Home Defense Handgun...
- Thread starter DaftHazard
- Start date
The reality is that there is no "best" home defense gun other than the one you have handy. Every situation is different; Nobody in their right mind wants to be shot, and those that are "not in their right minds" (PCP, crack, etc.) aren't going to be deterred. In extreme cases such as that, it's shot placement that counts.
Bottom line is that the "best" home defense gun is the one that you are proficient with, regardless of calibre. I feel just as comfortable using a .32 automatic as I do a 1911.
Anyone who has a gun but doesn't know how to use it is just kidding themselves.
Bottom line is that the "best" home defense gun is the one that you are proficient with, regardless of calibre. I feel just as comfortable using a .32 automatic as I do a 1911.
Anyone who has a gun but doesn't know how to use it is just kidding themselves.
Cold Steel
New member
AK103K said:
Although I agree in spirit, there are many inexperienced people who are alive because they had a gun. And even though they can't practice enough to be proficient, they can still defend themselves. There are people who have used RG .22lrs to save their wretched lives. Some people are disabled; others have no place to shoot. Some people just waltz into a gun store, buy a revolver, a box of ammo and twelve years later they keel over and the family finds the gun, six cartridges in the gun and the rest in the box. My grandmother had an old Colt .38 she kept in a drawer, and she grew up in the country around guns. She moved to Paducah to nurse an ailing woman until she, herself, began to have health problems. Then the two lived together for the rest of their lives. When her mind began going, my dad had to take the pistol and my grandmother really got her nose out of joint. Seems even those with Alzheimer's don't want to be disarmed. Still, she had used that gun to chase off a number of tramps, bums and transiants who tried to break in and take advantage of them over the years.Gyvel said:
Anyway, it's great to learn weapons and tactics. It's nice to have speedloaders and know how to use them. But the bottom line is that the two greatest skills necessary for self protection are pointing and shooting. You don't shoot in the dark and you don't run around looking for intruders if you think they're there. My grandmother knew all that but but the last. She'd get that gun and go looking for the trouble and she was pretty good at finding it before it found her. My dad was like that, too, so we know where he got it. Only my dad used the Marine Ka-Bar he had in the Pacific and slip downstairs in the dark!
This Smith 317 would be ideal for people who can't get out to practice.
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And I agree with you in spirit, but these weren't people "out of their right minds" on PCP, crack, meth, heroin or what have you. That is a very different scenario, and necessitates competence with the gun at hand to incapacitate such a person as opposed to scaring them off.
After living in Miami, FL for 36 years, I moved to a tiny community in northern AZ and have lived here for 25 years. It is a highly unusual area in that crime is low and people are friendly. If I want to shoot, I go out my front door and shoot. As a result, I am blessed by not having the threats of home invasions or burglaries. Of course, people "talk" in small communities, so most everybody more or less knows that I am armed, which, I suspect, may be a deterrent to those who would "do wrong." YMMV
Cold Steel
New member
No need for confusion, really. The .22lr can be launched faster, with greater accuracy and it thus tends to create more complex and far-reaching wounds than the .32acp. An old country doctor once told my dad that without an X-Ray, he wouldn't know where to look for a .22lr bullet. In many respects, a .22lr is considerably more lethal, having more than enough energy to enter the body, but lacking the mass to exit. With a .32acp wound, you simply follow the channel. With a .22lr wound, the bullet can end up anywhere.DA/SA Fan:
With virtually no recoil or flash, a .22lr is far easier to put where you want it. And you can put a lot of lead in the air, faster and more precisely.
Nevertheless, even with multiple shots, can you be sure that there will be enough nervous system shock damage or blood loss to incapacitate the assailant?
Barring a head or heart shot(s) or CNS shot(s), I don't think even multiple shots from a .22 will be that effective. Of course, if that's all you have, it's better than nothing.
As usual, it's shot placement that counts. One shot between the eyes with a .22 will do the trick better than 10 random shots at various other body points.
A .32 is also a relatively low recoil, low flash round and is probably just as easy for a shooter to place multiple shots with it as with a .22.
Cold Steel
New member
Yes, you do have a point. My grandmother's 158-gr LRN also would have been somewhat lacking in today's world, where it often takes sophisticated .357 bullet designs and speed to get a drug user's attention. But a .38 LRN is still better than nothing. My grandfather was an alcoholic and often came home looking for my father to beat. My grandmother was all the protection he had. So when he came in one night looking to beat up on my dad, and my grandfather pushed her out of the way, to get to him, my grandmother pivoted, grabbed a nearby iron skillet and brought it down on the back of his head, laying him out. Then, being a nurse, she nursed him back to health.
She was pretty good about one-shot stops.
As an aside, when she saw some hawks flying overhead looking at her chickens, she grabbed the shotgun and headed out to give them whatfor. Unbeknownst to her, the barrels picked up snow where she had shoveled it. The last thing she remembers was aiming that shotgun at a hawk. When she came to, she was laid out in the snow and one of her barrels split up the side! She said she felt like she'd been hit by lightning. Being poor, the shotgun wasn't well made, but it couldn't have been too bad -- she loved telling the story. Today, there's probably a hawk flying around somewhere that's a direct descendant of the hawk she didn't get that day.
LOL!!!!!!!! That was one tough grannie!
That might be the one that sits in the dead pine tree in my back yard at night. Sometimes, its mate sits there next to it. We had a bad thunderstorm front move through the other night and the poor hawk was just sitting there in the rain. I kinda felt sorry for it, but I guess they're used to it.
Cold Steel
New member
I've thought about that, and if I have a Ruger 11-shot (or even 10-shot), I can fill the air with a lot of lead headed for his chest or noggin. Like I said, my dad grew up in the country and said neighbors never had to worry about him or his friends with .22lr rifles. He said that with the nature of medicine back in those days, they pretty much considered a hit with a .22 to the chest or head to be a death sentence. The doctors back then and there didn't have x-rays like they do now, and even 12-year old kids knew that .22 hits were bad news. If someone wasn't kilt, a doctor would many times have to spend hours looking for the bullet to ensure it hadn't lodged in a vital organ. During the procedure the doctor would often take numerous urine samples looking for blood, so the price for foolishness was very high, especially with the risk of infection.
The fellow I knew who was hit with a .22 bullet from a pistol a mile away said he thought a wasp had gotten him, and as he descended the ladder, his hands became numb and he got dizzy. He came to, was able to crawl to a phone for help, then passed out again. He came very close to dying and I don't think a .32acp could have done that to a person a mile off.
But it's what people are comfortable with. I knew another guy who shot a guy right full in the chest with his 1911 during the war. It was just a few days after MacArthur had come ashore in the Philippines. He assumed the beach was secure when this skinny little guy with a machete comes running out into the water straight for him. He shoots the guy once in the chest and the guy kept coming. Then he uses the gun to beat the guy down while he's struggling with his machete arm. Even then the guy lived, he told me. For the rest of his life he had zero trust in the .45, despite its great success and subsequent advances. I have great faith in mine, but he belittled the .45acp round until he died. To him, if someone needed stopping, the .357 was the way to go.
So based on what I think I know and all the newspaper stories I've read, I think half the battle is what one has faith in. Some folks only carry .44 mag in bear country, but I'm comfortable with my Ruger Security-Six. Maybe if I ever saw a bear, I might feel different. But everyone has their comfort levels.
Cold Steel
New member
Yep. I can't get my cat out of the rain. Comes in soaking wet, gets dried off, eats and goes right out for more. I open the door for him at times and he just looks at me. He likes snow, too, but tends to get cold. In the winter, he spends hours on my lap. In the summer I rarely see him. He does go with me on walks, though. My wife loves him.
Good Lord! Was the guy a Filipino or a Jap? I've been over there a bunch of times and Filipinos tend to like Americans (except the muslims) and they have streets named after MacArthur and statues of him everywhere. I can say that the general consensus of the average Filipino (especially the older generations) is that they DON'T like the Japs.
As an aside, I have one worthless cat* (although he does a bang up job of rodent control) that WON'T go out in the rain. LOL!! Sometimes I worry that the hawk will get him when he does go out at night, but I think he's too big for the hawk. Coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions are more of a worry. I've lost numerous cats to the coyotes.
*He's not really worthless; I just call him that.
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.22 isn't an awesomely lethal caliber. Neither is .32. If the .22 delivery system is superior to the .32 delivery system, maybe .22 is a better overall choice.
If reliability was not an issue, everything an auto needs to do could be accomplished with .22, 9mm and 10mm (or .45 Super). The little subdivisions are comforting, but small, medium and large are also a fine way to look at the caliber problem.
If reliability was not an issue, everything an auto needs to do could be accomplished with .22, 9mm and 10mm (or .45 Super). The little subdivisions are comforting, but small, medium and large are also a fine way to look at the caliber problem.
I think the delivery systems are basically the same and of equal reliability.
What it really boils down to is how proficient and comfortable one is with one's weapon.
Normally I carry a .380 in ccw, but I (personally, me, myself) am also comfortable with the same gun in .32 auto. (Browning 1910.)
YMMV
Again, it depends on the individual; I don't consider my Browning 1910s to be any more difficult to operate than a Ruger Standard. Same applies to Beretta .32/.380s, CZ83 .32s are certainly easy to operate, etc. It's all "what you're used to."
Regarding accuracy, I'm thinking it's only a matter of 10-12' we're talking about in a SD incident, so accuracy really isn't a big factor here.
I will agree, though that given the difference in operating platforms, a Ruger would be light years ahead of a .25.
Again: YMMV
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Very true, and a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile too, and I win more than $10 in the state lottery.
While the first rule of a gun fight is "get a gun", if you want to increase the odds of passing the test, best to at least to get the Cliff Notes and learn how to use it.
I think the just having a gun mentality, especially without basic skills, is just a feel good thing, and false hope.
It doesnt sound like Granny was a "novice".
I dont think anyone can argue that a .22 (or any of the other "small" caliber guns) isnt lethal. The problem is, is it lethal enough, quick enough, especially if you dont make a CNS shot?
The point isnt to "fill the air", its to fill the bad guy, and in the right places.
If it has to be a .22. Id go with the revolver over the autos. Ive owned many if not most of the different make .22 autos over the years, and pretty much all of them get grumpy when dirty, and reliability becomes an issue. If youre not going to maintain them, its will only get worse.
Then you have the issue of misfires, which is also a pretty common thing, and nature of the best with the rimfires. That 11 shot might be done at the first, and if you dont know how get it going again, then what?
Hey, use what ever you want and get as much or little training as you want, youre the one who has to deal when it comes down to it. A guns advantage is distance, and that advantage diminishes quickly as the distance closes, especially if your not prepared to fight close in. Sure, your hit probability "might" go up, but if youve let them get that close and havent yet started shooting, theres a good chance, the result will be a draw.
Cold Steel
New member
Well, every time I go to a range, I've had to fill the air with lead to make little holes in the target. No other way to do it. I can empty a Ruger Mark II into a target's vitals, including the head, in about five seconds. If someone can walk through that hail of bullets, maybe my time is just up.
The Israelis use .22lr to dispatch bad guys because they can put the bullets right where they need to. In the ATF Museum in Washington, they have an actual assassins weapon on display. It's an old Ruger auto with a silencer and carrying case. And I recently read an account of a woman in Israel who killed a terrorist with a Ruger Single-Six. And though anyone can cherry pick incidents, I've just never see articles about people who are killed while defending themselves with .22s and .25s. I also recently heard of a guy who successfully defended himself from a knife-wielding bad guy with a .22 short.