Well put. When I was trained in the PR-24, it was by a Monodoc instructor, who worked us, and beat the snot out of us, for two long eight hour days. And that was just the bare minumum before I could carry it on duty. We had a hanging dummy (we put Sgts chevrons on it) that I worked on, on my own time, for at least an hour a day for months before I really felt that I was pretty proficient with it. Plus practicing the take downs and come alongs on another officer. After that I whacked that dummy a little bit before every shift, and really worked on it once a week or so. For about twenty years.

And you are right on about flashing a weapon, any weapon. I have carried a firearm off duty, and now retired, since 1971. Luckily I never had to draw it, because I had made up my mind that it would not come out unless I fired it. No waving it around, no "stop police" stuff, it would be drawn and fired only if the badguy had already reached the point where lethal force was justified, ie to save a life. Please remember that we are talking off duty here. On duty I made a jillion felony arrests where I drew and aimed my weapon at a suspect, but I never had any intention of making an off duty arrest. Doing that is almost guaranteed to bite you in the butt eventually.

If you "flash" a weapon, no matter what it might be, and are not justified both legally and morally to use it, AND ready and willing to use it, you stand a really good chance of having the bad guy take it away from you, and then you are in deep doodoo...