billnourse said:
Wasn't going to respond again and get into a p###### contest, but some of the responses seem to imply that some of us are just chuvonist pigs that keep the wifey barefoot and PG.
Naw, no chance of a piddling-contest -- we just disagree, that's all.
And please look at my posts (just
mine, mind!) again. If I implied that anyone is a misogynist or a chauvinist, I sure didn't mean to do it. It's difficult to have these conversations online, where people can't hear your tone of voice or read your body language, so please believe my words here: there's no malice or ill-will in what I'm saying here. My goal was & is to help the OP find a good gun for his wife, using truly useful criteria.
I was in the Marine Corps for 4 years with a 12 month tour in Viet Nam. I was then a police officer for 20 years.
Thank you for your service, both in the military and in civilian life. Civilization happens because men like you step up to the plate and
make it happen.
PAX I would be willing to buy you a steak dinner if you would choose 100 of your past students at random and bring them back a year later for testing and have 60 of them still at the levels they were when you finished with them. I will bet that 40 will be below the skill level required to "instincitively" clear a jam, misfire or other malfunction, and of that 40, 20 will be downright incompetent.
No deal, sir!
I agree with you: gun manipulations are a perishable skill. Although I'll disagree on the percentages you suggest, in part because my students are all people who voluntarily come to class - no gov't coercion requiring training in this state - and who pay their own money to be there. That's going to be a little different from the experience of someone teaching non-voluntary students for job-required training, since the voluntary ones pay out of their own pocket and tend to be a lot more enthusiastic about learning the topics they signed up to learn.
Setting that aside, here’s the real nub: for self defense, having the willingness to shoot and the skill to put a shot where you want to put it at very close quarters is more than 98% of the game. Yes, it's true that people who won't stay in practice won't be able to clear a jam -- under stress or any other time -- won't be able to reload in a hurry, won't be able to achieve excellent marksmanship at distance, and on and on and on.
But for self defense, they
probably won't need to do any of those things. Oh, they might. That's why we teach that stuff. But far and away more common than any of those things is 1) the willingness to shoot (determined display covers the huge majority of defensive gun uses), and 2) the ability to pull a trigger quickly and get a decent hit. If the student cannot hit the target quickly and well, all the skill in the world at reloading, at gun manipulation, at clearing jams, at whatever-else-it-is, simply
will not matter. Hitting the target is job one.
I kept her in all the ammo and equipment she could possible use. Hardly a case of telling her she wasn't good enough. Her defense gun of choice however, was a Model 36.
It’s possible I wasn’t clear enough about Myth #1. Please allow me to try again. The myth is, “Women won’t practice.” It’s not really true for most beginning shooters, but when we repeat this idea often enough – whether blatantly or just by our attitude toward their learning process – it’s very likely to become true. The problem is compounded when a women gets handed a firearm that
she herself doesn’t find comfortable to shoot. Obviously, that wasn’t the case for your wife, because she had a gun that
she herself enjoyed shooting, and because you “kept her in all the ammo and equipment” she wanted to use. In other words, she had a gun that worked for her and a supportive partner who didn’t tell her or imply to her that he thought she was too stupid to practice. Good for you!
Myth #2. Firearms proficiency is the same with a revolver or an auto. Basics are sight alignment, breath control and trigger control. This can very effectively be taught using the single action option of the revolver and then transitioning on to double action.
I’ll agree with you that shooting skills can & do transfer from one platform and trigger type to another. However, I strongly dislike the idea of teaching someone interested in self defense to cock the hammer and shoot single action from the beginning, because every repetition builds a habit and because such early-built habits can be surprisingly durable. The habit of cocking the gun before firing can be a very bad and very dangerous one for a self defense shooter. It slows her down, prevents her from making a rapid follow up shot, and (most important) if she really will be one of the “I’m not going to practice” people you’re concerned about, then having this unpracticed shooter in a highly stressful situation with a very light, short SA trigger under her untrained trigger finger can be a dicey situation for sure. Teaching that new student how to safely decock takes only a few minutes, but that’s not a skill she is likely to practice on her own, and that makes the whole thing even more dicey if she gets the gun out, gets ready to fire, and then the situation resolves without need for shooting. Then this unpracticed shooter is highly adrenalized, shaky, upset … and needs to safely lower that hammer without shooting anything that shouldn’t be shot. Not a bet I’d take, really.
If the new shooter, learning for self defense, doesn’t have the hand strength to keep the muzzle aligned on target while pulling the trigger, that gun isn’t a good choice for her because she can’t shoot it the way it’s designed to be shot. A defensive shooter isn’t a hunter, after all.
My personal experience was just the oposite of yours. Most people struggled more with slide function than they did with the double action pull of a well made revolver.
No sense rehashing the “I’ve seen” vs “you’ve seen.” After ten years at a busy firearms training school, I’ve certainly seen enough students of my own to know what I know. And of course, after decades of doing much the same thing, you know what you know.
Let’s just say, for now, that both of us are right and there are a lot of people out there who struggle with both those things, heavy triggers and difficult slides.
If you struggle with the trigger:
- You can’t hit the target well.
- You can’t hit the target quickly.
- You die because the bad guy got to you before you were able to hit him.
If you struggle with the slide:
- You can hit the target, but if the gun jams you can’t clear it.
- You can shoot quickly, but you won’t be able to reload.
- You probably live, because most defensive gun uses require neither clearing nor reloading, and you were able to hit the bad guy before he got to you.
I saw where you recommended the Kahr P9. My wife had a 9 and I have a P40. The trigger pull on these are no better than the double actions on my S&W revolvers. I guess a double action is not as difficult if it is your gun of choice.
Now we’re almost on the same page! My observation has been that when people start out with a firearm that they
don’t choose for themselves, they tend to have less determination to move forward with learning even when it’s a gun they say they like. This gets very much more noticeable when it’s a gun they don’t find particularly comfortable or enjoyable, especially if (as so often happens!) the person who gives it to them makes a big deal of having “done a lot of research” and “chose exactly the right gun that should be really, really easy for you to shoot.” So if the other person’s choice
isn’t comfortable or enjoyable for her to shoot, she tends to get very discouraged very quickly, because she trusts her partner and believes him when he says that gun is the best one for her to learn on. If that’s the best that’s out there, but it hurts to shoot or if she really has to struggle with it, then what’s the point in looking for another gun? Even the best didn’t work, so she gives up. She puts the gun in a drawer and she doesn’t go to the range and then her husband comes online and laments that women just don’t like to shoot…
So bottom line: if your new shooter wants a revolver, by all means get her a revolver. If she wants a semiauto, get her a semiauto. Don’t steer her toward one or the other based on what
you like or what
you find comfortable or what
you think she should have. She needs to make up her own mind on this one because if she doesn’t, she will find it a lot harder to develop the proper motivation and mindset to continue.
But as far as the Kahr P9 specifically, let me point out that the OP said nothing about his wife’s hand strength one way or the other. For myself, I find the Kahr trigger long but not too heavy, and certainly easier than the wretched DA / DAO triggers we’re seeing on a lot of newer guns on both sides of the great divide. Again a matter of perception and another reason to choose your own firearm rather than having it handed to you on a platter.
Plus many autos are double action then single action, or have a safety that has to be operated. How can this possibly be easier.
Hey, look at my recommendation list again! Not a single lever anywhere, no decockers, no user-operated safeties. You and I do agree on one thing: simplicity is a good thing for beginners.
I am basing my post on personal experiences which include actually being in life threatening situations involving firearms. That my observations and opinions differ from yours does not make it a myth, just a different set of experiences.
Please believe me that I really meant it when I said I really didn’t mean it personally when I said they were myths. A lot of people believe those things, but my personal experience both as a woman and as a firearms instructor simply has not borne them out. You see it differently and that’s hardly a surprise; of course my experience as a female learning to shoot, and then as a female firearms instructor teaching other women to shoot has been quite different from yours as a military and law enforcement firearms trainer. But as a woman working with women, I really am quite amazed at how starkly my own real-world experience with learning to shoot differs from what I read online about what I as a woman should like, enjoy, think, or believe about firearms. I’m only one person, and I’m no more an expert on “what women want” than anyone else on the planet, but it still chaps my hide to constantly be told this stuff about “women” that just doesn’t line up with my life or the lives of people I know.
I still feel that a revolver is a fine choice for a 1st pistol. They are easy to learn to shoot, they are effective, and if you are a reloader, they are more fun. You can spend all of your range time shooting instead of half of it chasing brass.
No argument there. They
can be a good choice – when the new shooter prefers to go that route.
By the way, those myths about the revolver being as good as it is was prepetuated by some pertty serious gunfighters. Bill Jordon, Tom Threepersons, Ed Mcgivern and Elmer Keith come immediately to mind, but they were probably just old dinasours like me.
A fair parting shot! Thanks for the lively discussion.
pax,
Kathy
