Why do you have to get a gun in the first place?
If there is an intruder in your house and he has a gun he is more likely to shoot if you are armed too. Unless you go to a gun range every day, you are not likely to be as quick as some guy who breaks into houses regularily, plus this guy has been up all night getting ready to break in, he will be alert, wheras your reactions will be slow from having just woken up. He will have gotten off his first round before you have raised your gun halfway.
The reason there are so many murders in America is the relaxed gun laws. People who do not really know how to use guns can get hold of them, and accidents happen. Also, its easier for thieves to get hold of weapons because they can get liscenses or just steal them from people like you. Look at England where we have very strict gun laws, and you get hardly any of these situations occuring. An even better example is Swizerland, where every one has a military rifle in their house because they have to do military service. They are trained to use guns properly and so accidents do not happen, and the murder rate is very low.
I have one of those (actually a Taurus 101, which is a license-built copy of the 96). I like it. Not as hefty as the Gubbmint .45, but still a quite reassuring hunk o’ steel.
[begin ramble about OP]I have a Ruger .45 and my hubby is quite into Glocks. Some very good points have been raised in this thread, and I have to agree strongly with “practice, practice, practice”. Also, too many men have a false sense of confidence about their abilities with guns. Keep that in mind and you will do well.
Here’s what I mean by that - The guy that taught me (long ago and far away…) had years of experience, former military, yadda yadda…And really drilled into my head this piece of advise among other things: never never never pick up a gun or accept a gun from someone without checking the chamber.
Even if you just watched them check it before they handed it to you, you still check for yourself if that thing is loaded. Clip fed or barrel, pistol or rifle, it doesn’t matter.
Now, that said, I watched one day as this same person picked up his 9mm to clean it. He did not do as he preached, and sure enough, there was a round in the chamber. He damned near took his kneecap off with that round and did manage to shoot a hole through his stove into the silverware drawer.
Another thing Fnord. We have a dog, her only job is to wake me at night if she hears something. I wanted a second pair of ears at night, when I am asleep. What good is gun if you don’t get the chance to use it? My hubby works the 3rd shift, and I am a sound sleeper. I would have no chance to even reach for my glasses if something were to happen. So I have a very alert dog, and she does her job well.
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Nukeman, after reading your post, I’d ask you to “prove it,” but this ain’t the Great Debates forum. If you wanna argue the efficacy of gun control laws, that’d be the place. There’s nearly always an active thread or two over there on different aspects of gun control.
Hi Aenea, it’s good to hear a woman’s point of view in this thread.
Which of the Ruger .45s do you own? I’d considered buying the Red Hawk a while back due to its relative cost. It took me only seconds to determine that it was a poor gun and certainly not the one for me.
Hey UncleBeer that law only means it’s illegal for a licensed dealer to sell a handgun to someone under 21. It’s legal for a youn’un to buy one at a gun show or garage sale. Unless there’s more to that law then you quoted, it doesn’t forbid a person under 21 from merely having a pistol.
I second what aenea said. I learned the hard way about checking to see if a gun is loaded by blowing a 3-inch hole in the wall of our house with a shotgun when I was 14. It was the best way imaginable to learn gun safety.
I also agree about the dog. Any half-decent burglar can break into your house and be standing over you with a knife before you wake. If you can’t have a dog, a good alarm system will suffice.
To the OP, I have to second what some other posters have said about shotguns. Pistols require a relativeluy large amount of skill to use effectively compared to shotguns. Nothing is more deadly at close range than a 12-gauge, not even an M16. If you’re nervous, it’s what you should be shooting. You can have them made without a stock and with a shorter barrel, which is much more portable.
That “shuch-shack” sound a pump shotgun makes has an incredible psychological effect. You may not even need to shoot, just rack that slide and yell a warning.
Yeah, what UncleBeer said.
Another thought, I have used, practised, and competed with pistols most of my life (dad was LE). I have many semi auto pistols but if I was to have a dresser gun, it would be a revolver. Why?
Reliability: Revolvers are damn near foolproof-pull the trigger, they go boom. The best semis can have feeding problems, or ?
simple: see above, and when woken out of deep sleep, the last thing I want to worry about is “did I pull the slide/take off the safety/etc”?
granted constant and continuous training will help as will a DA only/Glock but then you’re back to #1.
Myself, I keep a Benelli M3 Super90 w/ ghost ring sites- my BR is centrally located and equidisatnt from the front and back doors.
If you are going to train, try to find a PPC course and range. PolicePistolCompetition shooting simulates different positions, scenarios, and assailants. It is a proven fact that when in a pressure situation, you will do what you are trained to do. If that was no training you will probably do nothing, or hesitate until it’s too late. If you train at the range punching paper in a Weaver stance, you will find yourself standing straight up and holding the gun in front of you-several Policemen were killed when they stood up from behind cover to shoot back! Try to train in an environment that resembles your projected threat locations
The bullethole in the back door from a previous tenant is far more effective than any Smith and Wesson sticker I have yet found:D
All of aenea’s points are very good. A gun is always loaded until you personally clear the chamber and verify that it is clear.
A dog (large) is a perfect first line of defense: Much keener senses than you can ever dream of having, MUCH better fighter than you can ever dream of being, loyal, fun to play with, and great with kids. A potential burglar will most likely avoid a house with a dog for two reasons: a) danger. Duh. b) even if the dog is securely locked away from the house, he/she will hear or smell the intruder and bark. Loudly and a lot. Secrecy is an intruder’s friend, so when you have a dog making noise, most of the time they will make a hasty retreat.
Also, ignore what the anti-gun people are saying about this…somebody who breaks in planning to steal things has several things on his mind…not getting killed, not getting caught, getting some good stuff.
Two frames of mind prevail: Most of the time, meeting the homeowner or resident is high on the list of things to be avoided. Meeting an armed resident is most likely near the top. Making noise to let them know you’re home and alert is a good thing which will likely make the guy want to leave without incident. If that doesn’t work, confidently letting him know that his body will be ventilated if he doesn’t leave likely will. Because he’s not there to have a gunfight. He’s there to steal something and make some money.
The other type is the person who hopes to find somebody home, to rape, to attack, kill, whatever. If you’re faced with this kind of person, who obviously means to cause you harm, do you really want to do it unarmed? Not I.
Speaking of revolvers vs. sutomatics, in my relativly little experience with modern firearms, I always found a revolver to be a bit more accurate, at least in my fairly novice hands. Now I have a good bit of knowledge about guns, but not a lot of experience shooting them. Is the idea of a revolver being more accurate in general something that tends to always be true, or is it like most things, and varies with experience/skill? For the record, I was shooting a Colt .357 magnum vs. a Baretta 9mm.
Black powder guns are much more fun to shoot, but I can see how asking a burgler to wait a minute while you reload might not be possible.
How many marauding villains are there in Redding? Do your parents keep firearms, fnord? Are they hip to the idea of having a(nother) gun in the house? How many weapons are necessary to defend a single home from all the millions upon millions of violent housebreakers of northern California?
I don’t want to go off-topic and anger UncleBeer (unless, in his wrath, he happens to pour delicious malted barley and hops on people), but I just had to point out that the statement by Nukeman:
. . . is absolutely, 100% not true. There is no statistical correlation between relaxed gun laws and an increased murder rate; au contraire, John Lott and David Mustard’s research shows that a relaxation of gun laws in the form of “shall-issue” concealed-carry laws is strongly and positively associated (at a statistically significant level) with a drop in the violent crime rate. You can read about it for yourself if you’d like:
A pretty cool feature of the gun we’re discussing is a “chamber loaded indicator.” It gives you a visual sign that there’s something in the chamber. Of course, you still might want to check manually, but I thought it was pretty neat.
Gunslinger, always good to have recommendations from people who have the thing. I’m glad you like it.
pl, thanks for coming through the factoids.
And for anyone else, if you want to know what the discussion is about, check it out here
Yeah, I’m sorry, there is more to the CA gun laws. All sales must also go through a licensed dealer. If you want the full poop, the NRA website has a pretty good listing of state-by-state laws.
You guys carry on and I can move this later if need be.
You were a lot nicer than I was going to be. I was going to say that in over a year of association with this board, that was the most ignorant (stupidest?) assertion I think I’ve seen.
But then I would be pulling this toward the pit, further irking the hovering moderator. So I guess I’ll just think it instead.
I have a Ruger .45 P-90 currently in case I misstated it above and a M-1 Garand 30-06 rifle. As I mentioned hubby is into Glocks so he has a few of those too.
[reminiscence]I first learned to shoot on a Ruger .44 mag revolver. What a great gun. We also had the matching .44 carbine rifle, and that was actually what I preferred to shoot. (I’m looking for one, btw, if anyone knows anyone who has one in good shape) Ahhh the holes you could shoot in things with that gun. One of the nastiest guns I ever shot was a 12 gauge shot gun with an incredibly long barrel. The recoil damned near broke my collar bone! Ya, so I’m a wus, so what! I simply could not hold that thing. Hmmm, I don’t know if this is a good thing to admit, but I got to shoot a m.g. one time. I was on my stomach and it still knocked me back 3 ft before I could get my hand away. We need to start a thread about the crazy friends we have…[/reminiscence]
This is true, but there’s a catch–not all automatics will reliably feed hollowpoint, or even softnose, ammo into the chamber. I don’t know about Berretas *per se,*but pistols can have idiosyncracies within the same model. (This is one point in favor of revolvers as opposed to autos.) If you get an auto, make sure and fire a lot of practice rounds with the kind of ammo you’ll be using in general, to make sure the gun handles it well. If not, you may need to have some work done on your pistol.
