Just an Earth-Bound Misfit: The Rantings of an Aging, Armed, Pinko Chick

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Friday, June 8, 2018

Better an Old Gun Than No Gun

A cap-and-ball revolver is a whole lot better than nothing.

8 comments:

Eck! said...: A lot of people in the old west and Civil war died from getting
in the way of those.

Tough to fast reload and low power, but none the less effective
now, as then.

Eck!; 6/08/2018 5:11 PM
Comrade Misfit said...: Rule 1: Carry a gun.; 6/08/2018 10:18 PM
BadTux said...: The reality is that the person with a knife could have killed him before he got the pistol out of its holster, regardless of what kind of pistol See: Tueller Drill. But the person with the knife was looking for a soft target, and a pistol meant not a soft target. As would have a large tactical knife, most likely. So dude was lucky he encountered someone who wasn't ready and willing to take out a hard target.

That said, a black powder cap and ball pistol definitely is sufficient for self defense purposes, most of which takes place at short distances and is done within three shots (see again: Tueller Drill, if you haven't gotten the perp within three shots, he's on you). The notion that you can't defend yourself without a 17 shot magazine is ridiculous. Cops have 17 shot magazines because they operate in packs where one repositions himself while the others lay down suppressive fire. That's not the kind of encounter that happens in self defense situations.; 6/10/2018 1:17 AM
Comrade Misfit said...: The notion that no human can absorb seventeen shots and keep on coming is, also, ridiculous.
A little search can find incidents where people absorbed hit after hit and kept fighting. They died, but they weren't stopped quickly enough.

But hey, maybe we can keep people out of dangerous situations by reducing the capacity and effectiveness of their safety equipment. One easy example springs to mind; nobody should try to fight a fire, the professionals should do that. So let's limit the size of home and office fire extinguishers.; 6/10/2018 12:06 PM
CenterPuke88 said...: Six was good enough for Dirty Harry...

But anyway, I’d prefer Rule 1 was “Maintain an awareness and knowledge of your surroundings and the goings on within that area.” That step along will reduce most problems, however, in the case mentioned, would likely not have changed the situation. Carrying a defensive weapon is certainly a good idea, but it need not necessarily be a gun in all circumstances.

I also was surprised at the belief that the gun resolved the situation, given the closeness of the two parties. As suggested by Tux, the punk wasn’t willing to commit to the crime with a defense displayed...I suggest that any type of defensive weapon would have sufficed in this encounter. That is NOT to suggest a gun doesn’t have its place in the pantheon of defensive weapons.

As for the Glock magazine issue (17 rounders), IDK. I’m far from sure that a change to a 10 round limit would do much with regard to pistol usage in shootings, versus my dislike of the huge capacity magazines available for some rifles. I can’t find many valid uses for much above 10-20 rounds at a go, but that isn’t to say there are no uses. Also, rifles are (or, perhaps, were) less commonly used in these multiple shooting crimes.

As always, I’m left straddling the fence...; 6/10/2018 12:09 PM
BadTux said...: Comrade, three seconds.

That's the typical duration of a defensive use of a firearm. Three seconds. If you have not either killed the perp, dissuaded the perp, or removed yourself from his vicinity within three seconds, he is on you and unless you are highly skilled and trained in hand-to-hand combat (or are large enough that it doesn't matter) your gun is going to be in his hands.

Police officers are engaged in offensive use of a firearm. It is a different scenario.

I maintain that the perfect weapon for home defense, in the event that you aren't able to keep a shotgun readily available due to its bulk, is a .357 revolver with hollow point rounds. Point, click, bang, bad guy gets a bad day. A 17-round Glock is a lousy home defense weapon, 9mm lacks stopping power, penetrates too well through walls, and is easy to jam by limp-wristing when you're trying to fire while panicked and forgetting everything you ever learned about how to shoot. Police officers in good police departments undergo regular hot-cold training to overcome the last problem and are regularly dealing with nasty characters so aren't going to panic when confronted with one, but franky, if someone started tearing through my patio door screen, I'd be hard pressed to remember where my weapons are, much less find one and effectively use it. Given that, I want my weaponry to be as point-and-click as possible.; 6/10/2018 2:36 PM
Comrade Misfit said...: First off, I don't know that I'd want to trust to the law of averages. There ar enough stories of bad guys who took a full cylinder of revolver cartridges and didn't fall down. That may be "atypical", but all you need is one.

Second, there have been great strides in 9mm bullet design. It's now just as effective as pretty much any other service handgun caliber on the market. The difference between a modern 9mm and a .40 is almost nil. .45 expands a little more, but the cost differential in practicing and the "shootability" of 9mm weapons tips the scale for most causal users.

Third, a .357 is a horrible choice, in my opinion. The noise and muzzle blast in a closed building can and has permanently deafened people. There are enough .38+P choices (such a Winchester Ranger) that have acceptable performance. Outside in feral hog country, a .357 with solid-nose loads is maybe OK on a feral hog. A rifle would be better, like a .45/70 or a .308.

Fourth, if somebody starts a fight, damn right, go offensive-- Don't hold back, finish it and on your terms. The three acceptable reasons to stop shooting are the bad guy is down, the bad guy is running away, or you're out of cartridges. (The last is bad.)

I'm not a Glock fangirl, far from it. But if I was, I'd look hard at a 19, with -17 magazines for home defense use. If one is willing to accept the safety concerns of striker-fired guns, then a Glock is a pretty fine choice.; 6/10/2018 7:28 PM
CenterPuke88 said...: Comrade, I don’t think the extinguisher “example” is a good one, as an extinguisher is limited in capacity and also not designed to kill people,

Tux, I’m not sold on the .357 magnum as a defensive round. As the Comrade points out, a good +P or +P+ .38 will do the job better and with less fear from the shooter.

As for home defense, there are multiple considerations. My last house had the bedrooms upstairs, so with an alarm panel in the master, I could locate the intruder and simply either wait at the top.of the stairs with a 10mm auto, or ambush any upstairs intruder as they rounded a corner. On the stairs, since I would be shooting down into a closet and exterior brick wall, I had fewer shoot through concerns...the intruder upstairs was acceptable because there were at least two interior walls and one exterior to penetrate.

My current house is “worse” because of layoff issues that mean I’m never shooting down and often aiming with a large window behind any target. That was part of my decision to move to a .45ACP, using a law enforcement load, and at least a 4” barrel (to ensure expansion). Even with that, I will be much more thoughtful if I need to use my gun, because I don’t have easy shooting lanes.

The .45 is tolerable to fire within a room without hearing protection, but the 10 would have been tremendously painful. In both cases, a revolver is a more idiot proof choice, that much is true.; 6/10/2018 9:10 PM