How many shots is enough

My Galco shoulder holster holds a Glock on one side and 2 extra mags on the other and is very comfortable and quite concealable. Then I throw in a 9mm Shield as a BUG and an extra mag for that.

Doctrine was that you carried at least 2 reloads for your gun. Before I retired I carried significantly more ammo plus an AR with 7 mags on duty.

It is all based on your perception of what is needed based on your experience and training. I would rather have and not need than need and not have. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said "Few men will ever need a gun, but those who do will need it very, very, badly".
 
I've always said that it's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

I normally carry 2 loaded mags(7 + 7 = 14), and an extra box(50) somewhere, just in case. There's a lot to be said for comfort of carry, yet it's more comforting knowing that I have some extra ammo stashed somewhere if I need it.
 
posted by 8bit:

This is one of those questions that's impossible to answer. Maybe 1 is enough. Maybe 20 is not enough. I think it all boils down to what you are feel safe and are comfortable with.
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# 1 answer and I agree.
 
I would add that there is likely a psychological comfort to having 'enough' rounds to 'not enough' for a situation, and that may factor in your strategy and tactic at the moment.

Consider this scenario. Honestly.

You got home from work later than expected, and rushed straight home for personal reasons. You've just finished chores and packing for your road trip. You're just stepping out to gas up the car and get some coffee creamer or other last minute items at midnight so you can get an early start on your road trip the next day. The gas-n-go is just a few miles away off the interstate. The trip should take 15 minutes, but worth it now to beat the rush in the morning.

You pump your gas and pop in to get supplies. As you are in the back of this medium size convenience store, by the coolers, you see a pregnant woman selecting a gallon of milk from the cooler. It's at that time, you hear the door buzzer followed by some commotion; shouting, and the distinct racking of a pump shotgun. You duck down and can clearly see in the convex ceiling mirror AT LEAST two gang looking young men near the front of the store. One has revolver pointed at the cashier who is frantically trying to open the register. The other thug is walking toward the back of the store with the pump shotgun. The woman is whimpering uncontrollably.

You've been in this store before, and you know that the only exit is several isles over and would be near suicidal to attempt, and you'd be leaving this female behind in rushing for it. She's already in a mild panic and would be impossible to make any coordinated effort with this person.

You have about 5 seconds to figure out your plan before you're 'discovered' by the thug with the shotgun. What will happen if you are discovered? Assault and robbery for sure. Maybe your gun will be discovered? Execution? Worse for the woman? What are you going to do? This isn't about being a 'hero,' but this could be about pure survival.

You are carrying a 5 shot .357 magnum snubnose, which you are proficient with. You have no reloads.

Maybe there's a 3rd guy outside? A lookout? Driver?

Do you flee? Fight? Open fire on one of them for surprise? Open fire on both instantly? Beg for your life?

Go.

NOW- does your decision change if you have a different firearm? Say a pistol with 20 rounds of 9mm? 15 rounds of .40? Or a pistol with 8 rounds of .45? Do you carry a reload? Do you account for gun malfunctions? Misses? Ineffective hits? How about no gun?

Now, perhaps 5 rounds is 'enough' for this scenario. Perhaps not. But you can easily see how only having 5 shots would definitely influence your decision on your tactics, shot distribution, etc. For instance, if you have only 5 shots, you might only put 2 in the closer thug, keeping the 3 remaining for the longer harder shot. You can't guarantee the shotgun works or is loaded, if you can confiscate it. And a scatter gun may not be the best for this scenario because you could accidently hit the clerk. Your OPTIONS open up if you have say 15 rounds of .40 cal, and another mag of 15 rounds on your hip. You might stop the shotgun threat with several shots, and then move on immediately to the guy at the front of the store with several shots, keeping 5 in the mag, and then do a quick mag change and train on the front door....

So, maybe with only 5 rounds, you decide not to engage and roll the dice with being taken captive vs. going on the offensive with 30 rounds at your disposal.
 
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Well lead counsel, if it was me going out that late at night for gas, it would be a 6-shot 44 magnum snubby (OWB), a 13-shot 40 cal semi (Shoulder) and a 5-shot 44 spl (Ankle). 24 rds, no reloads.

If the shotgun is about to discover me, I have few good options: the 44 mag comes out first, throws a 3 foot flame (which should discourage even the most ardent Miami crackhead) and I can only hope that the 40-lb bags of kitty litter that I am hiding behind catch the shotgun pellets, and all my shots hit the perps.

How many shots is enough? 20 should do. More is better.

Best to you.
 
Well, the simple answer of course, remains that "It depends."

But I will add to leadcounsel's scenario by saying that no one ever thought in the middle of a Bad Day that gosh, it's a good thing I didn't bring more ammunition.
 
Armchair quarterbacking now?
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Posted by JohnKSa: So why doesn't reality match the calculations? Simple--the prospect of being ventilated is a very effective means of rearranging an attacker's motives in most cases. So actually disabling the attacker isn't often required.

What that means is that it is not possible to successfully argue against the premise that having a few rounds will often be sufficient for self-defense based on real-world self-defense data. It is often sufficient.
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Another reason is that the calculations presumed that the defender will shoot at the first attacker only until two hits have been achieved. I think it not unlikely that in a "Tueller like" attack, the defender may end up shooting the first attacker four or five times. For that reason, I think the analysis may well be optimistic.

Yes, the second assailant may "often" cease and desist. Does one want to bank on that? Consider that for him to do so, he will have to...
  • Notice that his accomplice has been hit, recognizing that the gunfire came from the defender and not from his accomplice
  • Be in a position in which he thinks that turning and running is safer than trying to stop the defender from shooting him
  • Not believe that, without the money and car of the defender, he has no realistic chance of escape

I would not bet on it.
 
I think threads on this topic generate more cliches than any other.

Scenarios are meaningless. Inventions of the imagination, created specifically and solely to prove the point of the imaginer.

Prepare for whatever you like. There's always a scenario that your imagination doesn't cover and for which someone who is "more prepared" than you will call you a fool for not recognizing all the while a "less prepared" person will call you paranoid.

Both sides will sling cliches and back at them. A lot of silliness.
 
Scenarios are meaningless
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I respectfully disagree. I've presented a quite common scenario. Convenience stores are dangerous places, subject to robbery. Robberies often involve 2+ armed assailants.

We learn from thinking about what you would do from scenarios. Heck, it's how law enforcement and military learn - setting up a scenario and role playing it or acting it out or at least critically thinking about your options.

This isn't a 'far fetched' situation.

There are many scenarios, all common, in which you would be facing multiple armed assailants and only having 1.7, or 5, or even 10 rounds is woefully inadequate.
 
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If I understand Brian correctly, his point is not actually that scenarios are strictly without value. I think he's making a general statement about how they are frequently engineered to support specific notions. That is a fair assessment of the course of these conversations.

I would assume that we would all be in agreement that evaluating or thinking through realistic scenarios can be a valuable practice for learning.
 
Rabbit out of the hat scenarios are pointless and Brian's post is spot on.

Want to see how you'd do in a scenario? Train for it. Even then you're not guaranteed to succeed in it in real time unless you trained for the exact same scenario and are encountering it piece by piece as you trained for it, highly unlikely. Every. Single. Scenario. Is different.
 
Rabbit out of the hat scenarios are pointless and Brian's post is spot on.
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Okay, here's a different scenario then.

You're sitting on your couch and nothing happens. No gun was needed. I guess zero bullets is the answer.

Sheesh...

I never understand why people enter these conversations, and then say that someone else's scenario, a realistic one at that, is without merit...

The scenario presented may never happen to anyone here. But it is designed to make people consider that perhaps carrying a bullet in your pocket like Barney Fife is inadequate.
 
Scenarios are useless in proving a point because they're imaginary and invented TO prove the point. I can prove any point with an imaginary scenario. This isn't a training question, it's a choice question.

Consider:
1)I don't carry a gun because 99.5% of Americans will live their lives and die of heart disease, or cancer, and never need a gun.

2)I carry a gun because I might need one.

3)I carry a gun, 3 reloads, a BUG and 3 reloads for it, because I might need them.

4)I carry 2 full-size handguns, 3 BUGS, 3 reloads for each, 2 rifles in my car, 10 loaded mags for each and a shotgun with a case of slugs a case of buck shot and a case of turkey loads, cuz, hey you never know.

Why are scenarios useless? Because I could invent a scenario to justify any of those choices, even one with a conveniently placed damsel in distress, who's pregnant even, that no blue-blooded American boy could abandon. It's irrelevant.

In spite of the protests, it's all about our own perception of the odds. It prompts the cliche; It's the stakes! Not the odds!; to which I say Bull!

The stakes are the same for a whole variety of possibilities that we ignore, including things with much higher odds. This includes the guy who carries no gun, 2 guns, or 12 guns. There are still scenarios I could invent that show how dismally unprepared any of them are, no matter what. There are things that have happened in this country where you'd better be a SEAL Team 6 member AND have your whole dang squad with you. So what? We going to start carrying for that? There's certainly scenarios that can "justify" it.

Mainly, it's a matter of our personal interest. It's not the stakes, it's not the odds, it's interest.

Then we want to justify our choices and everybody who's less prepared is a naive fool and anybody more prepared is a paranoid loon.

Really, it's just personal choice.
 
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As the O.P. of this thread, I have to agree with Brian Pfleuger. My intent was only curiosity about what others carried and their thought process as to why. I wasn't interested in starting a chest thumping contest for people trying to prove that their school of thought is the only right one.
I was beginning to think that perhaps my choice of a couple of 5 shot 38's and a speedloader or two was getting behind the times. So, I spent Saturday at the range firing about 550 rounds through a couple of borrowed automatics and my 38's. It reminded me pretty quickly of why I chose to carry a snubby all those years ago. Snubbies may not be right for you, but they are what works for me. I may not have enough firepower for every possibility, but I will just have to risk it as I am going to have to stick with what works best for me for the majority of situations.
 
I carried a 5 shot .38 until I saw John's analysis. That did it for me.

Well, not quite. First, I had to have someone point out to me that my reasoning, which had been based on my assessment that the likelihood that I would ever have to use the gun in the first place was remote at best, was irrelevant. I should have been considering the conditional probability. I should have been assessing what I wanted on hand in the event that I did in fact have to use the firearm.

I then considered the following:
  • How many shots would I likely fire at a charging attacker? I think maybe three or four. It would likely happen very quickly indeed, under great pressure. I had not thought that one through until after I had taken a defensive pistol shooting course. I have not taken any FoF training or training involving rapidly moving targets.
  • What about a second accomplice? That's not unlikely, around here. Might shooting be necessary? That's anybody's guess. I would like to err on the side of caution.
  • Do I want to end up with an empty gun? No.

It became a simple risk management problem. Not everyone will come up with the same conclusion. Here are some thoughts:
  • Five rounds could well prove very inadequate in the event that two determined attackers are encountered.
  • Six would be better, and seven, better still.
  • Beyond some point, maybe around eight or ten, more capacity will likely contribute very little, if anything, to one's security.
  • Reloads, except perhaps for New York reloads, are probably not very effective for risk mitigation.

I'm not trying to substantiate a number; I'm simply trying to explain my thought process.

And that did lead to changing what had been a preconceived notion.

BTW, I carry eight or ten. I would not expect to fire that many, but I do like the idea of a reserve.
 
My 9mm compact holds 12+1 and my 380 auto holds 6+1. I carry the 9c about 70 percent of the time. Since I've never had to use either I'm not sure how many is enough. I hope I have enough if need though.
 
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