Crimes Stopped By Brandishing - Does Caliber Matter?

Here's some food for thought guys....

This is something that has made me wonder recently. My wife is really into the show "I Survived" and other shows of that nature. There have been several instances where I have seen people (ie the general public, who don't know much about guns), say things to the affect of "I thought it might have been a fake gun until I saw the size of the hole (bore size)." This is totally understandable with the amount of airsoft guns and BB guns that look so real these days.

So, I have wondered if you had to draw on someone, and all you had was a small caliber gun, would it be likely that they could assume it was a fake? I think it would be a possibility. Of course, not too many people want to call bluff on a man with what they know could be a gun.
 
I 100% stand by the example I used in my previous post...

Also I'm 100% sure that if you are carrying & draw a NAA mini revolver in a self defense situation, that you will need to actually fire the gun in a much higher percentage of situations than if you were holding a "44 Magnum" ( for example )...
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Does caliber matter? Of course it does.

Even if you subscribe to the theory that a majority of crimes are thwarted simply because a hand gun was brandished, do you really want to base your protection on playing the averages?

To take that logic a step further, what portion of CCW holders ever have to draw their weapon in the first place? Not sure of the actual percentage, but let's guess and say it's small. It's actually likely very small.

So based on those two assumptions, a. brandishing a gun will prevent crime and b. you'll likely never need to your gun for self defense so why bother to carry at all?

Personally, I carry because you can't expect the unexpected. And while you'll likely never need a gun for self defense, if you do happen to need one, you'll likely need it more than you've ever needed any thing in your life. If you are going to bother to be prepared, then be prepared.

If you are prepared to brandish a gun, you had better be prepared to use it. If you use it, you better have enough gun.
 
Not so much caliber, but I do think size has a slight role in the BG running or not. In today's world some criminals think the size of your gun in directly related to your "manhood". Those people will see a small .22 or .25 and think you are weak and advance. BUT if they see a 1911 or other fullsize gun, they believe you are willing to shoot and they surrender or run. This does not apply to every criminal or situation, but I have it on pretty good authority that the low level thugs tend to think this way. I worked with a few in the past and they all saw my Davis derringer one day when I killed a cottonmouth behind the shop(.38 shotshell). One of them made the comment "what you gon do wit dat lil thang?" I told him that was my snake gun, for the two legged snake's I prefered my .45. When he saw that 1911 leave it's concealed holster he almost broke his neck trying to get behind his buddy. :D As a nice plus to the situation, I started to get some work out of him after that too.
 
Sometimes I think it can when BG's see a big bore, or big gun. They may become scared and like someone said believe it to be real instead of a bb gun. However, this is something I don't consider. I carry a 45. My 1911 is my favorite launch platform because I shoot the best with it. If the bore helps to deter crime great. However, if a BG is looking at my bore of a 9mm or 45ACP, I am ready to fire. My guns comes out when I feel my life or loved ones are threatened and with the intention of using it. If I don't have to use it great but if its out its ready to go.
---I don't think there is anything unsafe about carrying a cocked and locked 1911(MKIV Series 70) with no firing pin block. The only time I heard of a AD because of that was it dropped on the muzzle. That was from a height of about 12 ft. too. I think it's safe, Defintley safer than carrying any Glock.
 
1) see the pistol
2) rationally decide that he or she may get hurt or killed
3) and then go away

instead of

1) not knowing you drew a weapon
2) not being in a rational state of mind
3) pressing home an attack any way
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..Most people wont try to confront a man with a gun:D
 
In a car engine, it's called a turbo charger.
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Bah, it's really just another flavor of supercharging :D But a turbo doesn't really become the great equalizer anyway- even with variable vane and all the other goodies. It's because anything that you can do to small cube engine to make it perform better than a bigger engine can also be done to the bigger engine too. For practical applications it may make sense to go with a smaller and likely lighter engine and use some form of supercharging, but in the abstract, unless you stipulate that the big cube engine has to be naturally aspirated, then there really is no replacement for displacement if the only goal is ultimate numbers, unless you care to go to illogical extremes and suggest that a 1 million CID engine may be out-performed naturally aspirated or not, by an engine of substantially smaller size because the 1 million CID engine has too much rotational mass to move it's own crankshaft on available fuels ;)

Anyway...I think, as far as it goes, if a car engine parallel is to be drawn, then the caliber of the pistol is akin to the cylinder bore- it means nothing without also taking into account the rest of the engine or pistol design. For example, an oversquare engine with the right cam may make a good street performance engine but a lousy drag mill if the rear end is only around 3.31:1 and the transmission gear ratios aren't considered; a compact lightweight 44 mag with a 2" barrel may be an impressive revolver in terms of numbers but it may be uncomfortable to shoot :) I want to look at the whole package, high performance car, or handgun
 
Simply put it's an insurance policy. Do you want a policy that might cover a small part of your loss or an umbrella policy that covers all risks?
 
..Most rational people wont try to confront a man with a gun
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There, I fixed it for you ;)

While certainly nobody can argue your point, I would like to key on two things, one is my addition to your statement, and the other is your quantifier "most"

On one hand, you can also say that most rational people won't try to kidnap you, beat you, rape you, stab you, and bury your naked corpse in a shallow grave. I can name a gentleman who by all accounts seemed a nice normal rational man, until he picked up my stranded friend about ten years ago. Nice man, gave her a ride to get some help, even let her make a cell call to her mom on the ride to assure her that she was OK. Except the ride ended when he buried her naked stabbed raped and lifeless corpse a foot or so underground, in the woods. Rather unpleasant turn of events for all involved, particularly her, given that this nice man showed no outward signs of being a homicidal rapist until she was far from help. The point is, you can't always pick out crazy drugged or downright evil folks as they walk down the street. So yeah, rational folks aren't the cause for you to CC

On the other, you concede that "most" won't try the confrontation. What percentage of people is "most" anyway? 90% 51%? 65%? The answer is "nobody knows for sure". Similar to my point above, you can't tell by looking at people, and if they are saluting you with a steel pipe in an alleyway at 2 am, they may never even see your big scary gun, or they may be desperate enough to risk it.

edit~

Although, I think the whole event you describe is skewed- you don't CC and brandish at the same time, now that I think on it. You're cc'ing, not walking down a street with a gun in your hand or on your hip. You've been confronted already if you brandish a CCW
 
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My logic is: if a majority of crimes are averted by simply drawing a gun, why not opt for a smaller caliber?
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Because the rest of them actually involve firing the gun.

You can swing danny vermin's 88 magnum out, and it is certainly going to scare the bad guy worse than Bond's PP, so big will be better in a number of cases even if you don't fire.

if you do have to fire, and you have packed a .25 on the assumption that you wouldn't have to fire it,

you may have just thrown your life away because you decided to see if you could get away with making only the very least effort.

Count on a few things in life. One of them is that if you cant win at anything in life if you don't step up to the plate, and gunfights are included. Second is that if you pull a popgun on a thug who has a .45 in your face, the odds are pretty good he's gonna shoot you, and kill you, and you will have never stood a chance.

If I was asked this by any of my relatives, I'd have reflexively told them that it was a stupid question, and thrown something at them.
 
Yawn. Not this again. My brother is a cop. He's seen at least two people killed by head shots at close range with a .22. A .22 to the head is not always certain to stop an assailant, but it is a high probability. That said, if you are good and accurate with a .32 and can consistently make a head shot under pressure, you have all the caliber you need. If you can't hit the side of a barn with a .40, you are not doing yourself any favors if that is what you chose to carry.
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I find it amusing that so many people make the argument that the caliber and hit probability are mutually exclusive. These people need to spend more time at the range and less time behind a keyboard.

For anyone of even modest experience level, it is far easier to hit what you aim at with a 1911 (or equivalent) than it it with an LCPj-frame (or equivalent) .

Moreover...The fact is that if you miss with a .22 or a .32, you still missed. If you hit COM with a .45, it is going to be a whole lot more efffective than that .22 or .32.
 
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Chamber a 45 caliber round in one of your pistols(I'll mention to be careful with live rounds, obviously) . Point the barrel at a well lit mirror and you can see the hollowpoint sitting there in the reflection. I can in my 1911, wanted to see if you could and thats the only safe way.
 
1) brandishing is illegal in most states.
2) openly showing a holstered firearm isn't brandishing and may defuse the situation.
3) removing the firearm from the holster/barrel down, does let the bg know the tide has changed and as tony baretta used to say, "the bg has the ball".

fwiw:
a guy was driving down I-17 from flagstaff and some young kids started messsing with him, he displayed a firearm/not fired, they called the cops and in a short time the perp was boxed in, arrested, lost ccw and was criminally prosecuted.
 
I've got to disagree with the OP's rationale for asking the question, but it's an interesting question. After all, there is whole cult of the one-shot-stop statistic. Maybe we should also study the zero-shot-stop statistic. After all, everyone knows that just the sound of a shotgun slide racking a round into the chamber will send a burglar away quivering like a bowl of jello.
 
My opinion of brandishing a weapon would only happen on my property with the hope that additional force would not be needed. You must be prepared to follow through at the same time. Since in most states brandishing a weapon (handgun) is a crime, I figure the only time to pull out a concealed pistol is to fire the weapon. If my life is in danger or that of my spouse and I need to use a gun, then pulling it out of concealment and firing the weapon is what needs to be done.

Pointing a weapon at a person is a very serious thing to do. Failing to follow through can get you killed easily. If you think you can scare off someone, there probably is another way to do it without brandishing.

The only time I can think of not firing is holding a thief at gun point while waiting for law enforcement to come and take them away. In some places that action can also get you removed as well for the crime of brandishing a weapon. Things are not as straight forward as they once were. Civilians are not supposed to be doing law enforcement. I guess we are supposed to be rabbits and only allowed to fight back only as the last option left.

If everyone was armed, we would have a much more polite society. Crime would also be much lower.
 
Make sure you know your states laws about firearms like the back of your hand. It only makes sense. You want to know if your carry what you can and can't do, exactly.
 
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