I've got a Sig Sauer P228 in the glove box of my car. It's loaded with Federal Hydra-Shok hollow points and I have no qualms about the stopping power. My dad used to say that you don't need a pistol until you really need it. He carried a .38 Special in his truck with him for at least 40 years (not the same one), and pulled it out once when he was in a parking lot and a teenager with a knife tried to carjack him when he was 75 years old. He was real glad that he had it then.
To me carrying a monster gun is sort of like having a monster truck. If you are good with a gun you don't need either... Also I will say this... if you desire to kill someone then buy the non-stainless version. Most folks move to full retreat at the sight of a metallic flash, but a buled version is probably considerebly more leathal.
FYI, Bevoldemart while you are arguing over concealed hand guns and if they have ever been used constructively one was used in the shooting at the courthose in Tyler, TX and the person while being killed saved other innocent people from getting killed. Also, look at crime rates in states that have concealed hangun laws and you will see a dramatic drop in crime. So stop the tree hugging, it's a fact concealed hand guns save lives. Just like 1+1=2.
The guy with a concealed handgun is dead. I'm convinced I should get one so I can be dead, too. It's unclear from the reports that I have read, but I can't tell that the guy did anything that he couldn't have done without a handgun. The police killed the bad guy. There are indications that at least one person thinks he (the handgund permit owner) helped save the life of one of the adult sons. They don't indicate whether or not the gun was relevant. Maybe it was? Statistically, it would still be irrelevant. The man is dead. If he hadn't been carrying a concealed handgun, he probably wouldn't be dead. O.K., I really don't know that, just believe it. He might have been the kind of guy who would jump on a grenade for someone he didn't know. Then again, he might have been the kind of guy who foolishly thought that pulling out his handgun against a guy who was wearing body armor was a sure thing? Nobody else outside of the family involved in the divorce is dead. The dead guy's handgun sure helped him and that is the premise of my argument. You are kidding yourself if you think you NEED a pistol. That man could have avoided his death. The fact that he had a pistol almost surely hastened it. If he, like the rest of the people who were at the Tyler courthouse and not related to the guy, had not engaged the bad guy it seems like he wouldn't be dead. Maybe the good guy was just the unlucky one who was in the stairwell at an unlucky time, but the salient info that has been released so far is that he had a concealed handgun permit and that he is dead. At best, the analysis is: Handgun holder not there = innocent person dead v. handgun holder there = handgun holder dead. If I'm handgun holder guy then I'm not crazy about my place in the picture. Are you? All in all, I think I'll stand by my position.
I see that phatboy is another reincarnation of pilotserror. That explains the stupidity and violent tendencies.
Bevoldemart - You conveniently forgot the overwhelming statistics that show crime rates that drop after states inacting a CHP. Just like a liberal.
lol. i don't have a dog in this fight but there's a shitlack of reading comprehension going on by a particularly passive/agressive group.
gsoda3- one of my usual typos- should have read" "blued" or the non stainless/chrome color. The reason I think stainless or chrome is better as a preventative as it's easier to see and they has a greater notice/intimidation factor. With a dark colored handgun at night you often would never get the non-lethal deterent that the flash of atainless might give you. Better in most cases to have the threat retreat rather than be forece to shoot. However in all honesty the second you ever pull out a gun you are a ******* moron if you would hesistate to use it at that point.
In a concealed carry piece, finding the right balance between concealability and shootability is the goal. Unfortunately, for most people, in small/light pistols, shootability decreases when you go up to the larger calibers, ie., .40 or .45. Remember, the ability to place multiple, accurate shots is essential. Some good pistols that are a compromise are: Glock 19 9mm Sig 225 9mm Sig 239 9mm Glock 23 .40 Sig 229 .40 Try handling several models, and better yet, rent some at a shooting range. Buy/carry the pistol that has the most stopping power that you can realistically control.
The arguement is not who died, but how many die. This is a case just as there are hundreds that show that CHL does prevent innocent people from dying. I still find it interesting that Beovoldemart has dissappeared from the conversation.
About the guy in Tyler who shot back at the idget with the supposed AK-47. All the reports I have read lead me to believe that Wilson did indeed save some lives as a result of his actions. Think about it from the shooter's perspective. Say you are the maniac with the AK blasting away at random innocent people when all of the sudden one of the random guys starts shooting back with his .45 (I think the guy had a .45). Yes he had body armor on, but I have a feeling when you get hit with a 45 slug even with body armor you are going to feel it! So, the maniac is getting shot at and noticing he is getting shot. Who thinks that he is just going to forget about the guy shooting at him? I would bet a large sum of money that the shooter began to focus on the random innocent guy shooting at him, trying to kill him. Herein lies my point, if he did indeed focus on Wilson, then Wilson became a distraction to the maniac and allowed other people to take cover/escape while the two men were battling it out. Yes, the man ended up dead, that is about the only thing I can agree on.
I'm not belittling the man's death in any way. The argument (of mine) has always been that a pistol as a means of defense is a pipe dream. Mr. Wilson may have been heroic or he may have been incredibly arrogant. He may have been helpful. I don't know and I've said as much. The information available was sketchy. At the time, the only reported difference he made was in thwarting the death of one of the male memebers of the family in question. The info may be better now. I don't because I haven't looked it up. I'm tired of people deliberately misconstruing my psoition and sending me threats. I'm going to disappear permanently from this thread for that reason, so don't bother to direct anything at me. I won't respond. I'll state my position again once again. I believe that the desire to own a handgun for protection is misplaced. I don't think it's immoral and I don't dispute your right to do it. I think you odds of using a handgun in a necessary defense of your person or family are so miniscule that you ought to keep your money. If you want to do so, that is your business, but spending a bunch of time analyzing the myriad of options (like stopping power) for this extremely unlike eventuality are like trying to analyze the best numbers for the lottery. The Tyler example is a case in point. From what I understand, he was wearing body armor. How does that figure into the stopping power argument? It means your .44 won't do a bit of good unless you hit them wear the body armor isn't. Spend your time on things that will actually do yourself some good like working on your retirement plan. Mr. Wilson. I'm sorry for him and his family if he had one. I'm sorry for all the families of anyone who has lost a loved one. But, my argument has always been one of the wisdom of analyzing various handguns under the rubric of maximizing self-protection. Mr. Wilson was not threatened (as far as I can tell) and did not use his gun in self-protection until after he voluntarily confronted a man wearing body armor and with superior firepower. Implicit in my argument is that you can walk away from the vast majority of dangerous situations if you are too foolish to avoid them in the first place. Mr. Wilson is irrelevant to the point I have tried and, apparently, failed to articulate. I'm sorry for his death. He may have been a true martyr. He wasn't using a handgun to protect himself. The statistics on handguns are a slippery slope, at best. For example, one of the poll respondents in one of the polls cited by someone indicated that she had used her handgun 52 times IN A SINGLE YEAR to thwart rapes. I just call major ******** on that. You couldn't get that many rape offers if you were a sheep in college station. Because of the faction that opposes guns (which I do NOT support) we have gun owners on the defensive. We also have a certain mentality that wants to be a ******* hero with their guns. You KNOW that is true because you probably know some dork like that. We all do. Remember I'm an owner of tons of guns. I'm skeptical of the stats and so are the seemingly reasonable people who have joined in the debate. There is NO WAY to verify the stats as they are reported by people who own guns and have a built-in bias. Pulling a gun when it isn't necessary because you have one and calling it a Defensive Gun Use, Flat out lying about it, etc. Just as interesting, and just as unverifiable, would be those people who would have beeen benefitted by a gun in a crime. Are they dead, would they have been deaded, would they have been successful at popping a cap into a would-be murderer? It's not an issue where the stats can be trusted either way. It's a matter of what you see with your own eyes. I've never spoken to anyone that I have believed who I also believed had a legitimate and successful gun defense (for fairly obvious reasons, none of us have had conversations with the ones who died trying). I've never even spoken to a witness. I've never even known someone who has heard of it. It's my PERSONAL opinion that it's not an issue. Then, just like the evil liberal media conspiracy, at least some gun groups accuse the news of refusing to report stories of handgun heroism. f**k, who is to know, but I have maintained and I continue to maintain that there are better uses of your time and money than fretting over the stopping power of a .45 versus a .22 and the ease of whipping out a .22 versus a heavier .38. There just isn't enough of a chance that you will ever need it or that you will have the clarity of mind in that situation to even get the .22 out much less hit what you are aiming at with a .44. That's my opinion and I also like lima beans. You can't tell me I don't, because I do. One thing that I agree with H4l on is that if you pull a gun you better be ready to kill. On the only political/moral, yet still practica,l slant I will offer is that I believe that you need to have a conversation with yourself before you put that gun in your holster or your pocket or wherever. If you aren't prepared to pull your gun and die or kill and live with it, you shouldn't consider a handgun for protection purposes. I'm not going to offer any advice of how to resolve that issue other than that you need to do it before you choose that path. If you pull that gun and aren't prepared to shoot then you have just gone "all in" with an unsuited 2, 9. Mr. Wilson may have done so (had the conversation with self)and have known what he was getting into. I doubt any of us will ever know. He may have been totally surprised to find himself outmanned and said a great big "Oh ****!" and died. He may have selflessly volunteered his life to save others. It is a mistake, from what is being reported, to include him in those souls who have used a gun to successfully (or even unsuccessfully) protect themselves. He didn't use a gun to protect himself. He used it to try to be a hero (and maybe succeeded) at best. That is why he is irrelevant to whether or not he needed a gun for protection. He didn't last week. He could have protected himself by not shooting at a guy in body armor with an assault rifle. Like I said, I won't click on the thread again.
I'm pretty sure it was: he saw some guy lighting up the area, pulled his gun, started shooting, and was shocked when the guy didn't drop. If you are worried about body armored bad guys, then you really don't have many choices. You're pretty much down to a CZ-52 with hot loads or a FN FiveseveN with the AP rounds.
Evidently Bevoldemort never has read the "Armed Citizen" page in the American Rifleman. Nor has he addressed the issue of why 750,000 licensed LEO's carry handguns in the USA. A closed mind is an ugly thing.
