Freddie is a personal friend and also an excellent instructor and can teach you plenty about firearms retention, including advanced ground techniques if you trip, fall or have somebody push you and pile on top of you. He has a lot of experience in various forms of martial arts, including wrestling, judo (if I remember correctly) aikido and probably others. Sometimes in the combat league we spent as much time on the mat as we did on the range. At my age that wasn't entirely pleasant but it certainly was valuable training. We even cross-trained with an advanced Krav Maga class so we could become familiar with what to expect from an opponent who is skilled in unarmed combat, while they learned what to expect from people who are skilled with firearms.
Freddie's not a fan of OC, at least not for people who haven't had a certain level of gun retention training. We don't see entirely eye-to-eye on the issue because as I pointed out to him, OC is the only option for most people. He has stated in the past that he's relatively ok with OC among the shooters in the Advanced Civilian Combat League that he used to run at Deerfield, although I believe I am the only one in that group who actually OC's on a regular basis.
Personally, I think his opinion is based upon the experience of police, who-- despite their gun retention training-- still have guns taken away from them all too often. I think police have their guns taken away much more often than non-police simply due to the fact that police work involves frequently doing things that the rest of us are rarely called upon to do, e.g., pursue and apprehend criminals, clear unfamiliar buildings, break up fights, etc. These are risky activities, even for trained people.
CC changes things somewhat, because the concealment itself is the primary physical defense against someone taking your gun. But even then, if your gun is discovered somehow, your defenses against a gun grab are the same as when you OC. Most concealment holsters are built to retain a gun from falling out during normal activity, not to protect from a grab in the same manner as a well-built duty holster. Even a duty holster is far from fool-proof, particularly when up against a savvy opponent who may be able to snatch a gun from your holster, or even your hand, in a flash. I've seen it done plenty of times.
