Most people buy an automatic, get the gunmaker to load it for them, and put it in a drawer or their pocket, and keep it like that for years, or worse, leave it lying about loaded.
A pistol must be periodically cleaned. If it is kept loaded for years, it will probably jamb if any one attempts to fire it.
A pistol kept loaded is a constant source of danger to everyone, including the owner.
I knew of a case where a revolver was kept loaded by a bedside for twenty years and thrown into a trunk each time the owner went on a journey.
After the owner’s death, I was asked to see if the pistol was safe.
It was lying in its case beside the bed, and when I opened the case I found the barrel was lying so that it pointed at the head of any one sleeping in the bed.
I found it loaded in all the chambers, the hammer let down on one of the caps so that its sharp point, by constant friction, had polished and nearly worn through the cap.
I took it into the garden and fired that cartridge.
The hammer had during all those years rested on this cap and the least tap on the hammer would have fired it. Each time it was thrown into the trunk it was a mercy it had not gone off.
If it had remained on the cap much longer, the sharp nose of the hammer would have reached the fulminate and fired the revolver.