Posted on 11/11/2003 9:48:00 PM PST by Theodore R.
Choose The Right Gun
If you saw the recent video of "Old Mr. Grump" shooting the "Lucky Lawyer" in Los Angeles, you can learn a valuable lesson about which firearm to choose for self-defense.
The press rarely reports what kinds of guns are used in crimes, and usually gets it wrong when it tries. Nevertheless, I have concluded Mr. Grump used a .22-caliber pistol. Otherwise, the Lucky Lawyer would not have remained on his feet for so long.
Now, a .22, a .25 and a .32 will kill you, provided the bullet strikes a vital organ. Sometimes the person will bleed to death if the wounds are not treated promptly. But in a self-defense situation, you will not be comforted by the fact that your assailant bled to death an hour after he cut your throat or blew your brains out. And, as Mr. Grump demonstrated on camera, hitting a vital organ is not that easy for an untrained pistolero.
By the way, the numbers used to describe bullets refer to the diameter of the bullet. We use the English system, the Europeans use the metric system, but the diameters are the same.
Most people who know anything about guns recommend as a minimum the .38 special, preferably the .38 Plus P with hollow-point bullets, for self-defense. I have always personally favored the .45, either the .45 ACP or the .45 Long Colt. Of course, the .40, the .357 Magnum, the .41 Magnum, the .44 special and .44 Magnum will also more than do the job, but there are disadvantages to those weapons.
Firing a .44 Magnum in a close room is likely to make your ears ring for weeks. There is also the danger that the bullet will pass through the assailant, through a wall and into some innocent person. After all, most of us no longer live in stone castles, but in places built with cheap wood and plasterboard.
I am not recommending that you run out and buy a hog leg for self-defense. That's too important a decision to be made on the basis of a newspaper column. If you are, however, thinking about it and you are not familiar with firearms, you must first do three things.
One, you have to prepare yourself psychologically to take a human life. It's one thing that can't be undone. As my father said repeatedly when he was teaching me to shoot, "After you kill somebody, it's too late to be sorry." And so it is. In a life-and-death confrontation, you can't afford to conduct a debate on whether to pull the trigger or not. So, if you can't visualize yourself killing a human being and then living with it, you're better off buying a can of pepper spray.
Two, you must learn the laws in your state regarding self-defense. They are both easy and tricky. It's easy in that the law states that if you, as a reasonable person, believe that you and/or another person are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm, you can use whatever force is necessary to defend yourself. If you are inside your own home, you do not have to retreat.
Now the tricky part. Outside your home or place of business, if there is an escape route, you must take it. Even if someone walks up to you and spits in your face, slaps you or even punches you, you cannot whip out your gun and shoot the person. Killing for the sake of honor is no longer allowed in our decadent society more's the pity, as it would greatly improve manners. Nor can you claim self-defense if you initiate the confrontation. For example, if you start a fistfight and your opponent whips out a knife or gun and you shoot him, that's not self-defense. Even in your own home or business, if the assailant turns tail, you cannot shoot him in the back and claim self-defense. If you plan to use a firearm for self-defense, you had better know the law, or you'll see the inside of a prison.
Third, you have to buy your gun and then practice diligently to become really proficient in its use, so proficient that you can use it in the dark when you're scared and caught by surprise.
And finally, a politically incorrect word of advice passed along to me years ago by a veteran cop: If you have to shoot somebody, make sure the judge will hear only your version of what happened. In other words, kill; otherwise, your assailant will probably sue you.
© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Glock Perfection....in a 40 cal. Standard Issue of the FBI and 75% of US Law Enforcement.
Stay Safe ........sleep ?
This incident also teaches a good lesson about the use of cover and the value of not giving up. The victim did a good job of using a relatively small tree as a barrier to prevent the attacker from closing on him. The virtually unaimed shots were far less damaging than a contact wound to the head or chest would have been.
Six .22 slugs delivered to center of mass is a tremendous challenge to the circulatory system and the victim would probably not have survived it.
I don't think a .22 short would stick in the meat of the neck which something fairly clearly did.
If blanks, which would hurt like hell were used it wouldn't fit the media's agenda anyway.
I have a P32 and have had two problems with mine after about 70-80 rounds thru it.
In the first instance, the trigger pull grew progressively longer as I approached 50 rounds. It then could not be pulled back far enough to fire.
After that was fixed, I put another 20 rounds thru it and it jammed. The reason was that the plastic recoil guide rod has worn down from friction and allowed the recoil spring to slip into the guide hole along with the guide rod.
Now I don't target shoot it anymore but still have it. Just make sure you keep a new guide rod handy to use for serious shooting.
I hear ya, but I've just never been able to shoot them as accurately as semi-autos, for some reason. (I can't hit the side of a barn with a .357 snubbie......shooting 125 gr. full-power .357 loads). And the semi-autos I shoot best are 1911's, which fit my hand like a glove. .....although I'm uncomfortable with the short-barreled (<4 in.) varieties. When CharterArms comes out with that bobbed-tail Bulldog .44 Spl I'll give it a try as my "grab and go" piece.
Q. Can I shoot +p in my .38 five shot revolver?
A. Charter .38's are the smallest revolvers in this caliber, they can handle +p but we do not recommend a steady diet. Studies have shown that +p ammo is not a great defensive round because the bullet travels so fast that unless a critical area is hit the perpetrators may not be stopped. We recommend hollow points and full metal jacketed ammo as it will open and have a better chance stopping the intruder.
This doesn't make sense to me. First of all, their assertion that FMJ ammo will "open" - I'd imagine they mean 'expand' - is clearly false, from my experience with phone books and water jugs anyway. And secondly, their suggestion that +p .38 ammo has essentially the same (or even less!) stopping power as standard-pressure .38 flies in the face of all street-stats I've seen. Obviously hitting a "critical area" is most desirable, and I'd rather hit the CNS with any .38 than miss it with a .45. But the quote above seems to be suggesting that the +p's extra velocity is a hindrance, all other factors being equal.
But I gotta tell you, that lawyer was awsome.
Perhaps mistakenly, legislators in Kalifornia are afraid that armed bystanders might just exercise too much discretion in identifying who is the victim and who is the attacker.
This might be especially a problem if one of the parties was a lawyer. Perhaps this lawyer owes his life to the disarmament of his clientele. If four or five of his former customers had been in the area, he might have been a goner.
Reinforces the old saying, doesn't it? - - An armed society is a polite society.
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