'd ask you to re-examine your mindset just a little. I get that you've been hunting for many years, in austere environments, often in one of the few places in North America that has dangerous game. This is different. Instead of willingly going to such a place, and hunting or fending off an animal, you thought you were being attacked at home, by a highly intelligent predator. In essence, you were in that elk's or bear's shoes (this is not a PETA plea). This calls for a different mindset, different tactics, and different training, as much as it calls for a different firearm and gear(which you know).
Excellent firearms safety, handling, and marksmanship are one thing on the range, another thing when lining up the sights on game, and yet another thing when you're the intended prey. You have the right mindset, in that you want to protect your family, and your first thought when that door closed was that something was wrong. Now, take that mindset with you to the range, and let that thought, and the notion of shooting to protect you and yours, guide your training.
The advice above is worth exactly what you paid for it.
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