Please don't confuse me with someone who has a knowledgeable opinion. However, I've been wading through this conversation, and I am still stumped as to how a guy like me is going to get himself into a situation where a 50 yard shot from my conceal carry pistol is going to save my life. I can understand how it might save someone else's. I can understand how a law enforcement officer would need to take one. I'm trying to think of a scenario where I would be making a shot in self-defence at that distance and I'm coming up short.
Let me use Walmart as an example.
1) If I see a fellow armed with a pistol in the parking lot at 50 yards, my first instinct isn't to start shooting. I'm going to get low and put as many vehicles between us as possible. If the shooter wants me, he's going to have to find me first. 2) Inside the store, it's kind of like Reagan's story about the bear. I don't have to outrun the bear, just outrun the people around me. In this case, I just have to be less of a target than the other people in the store. I'm going low and moving towards the exit in the opposite direction from the shooter.
Outside of town, I can understand. However, when I'm outside of town I'm either carrying a 357 mag Lever action or a 357 mag single action revolver and my main motivation is 4-legged coyotes, not 2-legged ones. When I'm out and about on the farm, I'm the perp. I'm the aggressor. Things need to avoid me, not the other way around.
Going back to the OP, I got similar advice from our CC instructor. It was not worded the same way. I don't mean to say a judge in Cincinnati would rule out a 50 yard shot in self defence, simply because of the distance. What I mean to say is that my instructor wanted me to stop worrying about well-aimed shots and concentrate on putting rounds into the target.
My point in posting is to simply ask y'all when I'm in town and carrying concealed, when would a 50-yard shot be the best way to save my own skin?
