Posted on 07/04/2002 6:17:30 PM PDT by newwahoo
I need help picking a weapon from FR's firearms gurus!
Here's the deal:
1. The choices consist of the Glock 19, Sig Sauer 226, or (boo) S&W 5946. I know you all have your favorites but these are the options and they're not going to change.
2. Money is not an issue, nor is ease of use. If one is more work but worth the effort then its worth getting. I'll just have to invest the time and energy. My life is worth it so thats ok.
3. Concealment and weight are not critical. Reliability and my confidence level are far more important to me.
4. As you could probably tell, I'm already leaning against the S&W for political reasons. I'm going to need a real compelling reason to carry one of their guns.
Thank you for your opinions and experiences.
Seriously, concealed carry concentrates your mind like nothing else. The realization of the responsibility resting on your shoulders entails situation avoidance, constant vigilance, and prudent clear thinking. And it does for every decent citizen.
Tough choices. It's not always going to be confronting Colin Ferguson who is flitting down the aisle shooting subway riders. There are moral and legal issues that demand sober and justifiable assessments of life peril before shooting an assailant. That's the stuff I'd be concentrating on and the scenarios I'd be visualizing at significant length before I strapped the holster on and went out my front door.
In the situation you describe, I would NOT go to my car until the punks left my car. I would call mall security or the police if necessary. If I HAD to get to my car for some reason (I can't think of anything other than one of my kids inside, and there's no reason they would be in the car by themselves. If they want to steal my car, have at it. That's what insurance is for.) I would trigger the alarm from my keypad on my keychain first and see if that didn't run them off. No way I walk into a three against one situation.
If it was just one punk and not three, and he wasn't right on top of my car, I would probably chance heading to the car with my hand at the ready. I have done that once. I was leaving work late at night, my car was all by itself in the middle of a deserted parking lot under a downtown viaduct, and this guy starts walking from the viaduct out towards my car. (I don't work there any more; I was young and foolish and really needed a job.) He reversed course once I positioned myself behind the door pillar of my car and gave him a long steady look. Had he advanced instead of retreating, I would have ordered him to stop while drawing and disengaging the safety but not revealing the firearm. Had he continued to advance, so long as I could see his hands I would probably not shoot, but if I couldn't see his hands or he got within 20 feet, he would be a dead man and I would do any necessary explaining to the police upon their arrival. (But you know a guy would have to be crazy or on drugs to continue to walk towards a person in that situation.)
That's what I think they call a "counsel of perfection" - what I have been trained to do and what I believe I would do when the chips were down. But nobody knows what they will do until they have to . . . the two times I needed a firearm I never really had to display it (although assuming a defensive position probably gave the guy an idea that I was ready for him.) My dad on the other hand has shot two guys (neither was killed) and I witnessed one incident. He didn't mess around at all in either case, but in the first he was shooting at an escaping prisoner during WWII, and in the second it was a burglar and he didn't need to consider go/no go the way you have to out in the outside world.
And before anybody recalls my words regarding dad and never seeing a live German with a .45 wound . . . this was an American GI who was in the stockade having been charged with rape of an Italian civilian. He made a run for it, and dad shot at him from about 20 yards. He aimed at his feet but accidentally hit him in the head. Given the distance and what was apparently a glancing blow (or a very very hard skull) the bullet travelled around the guy's scalp from back to front, lodging under the skin just above his eyes. He wasn't seriously hurt. It did, however, knock him down and knock him cold. (/strange tales from WWII)
I can only imagine. Carrying the gun gives you ultimate life preserving security ... but, it also limits options in a way. It is a vulnerability in the fact that confrontations that can usually be disposed of by physical force or intimidation without facing grave threat can no longer be risked. The firearm is within unacceptable proximity of seizure by the bad guy. The fear of losing control of the weapon influences your perception of threat. The situation is automatically more perilous and fragile just by the fact that you are packing. It's about trouble avoidance like you say, at every opportunity. That's serious, serious contemplation and visualization. You don't want chaotic surprises when you wield a gun. Woooo. It's not all fun and games, is it? ;^) Regards!
My take on it is that WHAT brand of gun (as long as we're talking about reasonably high-quality guns) is far less important than HOW MANY THOUSAND rounds you shoot at the range getting good with whatever you have
In combat between an expert pistol marksman carrying a Raven .25 versus a novice carrying a Les Baer 1911, the first guy is going to win.
More than one MMMer has been in trouble because of violence, gun and otherwise.
Some of us have discussed, and someone recently chimed in with a shrink's perspective, that these folks really don't trust themselves and project that same distrust to others. Your date seems to be in that mold. If it were true, gun shows would be the most violent places. Those plastic ties on actions mean nothing and one can buy ammo at any of a number of tables. But gun shows are EXTREMELY quiet, polite places.
When it comes to the truth of who values life and who doesn't, we can see by repeated actions that Liberals don't.
My S&W sucks, dude. Trigger is heavy and jams all the time. Glock's cool but if you're rookie that non-safety feature might get to ya... Go SIG, dude...
I'll back that statement up. I've tried a bunch of different ones, and for the money, the Glock is quite the combat pistol. I particulary like it in .40 S&W (kind of a hybrid between 9mm and .45 ACP). Of course, I didn't give up my .45 Combat Commander, but the compact Glock sure is lighter and dead on in accuracy. Great conceal carry gun...
My brother is a flaming lib. We argued once about guns. I said, "Let's do an experiment. We'll outlaw guns for five years. Lock 'em up, nobody can use one for 5 years. Note the incidence of violent crime at the beginning and end of the 5-year period. Then, for the next 5 years, everybody who is not insane and has no criminal record must be trained and must carry. Conscientious objectors can opt out. Again, note the crime rate at the beginning and at the end. The deal: whichever 'test' has the lower violent-crime rate becomes the new status quo. If you win, we'll repeal the Second Amendment. If I win, everybody keeps carrying."
Just a thought experiment; not serious. Do you suppose he was willing to 'take a bet' on it?
--Boris
When a woman like Carolyn McCarthy views a scenario where a mass murder lusting Colin Ferguson boards the Long Island line, produces a semi-automatic rifle, starts executing passengers who have no defense because they are prohibited from carrying handguns, kills her husband and cripples her son ... when she views this carnage and deduces that Colin Ferguson's GUN was the culprit ... these idiots are irredeemable. They think that a guy who is willing to risk the death penalty to engageme in mass murder would somehow be unwilling to chance that misdemeanor illegal possession rap. "Lethal injection, sure, but $200 and a community gun awareness course ... nah, man, that's too heavy." They're insane.
These people don't THINK, they just EMOTE. And I really think that Eagle Eye is right too, they are so afraid of their own inadequacy, cowardice, and lack of self-control that they don't want ANYBODY to have the right of self-defense. At the same time, however, they somehow conclude that "government" has collectively the virtues that they deny individuals, so if the government just has all the guns everything will be o.k.
The only method I have found that works to confound them is if you can stick to the straight Socratic method (as found in Plato, not in law school). Keep asking innocent questions, VERY innocent (don't let your voice get an edge, or roll your eyes -- adopt the persona of the "earnest inquirer who gets converted at the end of the meeting." Think of the Lamb in C.S. Lewis's "The Last Battle") . . . one trick is to get them to air their views on police brutality, profiling, etc., then trap them into saying that government should have guns, then point out that they have already said the the police and the military are brutal racists who should not be trusted . . . at that point their brains explode . . . stand back to keep away from the mess.
Seriously, you can't expect to convert these idiots in one sitting. All you can do is lead THEM into realizing the contradictions inherent in their position. Then, if they have ANY brains at all (they usually do, they just haven't used them for a while) they will think about what you have led them into saying, and maybe rethink their philosophy. After several months of this treatment, you invite them to go shooting. I have actually converted a soccer mom this way (She looked up, grinning, from behind my customized 1911A1 and said, "HEY! This is FUN!")
I don't think he used a rifle.
Someone correct me if I am wrong--but as I recall he used handgun(s) purchased legally in L.A.
To be extremely blunt: both of them were raised with the muddle-headed liberal idea that, if a person has a dark skin, he must be an oppressed victim of the Evil Dominant Culture and therefore cannot, by definition, be a bad person. But . . . here is their husband or child, dead or grievously wounded. They MUST blame someone or something, and they cannot blame the perpetrator, because they have been miseducated to believe that its not HIS fault . . . he is an oppressed victim. So the easiest course is to blame the inanimate object.
It's part and parcel of the liberal desire to pigeonhole the entire world into Groups . . . victims and oppressors, mostly . . . by the color of their skin, or their sex, or their national origin, or their religion, whatever . . . only when they see human beings as individuals and judge each one on his or her own actions, will they break out of this dream (nightmare) world.
Thank you! My intention is to be the very best that I can be. I want the taxpayers to get more than their moneys worth out of me.
Unfortunately, considering how tight things are around here in NY it is bound to happen. If I was as far away from a suspicious person as I'd like to be I'd probably be in Jersey.
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