Many pistol safeties that are located near the trigger operate side-to-side. That means that it&#x27;s easy, depending on which hand is holding, either to go from safe to fire <i>or</i> from fire to safe, but going the other direction requires using the other hand. Most shooters would prefer the safe-to-fire transition to be easy. Not all safeties on modern firearms are set up like this, however.<p>De-cocking mechanisms may be located on only one side, although most are on both.<p>I&#x27;ve never seen a slide release that wasn&#x27;t limited to only one side. That would seem unavoidable from a physics perspective.<p>However, your question is a bit off-target. Most shooters, particularly early in the previous century, would learn with a rifle first, and their rifle preferences would transfer to their pistol use.