You know, the more I think about it, I can understand some of the pushback against my position on external safeties and the more I think about it, the more I can see their point.
If your firearm has an external safety on it, you should practice, practice, practice with it, integrating the motion of disabling the safety with the natural motion of prepping the weapon for firing. At no time should you disengage the safety and consider that a done deal.
Here's the thing. I won't buy a particular weapon based on an external safety. I like the Glock mind set of going boom each time the trigger is pulled, no questions asked. However, not all my guns are Glocks. In fact, only one of them is, so that means there is an external safety on each of the others.
While I might not care for the safety, it is folly to pretend the damned thing won't be engaged at the worst possible moment. It takes no effort to flip a switch (unless you're talking about the Ruger Mark III 22/45 which is specifically designed to require a Rubix cube like dance to get to fire in the first place) and that motion should become as ingrained as pulling the trigger.
I never really meant to come across as an anti-safety guy. I'm not. I just want as little as possible to go wrong or get in the way when I draw my gun. But like everything else with firearms, training is key. When the waste product hits the gas accelerator, you will always fall back to your training. If you have a safety, train to disengage it for every draw. Period.