I've had two somewhat-recent events highlight how dangerous it is to drop your presence of mind whilst carrying deadly force.
The first event was a light one; we'd gone to Texas Roadhouse for steaks, and my wife got her usual drink, and I pointedly waited until after the server left to fetch the drinks so she wouldn't be able to easily change her mind, and I leaned over and said with a barely-contained wry grin on my face, "Ma'am, may I relieve you of your firearm?"
She froze as her brain caught up to what she'd done. We then surreptitiously transferred her sidearm from her holster to the purse-mounted holster she keeps as backup, I took her purse out to the car, cleared the weapon, and stored it in the gun safe there, and returned with her purse.
This new lifestyle requires awareness in places previously left comfortably to auto-pilot.
The second event was more serious.
My wife and I attended a "Move & Shoot" event two nights ago. In a field of about 12, she placed in the top 5 and I came in dead last.
On the first level of the event, I was an absolute disaster. Pulled the gun, wrong grip, fumbled with that, couldn't find the sight, took two mediocre shots at the first target and, ignoring the other two targets, ran to the second station.
Halfway there I'd realized my mistake and made a note to run back to the first station afterwards to complete that requirement. Also decided to not take the mandatory reload until then.
Upon reaching the second station, I lifted (not pushed) the gun toward the first target and fired two shots WITHOUT EVER PLACING THE DOT ON TARGET. Starting getting into the groove for the second and third targets, then ran back to the first station to complete the requirements of the course, and did my reload en route.
Or, I should say, started my reload en route. I run two obversely-faced horizontal mag holders on my support side; I pulled up the shirt enough to clear the forward mag, but grabbed the rear mag -- and had to wait for it to roll, one agonizing square side at a time, down the inside of my of outer shirt until it finally arrived at my thigh where I could let it drop into my hand. (How many innocents might have died while I was jacking around with my shirt...ugh)
I slide the magazine in, but neglected to slam it in at the speed necessary to active the H&K auto-slide feature (not that it mattered since there was actually still a round in the chamber, but it was YET ANOTHER error on the field). Finally got off my last four shots and cleared the weapon.
Then we walked through to see my shot placement -- this event scored extra seconds to your time for A/B/C/Miss Zone shots, counting your best two (I didn't call 11 of the 12 shots so I had no way to know if redoing any shots would do me any good anyway). But the KILLER moment was as we got to the first target I shot at from the second station: TWO COMPLETE MISSES.
I replayed that moment in my head right then and there, because it was incomprehensible to me that someone who scores 88-97 on the regular in square range dry fire could miss TWICE on the same target -- and I found it. No dot on target -- shot one over each shoulder. So I may as well have killed some random 13- and 14- year-old kids behind my target. I was appalled.
With all the demerits for shot placement, my score was over 50 seconds.
Literally the only two things I did right was keep the gun pointed forward of the 180 line and I didn't shoot any of the body shield hostages.
Second level I did much better; all shots on target, most of my second shots were low left (was completely not paying attention to grip OR trigger squeeze), and I placed in the upper half of the field. Nothing would rescue me from the 50+ seconds on the first level, though.
So, a few things I need to work on:
1) Draw to grip
2) Draw to target
3) Grip whilst shooting
4) Pulling the correct mag for reload
5) Reloading
6) Remembering the course objectives
In other words: EVERY SINGLE THING
I thought I had everything dialed in reasonably well, but with even just the mild extra environmental distractions of a friendly event amongst people I trust, I was an absolute disaster in the field and would have been a danger to anyone in front of me.
Mr. Mantis and I are going to be getting to know each other a LOT for the foreseeable future.