Quoted: reason you might want to consider the pump gun over the pistol because is because it's alot harder to shoot yourself when your groogy and tired with a long gun than a hand gun.  Believe me there are alot of recorded accidents where people wake up in a hurry, think they hear something and go for the gun and boom!  Always, no matter what someone tells you, keep the gun in a holster!  Then effort of taking it out will wake your brain up and keep you from shooting thewrong person (yourself!)

I few years back a friend of mine came home to a robbery in progress at his (remote) house. He grabbed his 45, and cocked the slide from the front, instead of the rear (like you're supposed to). Cocking a pistol from the front is very dangerous as my friend found out. He shot 2 of his own fingers off his left hand!

The doctors re-attached his fingers but he was never able to use them much again.

Never cock a pistol from the front, in fact I think its dangerous even having cocking serrations on the front of a slide for this very reason.

Quoted: Never cock a pistol from the front, in fact I think its dangerous even having cocking serrations on the front of a slide for this very reason.

A better idea is to not have your finger on the trigger when you rack the slide.

Quoted: Quoted: Never cock a pistol from the front, in fact I think its dangerous even having cocking serrations on the front of a slide for this very reason. A better idea is to not have your finger on the trigger when you rack the slide.

I wouldn't look down the barrel while racking the slide either.