Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns What you REALLY need from a personal protection handgun

Unless a man has personal experience in killing other men, other peoples' anecdotes are all he's got to go on when thinking about self-defense.

the first rule is have a gun with you when you need it

the second rule is to know how to operate it under stress

Everything else isn't that important...

What about reason, logic, and knowledge that comes from science? For instance action is faster than reaction; therefore, bad guys have advantage if they know they're going to initiate gunfights.


Take care,

R

Tell that to tens of thousands of G.I.'s & cops.

Originally, yes. But they changed editors on me mid-stream and me and the new editor didn't see eye to eye, so I never submitted that (or any other) article. It was one of the last straws for the magazine industry. I just don't have any interest in writing about the crap that they want in gun magazines anymore. Now I get to choose what I write about, my terms, my subjects.

I agree with Kevin IF,IF,IF, you get some training using a 1911 and shoot it a bunch every year. For all broke-ass non-reloaders, Trigger is probably correct.

DO NOT swap different guns around for carry that have a different manual-of-arms. A friend took a bullet on a drug raid 'cause he didn't flip the HUGE(what a joke) safety off of a Hi Power and squeezed the trigger. As soon as he unphucked himself he took a round. He'd been shooting and carrying nothing but a Glock for a while.

I doubt neither the existence of well organized gangs, nor your knowledge/experience with the same. I do doubt that the para-military-cartel description that you've intimated in previous threads is universal or even wide spread beyond major metropolitan and border cities. Living in LA will dictate different ques of awareness than living in suburban Kansas City.

As it relates to the subject at hand--the need for high capacity weapons for self defense ties into this it would seem. If there's a realistic and constant threat of para-military offensive action, I grant that high volume of sustained fire would be an asset. Where we probably differ is in your opinion of point shooting vs aimed shooting.


Can't disagree with any of that.

Dude, you really, really need to get some training. A few days with Randy Cain or Lewis Awerbuck might remedy your situation. The safety is properly disengaged after the draw, after the hands come together at position three.

I do wholeheartedly concur that the Beretta 92 safety is an ill-concieved POS.

Now this is getting interesting!

Not going to follow you down a rabbit hole, Raisuli.

The only additional thing I'm going to say about anecdotal evidence is this: if the reason you know something is because someone told you about it, or you read about it, you've based your knowledge on anecdotal evidence.

I think a S&W Commander slide/Officer's frame is a about as cool as a carry gun gets. I have trouble hiding a full-sized frame on a Glock or a 1911. I think the average person is better served by a Glock 19 though, if they can use that grip or are prepared to spend the money to fix it. I think the ultimate carry gun is a G17 with a 1911 grip conversion cutdown for G19 mags.

With all due respect to the late Colonel Cooper, who had a lot of good opinions and true but tended to be blind to the experience of others once his mind was made up, that is just horseshit.

I have interviewed dozens and dozens of LEOs and debriefed them about their personal experiences in officer-involved shootings. The number of shots fired by the officer in question has varied widely, and while the average number of shots fired is certainly less than five, numerous cases exist where the LEO fired in excess of 20 rounds.

In one case the officer fired 5 rounds of 44 Magnum into the criminal's chest at bad-breath distance, then finished the fight with a 6th shot into the brain. The same officer in another fight used a brain shot to kill a felon who had absorbed 12 bullets in the chest and neck. In another the subject was hit with 17 police bullets (rifle and handgun) before he went down, and he continued to fight even when being handcuffed. In yet another case the LEO I interviewed was ambushed by the subject, took cover behind his squad, then fired every round of .40 S&W ammo he had on his person (3 14-round magazines) to keep the rifle-wielding felon from advancing on him; he ran outof ammo and was reinforced by another officer who nearly exhausted all of his ammo while providing covering fire so that a 3rd officer could flank the subject and finish the fight.

Finally, a good friend and retired LEO who used to work for LASO ran out of ammo in his first gunfight and vowed it would never happen again. Thereafter he carried 96 rounds of 357 Mag ammo on his person. Surprisingly, he ran out of ammo once more, shortly before he retired. In both shootings the suspect(s) were hit multiple times but continued to fight and lay down a fierce base of fire against the LEOs.

Magazine capacity is ALWAYS a consideration. As a civilian you are less likely to get involved in a protracted gunfight than is a patrol officer, but it can and does happen. I always recommend to my students, LEO and civilian, that they carry as much ammo on their person as they reasonably can. In my opinion, that means carrying a minimum of one spare double-stack magazine or two single-stack magazines for a civilian (24+ rounds of ammo). For a LEO on duty, that means a minimum of 50 rounds on your person, on your gun plus what's on your belt.

Kevin, I don't think there's a single greatest handgun, any more than there's a single greatest car, or truck, or pair of skis, or NFL quarterback. I've found that a lot of tools have uses to which they're better suited than others, and this includes my sidearms.

Over the years I have carried the following handguns for plainclothes duty use or for personal CCW:

Beretta M9
Glock 22
Glock 23
Sig P220
Taurus PT92AF
1911A1
S&W 19, 21, 29, 65, 66, 686, 640, 625
Colt SAA
Walther PPK/S
KelTec 380
Kahr K9
Kahr PM9

If push came to shove and I was handed any of the above pistols and told that's what I had to carry for personal protection for the next X number of days, I'd be fine with it. I would not willingly choose a 380 over a larger caliber nowadays, but if I had to I could make it work. (I carried the 380's back before viable 9x19mm pocket pistols like the Kahrs came along).

All of them were solid choices, in my experience. They were/are all:

Reliable
Powerful (powerful enough, anyway)
Ergonomically suitable
Accurate

None of these pistols had any significant "custom" work done on them, other than minor action work. Most were not flat or lightweight, either. I shot every one of them a great deal, to convince myself they weren't going to puke when the SHTF, and to satisfy myself that I could make them work as intended under any and all circumstances.

But if I had to pick only one handgun from that list as my choice for the rest of my life (ugh, I hate that hypothetical, but, okay, for once I'll play along) I'd pick the Glock 23, 2nd Generation model with night sights, standard 13-round magazine. My second choice would probably the the SIG P220, and the main reason it's #2 is its single-stack 8-rnd magazine. My third choice would probably be the S&W M65.

Good luck with your article. Let us know when it comes out.

The last paragraph is solid advice, IMO. As much as I revere the COL however, I must agree with you.

Yeah, I've read just about all of Col Cooper's books and hold his life's work in very high regard indeed. I have found little in his writings or life that I could argue with.

...hence the irrelevancy of anecdotal experiences. I don't know if you ever had the chance to meet and talk with Jim Cirillo (it's too late now). He arguably has shot and killed more people outside of military combat than any other contemporary American. He could tell morbid stories and have you laughing at the same time. He was a died in the wool revolver man--would carry backups, but magazine capacity was obviously never a consideration for him. The stake out squad in NYC of the 70's and 80's is no longer--and circumstances change, but one man's wisdom is another man's folly based upon equally valid experiences.

Yes, I had the chance to speak with Jim Cirillo about a year before his untimely death. He was a great man, and a very personable one, and as you say, funny as can be. If you ever get a chance to talk to Pat Rogers (formerly of Gunsite, now running his own EAG Tactical training outfit), you'll find a kindred spirit there.

As a revolver shooter Jim was obviously not concerned about magazine capacity. That doesn't mean he didn't think having lots of ammo on hand was unnecessary. He did say, both in print and in person, he carried multiple revolvers on his person on stake-out squad ops. IIRC, he carried 4 revolvers as a rule. He was also very adept with a speedloader.

...you'll appreciate this then Doc....

here's a treasured pic that I took at the first Soldier of Fortune Match (it might have been the second--it was the first and only one held at Chapman's) of Jim Cirillo getting a "lesson" from Ken Hackathorn on how to shoot an autoloader!! I got them to pose a second one with Cirillo "teaching" Ken to shoot a revolver (a Model 29). Good times, those.

gmoats,

Here's an enlightening link for you: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/a/gangs.htm

Gangsters joining the military to receive combat training has motivated them since I was a cop, so it's not a recent problem. In fact, not all that long ago I watched a TV clip of gangsters assaulting cops using military tactics.

I might be wrong here, but I do believe that the Black Panthers was the first gang to train extensively using military-type tactics. It makes sense because it was the first gang of which I'm aware that had as its primary objective the overthrow of the US government. In essence, they were preparing for war.


Good luck,

R

gmoats,

Here's another enlightening link that I'd suggest all watch. It'll force everyone to take another look at what s/he might expect were s/he to encounter gangsters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gqShQTSDCM