Hi there folks, please let me lay out my situation and what I need help with, hopefully someone can clear up my ignorance and direct me in the right direction.
Okay, in short, my dad’s had a rough time over the last month or so having worked in a small law firm in NYC, and for the last few weeks, he’s been looking for a new job. That’s hard on a guy, and I’d like to help cheer him up. Tonight we got to talking about how he’d like to get a gun but didn’t currently have the money. Evidently he’s got a few friends here who have the kind of land where they’ve set up shooting ranges on their property, and one of his friends has a person collection of some very cool guns.
Anyways, I recently came into a bit of money and although there are some things I need, I can go without them. And to be honest, with my dad and my sick mom living together, alone, I’d feel better if he had a gun in the house, too.
So, these were the basic conversations/discussions/specs that we had.
He would like a gun that, primarily, is accurate at moderate range and fun to shoot. Rifles are fine, shotguns are out. Whatever it is, he has to be able to bring it over to his friends’ places and shoot with them at their ‘ranges’. He’s also loved the Walther P38 for decades, but I have no idea how much those cost. If the originals would be, say, more than a grand, could you me to any pistols/revolers with roughly the same aesthetic and caliber?
Speaking of which, my father would like to (possibly) have a sidearm of some variety that he could holster it while working to tend to the property, as bears are not unknown in this area and one was recently shot in the driveway of a neighbor’s house just a few doors down as it had trapped a family in their car and was pawing at the windows. On that note, I’d really appreciate if folks could advise on what certain guns’ effectiveness would be against a bear. I confess I’m pig ignorant, and if I get my dad a 9mm, and it wouldn’t do anything other than make a bear mad, I’d want him to be pretty clear on that fact as I doubt he knows much more than me about bringing down game.
The only qualifier would be that he doesn’t want something in a caliber that starts with .4 , and he’d want a gun that he could target shoot with for fun. I don’t know if that’s even a possible combination, but that’s what we’ve talked about.
Now, here are the snags. First of all, I have no idea where the right place is to go looking for a specific gun is. I’ve gone shooting with friends before, but I’ve never bought a gun for myself or anybody else. Can they be ordered online, mailed across state lines, mailed to me across state lines and then carried into another state to deliver it to my dad? I know that Walmart sells some, but I’m inherently nervous about buying such delicate and functional machinery… at WallyWorld. Am I wrong to discount Walmart out of hand? How do I find out whether or not my dad would need some sort of permit to store/use the gun?
I’d also like to get the guns for him and be able to give him some sort of ammunition safe to use in the house, just in case he ever had to use the gun insider with family members possibly being in various rooms (Og forbid). He said he doesn’t want a shotgun, so birdshot is out. So I got to thinking of (I think the name is) Glaser Safety Slugs? But what I’m heard of ammunition like that is that much less useful unless it’s fired from guns with longer barrels, since it loses a good deal of its potential stopping power. Any truth to that, and if not, do slugs like that fire differently enough that I should get him a few boxes to practice firing the gun with that different dynamic?
Thanks much, in advance, for anybody who can help me puzzle this out.
Oh, and: he lives in Vermont, I live in upstate New York currently, just to give you a sense of where we are.
If all of the post-war models are made of aluminum, then aluminum it is. Thanks for clearing some stuff up for me.
