Will Bear Arms
Opinions are like noses, you have one, I have one, so does everybody else. Certainly, the last thing I want to do is to talk someone out of a closely held and highly cherished opinion.
However, in my personal experience as a young grunt in a hostile environment, a handgun is useless if you are in a situation where a real gun is needed, i.e. ground combat. Where most of your enemy contact is minefields, mortar, rocket and artillery shells that five pounds of handgun, extra mags, ammo, holster, and cleaning equipment does not even give you the comfort of feeling good about having it. When contact is closer, ambushes, etc., you want everything you can throw back. When SHTF big time, you do not need a personal back up, if you are still alive and unwounded, there are plenty of serious weapons laying around the battlefield, take your pick. If you were in a night defensive position and you fired a .357 mag. at something in the dark, your friendly platoon sergeant would kick your ass big time for giving away the position of the defensive line.
Having said that and having my personal opinion about the subject, were realistic training provided instead of famaliarization, I would feel good if the goverment gave every young groundpounder his choice of any hand gun that he wanted to carry and that made him feel good. However, at the present level of training, you would get more friendly fire casualties from mishandled handguns than casualties you could inflict on the enemy with handguns. Speaking of which, just how many enemy do you think get killed with handguns? It is a pitifully small number.
But I would support and sympathize with the grunt who wanted to turn his back after humping a month or two in the bush.
Jay