When competing in IDPA, the standard method to demonstrate that the gun is clear after finishing a stage is to remove the magazine, cycle the slide to empty the chamber, allow the range officer to inspect the empty chamber, close the slide, point down range, and pull the trigger to lower the hammer. The range officer won't let you holster until you lower the hammer or release the striker. Which you can't do if you have a magazine safety. You have to insert an empty magazine, pull the trigger, then remove the empty magazine. Pain in the rear and completely pointless.
More importantly, one of the biggest causes of malfunctions is not seating the magazine completely. If you don't have the magazine completely seated, you might feed the first round when you close the slide, but if you fire, the magazine will slide down and the second round won't chamber. If you don't have a magazine safety, you still have that first round in your chamber that will fire. If you do have a magazine safety, you don't even have that -- you just have an awkwardly shaped club.
Magazine release buttons can get bumped off inadvertently. In the unlikely event that happens, I want to have a single round that will fire.
The only way to ensure that your gun is safe is to remove the magazine, lock the slide open, visually and manually check the chamber. Anything else like a magazine safety or chamber loaded indicator is not to be trusted.
In addition, magazine safeties on some guns have been known to fail in bad ways.
I agree that you should have all your guns the same -- either with or without a magazine safety. For me, I won't own a gun with a magazine safety. It just gets in the way.
![[grin]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/041.gif "Grin [grin]")
