I'm far from the only one who thinks it's silly.

Ready To Rack?

You’ve heard the phrase “Racking a shotgun is the international sound of ‘get out’.” Actually, it is the international sound of “my gun is not loaded.” This cliché falls off the tongue and sounds witty, but it encourages people to keep their home-defense weapon in an unprepared state. Once again, if you are reaching for a gun, it is a bad day and you need it immediately. Any delay can have lethal consequences.

Whether the semi is quicker than a pump would depend on the semi. Most are slower than a pump because they have an action designed to harvest energy at a controlled rate, which serves to deliver the recoil over a longer period of time, softening the 'kick.' A pump will run as fast as your arm can run it. But it takes a lot of practice with a pump to cycle it without screwing up your sight picture one round to the next. Without a good deal of practice, follow-ups tend to be easier with an autoloader, and follow-ups are always critical because anything worth shooting once is worth shooting three times. I saw quite a few jarhea ... I mean Marines in Iraq carrying the Benelli M4 shotgun. I saw one in the chow hall on Camp Fallujah carrying the crazy drum magazine-fed full-auto Atchisson AA12. And I'd have given my left nut to take that home with me.