After training thousands of people how to use the Byrna over the last several years, the most consistent mistake we see at every training, especially in novice shooters, is a failure to disengage the safety before trying to shoot. And this is occurring on a static range in a low stress environment.

As we talked about in a recent Byrna Hot Take Podcast, in a critical incident our low brain takes over and drives our actions based on our previously trained responses. So if you’re facing an attacker and you are a novice shooter or you haven’t done considerable training with a weapon that has an external safety, it is HIGHLY unlikely you will remember to disengage that safety, wasting valuable seconds.

This is why we created the EP without an external safety. The more simple the system, the more likely you are to successfully deploy it in a critical incident. So get out there and train early, and train often, and pick the launcher that works best for you, so that if the time comes, you are prepared to defend.