Conventional Wisdom can get you Killed

Let’s vandalize some toxic icons.

I wrote about the great news concerning pistol braces. These things are used as rifle buttstocks, to allow shooters to use rifle-caliber pistols just like rifles, held at the shoulder. The rule banning them was just stayed by a federal judge, and it will remain unenforceable for the next few years, barring a miracle no one who can determine his own gender without professional help wants to see. The courts will be very slow to do anything about it, and they will probably leave the injunction in place and do away with the ban.

I wanted to get one of these things for a Ruger 10-22 pistol as well as an AK-47 pistol. The Ruger is for tooling around the farm in my utility cart. The AK would be for protection while on the road. In a small space, it’s a little easier to swing than a full-length AK. Also, with a short AK, you only lose about 10% of your muzzle velocity, so it’s a good trade.

Ed Bonderenka commented:

That’s good news, but my AR pistol is accurate from the hip with the green laser attached. I mean chew up the bullseye accurate.
For me a brace would just make it bulkier.
But is is a big move because of the constitutional issues, particularly standing against the administrative state.
I might buy one just because.

No argument here.

The web is full of people who parrot gun myths as though they came from Jesus himself, and one of the myths says you can’t shoot a powerful gun accurately unless you shoulder it. Total nonsense. They also say lasers are toys that don’t really work. The US military disagrees, but whatever.

I remember writing some stuff about intending to shoot a 12-gauge from the hip, using a laser. A blogger who used to write a lot about guns said he couldn’t control such a gun with his “gorilla” arms, making the obvious implication about my arms and chances.

I bought a Saiga-12 shotgun. I bought a cheap Chinese laser. I went to a gun range. I put a target up at 50 feet. I put shots in a circle the size of a tennis ball, more or less, from the hip. No problem. Child’s play. With my non-gorilla arms.

Maybe my squirrel monkey arms have something his gorilla arms don’t, but I doubt it. If he had tried what I tried, he would have said something completely different. Maybe he didn’t have lasers in mind. I can’t remember.

Interesting fact: a 12-gauge has more recoil than a .30-06, an AK has much less, and an AR is even further down the list. I’m trying to say that a 12-gauge has all sorts of recoil. Worse than most deer guns.

Another interesting fact: when you use a laser, recoil doesn’t matter much.

“Blasphemy! Blasphemy!”, I hear the gun Sadducees shrieking. They are always the last to accept the obvious truth.

Why does recoil matter when you’re defending yourself? A couple of reasons. It may teach you to flinch, and it will also knock your gun off-target, so you have to find the target in your sights again.

When you have a laser, flinching doesn’t mean much. Where is the dot when you pull the trigger? That’s where the bullet will go. It’s that simple. Try it some time. People say it doesn’t really work. It does. It’s impossible for it not to work. Flinch all you want. As long as the dot is on the mark when the trigger is pulled, you win.

When you have a laser, finding the target again, instantly, is no problem. You have a big, giant beam in front of you. Shoot. Put the beam back on the target. Done. Shoot again. Squinting at black iron sights is a lot harder. Reacquiring your target through a scope is also hard, and in many cases, it will be impossible because you won’t have enough light to see through the scope.

People are taught to obsess on iron sights and scopes. You need to be able to use these things. No doubt about it. But teaching people to rely on them is really, really stupid. Why? Because MOST VIOLENT CRIMES OCCUR AT NIGHT.

YOW. Ouch. That stings, if you’re a gun Sadducee. Make a comment and tell us I’m wrong. Tell us your secret method for using iron sights or a red dot in a dark bedroom. I can’t wait to hear.

It’s not just hard. It can’t be done. So people who advise us to rely on iron sights and scopes aren’t just shooing us away from the best optics; they’re teaching us to be totally helpless IN MOST SELF-DEFENSE SITUATIONS.

That’s pretty bad.

When I get up in the morning, I turn the burglar alarm off. Why? Because nobody is going to break in while I’m here and the sun is out. That’s just a fact. They might break in at night even though they can tell I’m here, because darkness and surprise work to their advantage. They’re not going to show up in the daytime, when the police and I can see them clearly.

It’s true that most burglaries take place in the daytime, but the primary purpose of a firearm isn’t to stop burglaries, which most commonly happen when people are at work. It’s to stop home invasions, which are burglaries that take place in occupied houses.

If you ever have to defend yourself from a criminal in your home, chances are, it will be dark out, and your house may be dark, too. Good luck trying to aim at a burglar when you can’t see your sights. You’re going to spray and pray, just like everyone else who took the bad advice.

My carry pistol has a laser that turns on by itself when I pick the gun up. Wake me up, and I can have it in my hand in one second. That’s pretty good. In one second, I can be well-armed while I pick up a rifle and turn its laser on. After that, my house is a really bad place for a burglar to be.

Burglars don’t use good optics. They don’t even learn how to shoot. They generally use polymer pistols they steal from their neighbors, with whatever ammunition was in them when they were stolen. If I have a rifle with a bright green laser, and my guest has a Taurus pistol he got by breaking into a car, who do you think will get shot the soonest and the most?

How much time do you think I’ll spend making sure I have a good sight picture or just the right grip?

“Hold on, Mr. Burglar! I have to make sure my isosceles stance is just right!” “I have to put on my tactical socks and call Massad Ayoob!” I don’t think so.

If you like spending money, you can do even better. You can get night vision plus an infrared laser criminals can’t see. You’ll see the criminal and the big dot of light, and he will not even know where you are.

That brings me to another creaky talking point: “A laser will tell the criminal where you are!”

He’s almost certainly going to know where you are anyway. I admit, it’s great if he doesn’t, but he probably will. And if you use a laser, by the time you light him up, he will not have enough time to do anything about it. He’ll have a pretty good idea where you are, as you shoot him repeatedly.

And you won’t be helpless because you’re trying to find your tiny black sights in the dark.

You don’t have to walk around with your laser on, lighting up the neighborhood like Rudolph the Green-Nosed Reindeer. You can switch it on right before you shoot.

The Sadduccees love to say lasers make you dependent on gimmicks. Isn’t that better than being dependent on sights you can’t use because it’s dark? Either way, you’re going to be dependent on something.

So to sum up, you can shoot a powerful gun perfectly well from the hip with a laser. It will not be the best answer for killing people at long distances, but if you’re shooting people far away, you’re probably what the law calls “a murderer.” If a criminal is so far away you can’t hit him using a laser, he is probably too far away to pose a threat a jury will confirm.

If lasers are so great, why consider a shouldered weapon? Lasers are pretty bad outdoors in bright conditions. Also, they can malfunction. You may be in a situation where you need to be able to use the sights.

A folding weapon with a laser, to me, appears to be the best option for defense outside the home. When it’s folded, you will be able to maneuver it in the car. The laser will be helpful most of the time. If you have to get out of the car for some reason, you can unfold the stock and use the sights.

You can also stick a red dot on a folding gun along with the laser. A red dot is fantastic for shooting a gun you can’t shoulder. You can nail anyone within a hundred feet without too much trouble.

Maybe I should listen to Ed and forget the brace. If I get a braced pistol, I can fool with it and decide for myself.