"What Gun Should I Buy?"

I get that question from time to time and it is a question I have come to hate. It is like asking "what kind of car should I buy" or anything else. It all depends on what you are going to use it for. It depends on how hard you are willing to work to master it. And, while it should be obvious, everything I say here (and elsewhere on this blog) is my opinion. Rely on my opinions at your own risk, folks.

I was in a gunshop a few weeks ago and saw a nearly new Springfield Armory micro-compact .45 in the used gun case. Without asking, I bet I know what happened: someone bought the gun, fired it a few times, thought the recoil was too much and put it up for sale. People, after all, complain about the recoil of a GI .45 and a M1911 is not a lightweight gun.

The same thing happened with .44 magnums were popular. As Dirty Harry would say: You have to know your limitations. You can always trade up or buy another gun as you work on your skills.

Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, that we are talking about handguns for self-defense. If you have never shot a gun, take a class! Find a place with a certified instructor and take a class; this is not the time for your Uncle Mort to take you out back, have you fire off six shots and you're done. At a class, you will learn the basics and you will probably get to shoot several different types of guns. Believe me on this: It is not the easiest thing in the world to shoot a handgun accurately (though I have seen a couple of natural shooters in my time).

Here is my first thought: If you are new to this, a 4" barreled fixed sight .357 revolver is hard to beat. There is a reason why most cops carried such revolvers well into the 1980s: They work. There is nothing to remember about working the gun, you aim at your target and squeeze the trigger through until the gun fires. Revolvers also do not depend on the energy of the cartridge to function (unlike automatics). So you can fire lightweight .38 target loads, .38 specials, .38+P rounds and .357 rounds. As you get used to one level of cartridge, you can work your way up the power scale. You may have to aim a little high or low to compensate for the sights, but fixed sights rarely get knocked out of alignment while if you ever drop a revolver with adjustable sights and it lands on them, hello gunsmith!

Leave automatics until later. Automatics are more of a professional grade and the .45 ACP cartridge is the gold standard. But automatics vary across the board. For some of them, you push the thumb safety up to fire, others you push it down. It's embarrassing to screw it up on the range, in a self-defense situation you can get killed as you try to pull the trigger against the safety you thought was off. Second, a lot of automatics have fairly light trigger pulls and in a stressful situation, you may fire unintentionally if you have your finger on the trigger. Third, automatics can jam if you don't hold them right; they are designed to function if held properly and can and will jam if you "limp-wrist" a shot.

Start out with a revolver.

More to come.