Stranger, there is one possible fault with a round kept in the chamber in storage. If the house catches on fire, the round will cook off. Regular ammunition in it’s paper box, when it cooks off, is not going to approach anything like normal muzzle energy - you might get a bit of shrapnel in your eye, but there’s only modest risk otherwise.
But if a round is inside the barrel with the chamber shut, when it cooks off it will leave with full velocity. I remember hearing on the news about a firefighter killed from a handgun under the mattress from this reason. So it’s not a good idea to store a weapon with a chambered round.
We don’t. I own many firearms without external safeties - It’s a function of the technology, and politics, rather than need. Hammer-fired weapons were, at one point fairly crude and prone to mechanical failure. That’s not so true any longer.
Nope. Wrong conclusions: A Glock* literally cannot be fired without a finger on the trigger. You must choose to put a finger on the trigger. With intent to fire, I don’t care how many safeties you have, the gun can fire with a press of the finger. Contrary-wise, how, pray tell, shall you design a weapon that’s useful in any multi-fire situation AND automatically engages a safety? You can’t. So - you have to STILL rely upon the operator as your safety. It’s only a question of how many operations they must go through in order to be in a ready-to-fire situation.
Again, you presume that safeties are somehow magic. They aren’t. They don’t know intent, they don’t know circumstance, and they don’t operate themselves. It’s axiomatic: Safeties aren’t. The only way to absolutely protect people from operator stupidity is to weld the breech shut.
That’s fine: Plenty of really smart, really experienced gun engineers and end-users have done it for you. Indeed, entire ARMIES have done it for you.
*I’m not a Glock fan - But I do recognize the high quality of their design and their superior human-factors work.
A .22LR is actually pretty good at going through sheetrock, glass, and similar materials. It’s that awkward combination of small diameter, low mass, and medium velocity that gives it pretty good penetration, yet doesn’t guarantee expansion. A .223 is better at expanding (or tumbling) and reducing over-penetration, even though it’s similar in diameter and travels at much higher velocity. (I’m not suggesting that .223 can’t over-penetrate, just that a .22 can be surprisingly sneaky in getting through stuff.)
All those accidental discharges, Not the ‘I didn’t know it was loaded’, ones. I mean the times when someone was handling a gun known to be loaded and it went off before they intended, they didn’t “Choooooose” to put their finger on the trigger any more than someone chooooses to put their car into the guardrail during an accident.
I don’t see why you have a beef with a gun with safety on for safe handling.
Look, here’s the thing about a safety, just like a seatbelt. If you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to, it can just sit there in the off position. But to say that every single round that’s ever been fired was fired because someone “chose” to put their finger on the trigger is wrong.
With your of reasoning, I’ve ‘chosen’ to not read the rest of your post since I suspect were going to have to agree to disagree.
I’ve read this a few times, I’m not sure what you’re saying “Nope” to. Both ZonexandScout and your quote say essentially the same thing, a .22 will go through sheetrock without a problem,
Again, I did not mean to suggest that a .223 won’t over-penetrate or that it won’t penetrate farther than a .22LR. I’m trying to suggest that a .22LR, when one considers its lack of stopping power (which often means more rounds will be fired), isn’t necessarily a good choice simply because it won’t over-penetrate. It can.
Guns don’t fire themselves. That finger didn’t just wander off on its own. The handler put their finger on the trigger. Any other stance is just excusing irresponsibility.
SMILE when you say that - you’re on the raw edge of mischaracterizing me and putting words in my mouth.
A safety is a mechanical device that requires operator action. Period. Which STILL puts the rsponsiblity in the hands of the operator. Wrap your head around that: Safety is the responsiblity of the operator. Period.
Changing the number of steps to go from “inoperable” to “ready to fire” will NOT make an irresponsible operator responsible. It will not make a novice an expert, and it will not make relieve the operator of responsibility.
Devices don’t make safety. Safe handling does.
If you want to hang extra crap off your weapon, by all means, be my guest, but it’s clear that I won’t be trusting you on the range - your mindset is dangerous.
Inadvertantly snagging the trigger safety on the Glock is virtually impossible. I’ve actually run tests trying to get an intruding object in the trigger guard to activate the trigger safety while depressing the trigger, and it inevitably rides up toward the pivot, releasing the safety. Every incident report I’ve seen about Glocks (and other pistols with trigger safeties) could be attributed to the shooter having his finger inside the trigger guard while reholstering instead of covering outside the guard. In fact, this is pretty much true even for pistols that don’t have a trigger safety; you have to work pretty damned hard to get something inside the trigger guard at just the right angle and pressure to inadvertangly discharge the weapon, and that is pretty much completley inconsistant with how you handle a pistol. (Note that this not true for a shotgun or rifle where it is frequently gripped away from the trigger and the guard is often exposed, hence why rifles should be safed when carried, hyperbolic quotes about “This [finger] is my safety,” notwithstanding.)
Autoloading pistols are much more popular and commonly used, to the point that several traditional manufacturers of revolvers have dramatically curtailed production or even stopped making them entirely, and most revolvers today are sold as hunting weapons or backup pistols that are less frequently used. Just looking at the gross numbers of incidents is not instructive. There is no reason on any modern duty weapon to manually lower the exposed hammer; single action pistols like the Browning Hi-Power or 1911 pattern pistols should be carried in Condition 1 (hammer back, safety on) if a round is chambered, and Condition 3 otherwise. I think all modern double action/single action pistols have a decocker or decoding safety which should be used to lower the hammer to carry in double action mode. (The CZ-75 infamously didn’t have a decocker, but was really intended to be carried in Condition 1 despite the double action trigger.). “People shooting themselves or a loved one, shooting out a window, kids shooting other kids,” is not indicative of some kind of inherent safety problem with the design of autoloading pistols but indicates a lack of basic safety training which would apply equally to revolvers or any other firearm.
A striker-fired autoloading pistol requires inserting a magazine and working the slide; the only other control is the slide lock (often miscalled a “slide release”) and takedown lever or slide, neither of which need to be operated while firing. Pistols with a decocker or external safety have that control which is also pretty simple I have literally taught people who have never picked up a firearm before to operate a semiautomatic pistol such as a Sig Sauer P2xx pattern pistol within five minutes. It just isn’t that complicated.
I cannot understand why you keep recommending a Smith & Wesson Model 49 ‘Bodyguard’ as a home defense weapon. The Model 49 is a lightweight five shot revolver with a >2" snub barrel and virtually worthless sights that was intended to be a backup pistol used at elevator distances. It is not comfortable to shoot, should not be used with modern +P ammunition, and isn’t even a very good choice for concealed carry compared to many other options availble today, much less having the attributes of a home defense gun. It is basically the worst recommendation for that use short of a .50 AE Desert Eagle or .22 rimfire pistol.
We don’t. Virtually none of the revolvers that kopek adores have an external safety of any kind. Most striker-fired pistols have a trigger safety of some kind, which is technically external but not manually activated, and the majority of double action/single action pistols have either a decocking lever (Sig Sauer, Walther P99 ‘Anti-Stress’, certain variations of H&K USP/P30/45 pistols) or a decocking safety (Beretta, most S&W 3rd gen), with some offering a combined decocking lever (press down) and manual safety (press up) on the frame. The logic behind a manual safety is mostly driven by law enforcement administrative concerns about liability and doesn’t reflect how pistols are actually carried or used. Famously, when the FBI selected its first autoloading duty pistol (the S&W 1046 in 10mm Auto) they requested that S&W provide a frame-mounted decocking safety lever rather than the slide-mounted decocking safety that they had more traditionally installed on DA/SA pistols, so the nation’s premier law enforcement agency actively requested a decocking pistol with no external safety.
Regardless of what kind of weapon is chosen, basic safety and marksmanship training is mandatory, and no safety feature or device will replace good operator training and judgment, period. Following the four rules of firearm safety listed above will prevent all negligent discharges except in the extremely rare case of mechanical malfunction (and even then should assure that the pistol is not pointed in a hazardous direction). Relying on some manually applied safety or “idiot-proofing” the design is a recipe for unhappiness. Regardless of how foolproof you make a product, the fools always manage to find a way to fuck up. They’re brilliant in that and only that way.
A .22 Long Rifle has a high sectional density, giving it quite good penetration, but does compariatively little damange, meaning that you may need to fire many of them to stop an intruder. It is basically the combination of worst features in a round selected for defensive use.
Now someone is going to come along and talk about how the Mossad favored the .22 LR and so it must be a great round that we’re all ignoring. While it is true that the Mossad did use the round, they used it in modified Beretta 21A pistols utilizing a locked breech and integral silencer for the purpose of contact-range assassination. This is not a defensive application.
People interested in buying a HD weapon will often ask if I recommend a .22, since “it won’t go through anything and hurt somebody.” While a .22LR has many advantages (reduced recoil, low cost of ammunition for practice, etc.), giving up stopping power in the mistaken belief that the rounds won’t over-penetrate or go through a standard wall is a mistake.
You say “my theory[sic] is totally wrong when it comes to actual practice” but without actually providing any rationale behind it. The S&W Model 49 ‘Bodyguard’ is, again, a snub nose J-frame .38 Spl revolver intended as a backup or concealed carry weapon, carrying five rounds in the cylinder, with sights that are best described as ‘perfunctory’ and a maximum range measured in a few tens of feet at most. Given the wide array of handguns, shotguns, and carbines with more firepower, greater range, better sights and inherent accuracy, and which any competent adult can be trained in the effective, accurate, and safe use of within a few hours of handling and range time, the ‘Bodyguard’ is a piss-poor choice for the role of primary home defense gun, a statement that I have every confidence would be repeated by any defensive firearms trainer or authority.
I second. A carry handgun is usually designed and selected for purchase by a much different set of criteria than those typical of a HD gun. While I would prefer to have my 20 GA shotgun for HD use, my second choice is my Colt .45 1911 Series 70.
Pros: It is utterly reliable with good magazines. There are two exterior safeties (grip and thumb) and it is easy to secure from little hands. The rounds are subsonic, so I have less noise to deal with. (It is still loud, but less so than a .357.) The cost of ball ammunition for practice is not so bad now. The sight length is excellent and the grip angle is very comfortable for me. The longer barrel means more efficient burning of the propellant and better accuracy. Excellent single-action trigger (or it CAN be). It has great stopping power, but does not normally over-penetrate. As a last resort, it’s about as heavy as an iron and I can beat the intruder into submission. Easily modified if you need any special features (like a new power cord).
Cons: Heavy. (Did I already say that?) Smaller hands may have problems with it. Ammunition is not as cheap as 9 mm, but may be on a par with .38 SP. Limited magazine capacity compared to “Wondernines.” It DOES have an external safety that you must learn to manipulate with your thumb.
Would I also carry this? Not likely, unless it was open carry. Some people do carry one concealed. For me, it’s too big, too heavy. But it is awfully comforting being near my bed.
With that said, there are many, many nice handguns that CAN fill a dual role like this.
As Cecil himself answered in a column, a full comprehensive, scientific neutral study of gun violence in the US is continually blocked by the NRA through the lawmakers, so I have to rely on studies by private organizations and yes, by journalists.
But I see we are going again the route of “all media reports are false and biased”, not making a difference between different papers.
And the scenario was not that the couple should have offered food and shelter to the exchange student - realizing that the house was dark and silent, and nobody was answering the door, he was already walking away searching for the party. If they had just let things be, instead of imagining the scenario where going down the driveway was the preparation to sneak around the back of the house in order to break in, and therefore shooting in defense was justified (since that was the claim the husband gave at the trial), the student would still be alive.
The scenario was “Inncoent shot because of paranoid overreaction” vs. “justified defense of people inside the house against armed, violent people breaking into the house” - and whether the second occurs so often, so regularly, so likely, that it justifies arming everybody and risking the first scenario to happen more often.
