I would be interested to hear an example of anyone who used a handgun to "fight his way to a long gun".
I was at Jeff Hall's talk at IALEFI in 2008 (IIRC, in Reno) where he showed several dashcam videos of cops who were fired upon by the subject of a "traffic stop". In two of those videos the cops slapped leather and fired back at the perp while retreating to their squad cars. In one case the cop was trapped behind his car with his shotgun inside the car, and was murdered by the perp. In the second case the cop popped his trunk to get his shotgun and killed the perp.
To put that in perspective, I've seen dozens of videos in which cops finished the fight with their handguns right then and there. Especially in rural areas, his duty handgun may be all the copper has to fight with... as Mackay Sagebrush says, you don't often get the fight you want, you get the fight you got. You have to deal with it with what's right at hand. This is why I believe it's imperative that a patrol officer should have a generous supply of reloads on his person at all times. A Glock 17 with 2 reloads on the belt gives a copper 52 rounds of ammo on his person, and I know guys who carry 4 spare mags. But I know of departments that issue single-stack 45's with only 2 spare mags, which gives the officer only 25 rounds on their person. Not good, IMHO.
"Fighting your way to your long gun" doesn't happen very often. I expect that was your point/suspicion, and you're correct in my view.
