Even Worse Than Guilt

Sondra K. wanted to know if I could offer gun advice to a female blogger who lives somewhere in my general area of the state. I’m not qualified to give advice, but I tried to direct her to some better resources. And I blogrolled her; can’t believe she wasn’t already on the list.

I don’t know what a woman should carry. The Glock 26 comes to mind. Some people recommend .38 snubnoses, apparently on the theory that women are too stupid to operate semi-automatics, but the .38 is not a good defensive round. If it’s not for carry, maybe a .410 shotgun is the way to go.

While I was looking for stuff to recommend, I came across an interesting report about the uncertainty of stopping an assailant with one shot. People like to criticize the 9mm pistol, and a sort of worship has developed around the .45 ACP round, but apparently some criminals barely notice 230-grain .45 ACP shots to the chest. They persist in attacking and then survive. How about that?

What’s the lesson here? Maybe the lesson is that you should shoot for the face, if you are capable of doing so. I know from watching shooters at the range that most people can’t do it, even up close. But many can. If you’re an experienced shooter, and you’re in a self-defense situation, it may well be possible for you to aim well and shoot the attacker in the brain. It wouldn’t work well if you were rushed, but I’m sure that if people who have been in gunfights could be questioned, an appreciable percentage would say they had time to aim. People always say to shoot for the center of mass, but every situation is different. Isn’t it a mistake to rigidly adhere to principles that don’t work well in every situation?

Another thought: maybe using a pistol to defend yourself is just plain stupid, when you could just as easily reach for a shotgun. Where movement is restricted, or where you have to carry on your person, a shotgun won’t work well. But in your house, why not? A shotgun is much more destructive, and because it has a long barrel (not because of the mythical giant pattern that covers an entire wall), you’re less likely to miss. And you can mount a light and a laser on it, and you can crush a burglar’s skull or testicles or push his teeth down his throat with the butt. The big drawback, I would guess, is low magazine capacity. But some shotguns hold a fair amount of ammunition.

I think a great idea would be to buy a high-capacity autoloader, put a laser and light on it, and pay the fee for a short barrel. I think you have to pay an extra $200 if you want to possess a “sawed-off” shotgun. Geez, that sounds like a bargain.

Finally, we are not devoting enough effort to point-shooting, which is shooting without using sights. I used to point-shoot an old CO2 pistol a lot, and it’s easy to get to the point where you really can’t miss at room-to-room distances. With a long gun, it’s even easier. Give me a day of practice, and I’ll be able to hit man-size targets from the hip all day long at 7 yards, even if they’re moving. A skill like that would be a horror for a burglar or even a team of burglars to face. For those times when you can’t aim carefully, a shotgun fired from the hip would be a life-saver.

I also ran across a news video of an interview with a man who was forced to kill two robbers with an 11-shot pistol. Sounds like he may be a Glock 26 man. This poor guy had a string of ghetto apartments, and he and his wife were cleaning one to get it ready for renting, and two idiots in ski masks came into the apartment and menaced him with some sort of pistol that looked like an Uzi. He managed to shoot both of them twice, hitting one in the face. They both died at the scene. I admire him tremendously. He fully expected to die, but he was determined to save his wife, so he pulled his gun and fired, and thank God, he survived. But it’s not really a happy ending. These jerks made him take their lives, and now he has to live with the memory and the reputation.

They knew he had rent money in his wallet, and the robber holding the gun told him he was going to die. Helpful hint for robbers: don’t tell your victims they’re going to die. Tell them everything will be fine if they cooperate. Otherwise, they have nothing to lose, so they fight back. This guy would probably have handed over his wallet, had he believed they would leave. I certainly would. Unfortunately, criminals are sadistic as well as greedy, so they enjoy terrifying their victims, hence the pointless and counterproductive death threats.