I guess my point was that popular opinions weather right or wrong , disagreed with or not , are just that.... opinions... Now perhaps I mistakenly saw your post as a denial of others opinions and stating your view and opinion as fast ...
"Birdshot is a bad choice for self-defense" is an opinion. "#6 birdshot penetrates only X" in unclothed ballistic gel" is a fact, not an opinion. The location of human organs inside the body - fact. Radiographs showing birdshot injuries and penetration in human bodies - fact. The way the human body works and what has to be done physiologically to stop it - again, fact. The posts I gave you were chock full of good facts mixed in with opinion - that is why I am a little stunned to hear you discount the links as "just opinions."
Let me give you an example from those threads (I'll summarize to save time instead of giving actual quotes).
Post #1: "Somebody who gets shot in the face or neck with birdshot from household distances WILL stop what they are doing. I GUARANTEE it."
Post #2: List of links to news stories where people were shot in the face/neck with birdshot from household distances and did not stop what they are doing - including one case where the bad guy killed his victim after losing one eye to a faceful of birdshot and then drove 2 hours to a hospital and another case where a 12yr old girl was hit in the head with birdshot from less than 5yds and survived by fleeing her attacker.
Now, one of those posts is purely opinion - and the other one is purely fact; both make express or implied arguments about the suitability of birdshot though. Which one do you think deserves more weight when you evaluate them?
Instead of giving your personal reasons for your feelings simply linked off of OTHER peoples views opinions and reasons.... It's what you've read and studied and believed in . ( According to your response to me , although I'm sure tyou have more personal experience )
No, I linked to those opinions because I believed that it wasn't worth my personal time to write a point by point rebuttal based on my personal experience of each statement of yours I believed to be a fallacy. I already knew that TFL had covered these subjects many times before (since I had pariticpated in previous discussions), so I linked to those discussions to save time.
You see a lot of times, I can tell somebody something that I have learned through personal experience; but those people, often having different or even no experience, tend to discount those stories. Over time, I've just stopped taking the time to respond or keeping my responses brief. You've been the exception to this for the most part - and frankly, an exception I regret making about now; but having started a futile attempt to share that experience, I feel a need to finish it.
So perhaps it was a misunderstanding of what you were trying to get across , but the multitude of links trying to prove my views incorrect , did nothing more than come across to me as " Your ignorant and need to do more research" while at the same time displayed that MANY many other people share my view.
If you have a median level of knowledge, then approximately 3 billion people are more ignorant than you are. That is MANY people who may share or discount your opinion on any given subject; but it doesn't make them any less ignorant. The trick is to develop a reliable process to figure out whether you are talking to the upper half or the lower half of that population. Personally, I've found that my own personal ego and pride have been the biggest impediments to my learning more. That is the nice thing about TFL, since it has been around for over a decade now and I have been here since 2000, you can find lots of examples in my older posts of me proudly sharing my ignorance as more experienced members futilely attempt to explain their reasoning (and P.S. that would be "You're ignorant and need to do more research" - "your" is possessive, "you're" is the contraction of "You are")
You're spreading myths and falsehoods as you can see here..." Is nothing more than touting your opinion as fact... based on other peoples opinions and views.
twellons, the most disturbing theme I find in your repeated statements is that all of these are simply opinions. They aren't. There was plenty of factual information in there if you take the time to read it. If you don't take the time to separate opinion from fact, then all the reading in the world isn't going to advance your knowledge much.
Hotdogs method of listing his personal experiences and views of WHY he has his opinion was in no way negative and was simple a good method of listing why he, as a person, disagrees...
And kudos to Hotdogs for taking the time to do that... but I don't want to take that time. If I did that every time I saw a misleading statement on the Internet, it would consume my entire life and lead to very little personal satisfaction. Your post alone would have wasted half a day. Furthermore, your very response to my posts reinforces my belief that it is better to let ignorant people wallow in their ignorance rather than spend a lot of my time gently correcting them in a way that both soothes their wounded pride and educates them. I don't say that to be mean or disrespectful to you; but rather to frankly describe why I don't take more time to give a better reply.
So again , perhaps a misunderstanding .... but back to the subject at hand , A shotgun , short barrel ( perhaps with PGO or stock ) and Birdshot is my current opinion in answer to the question.
You know, Jeff Cooper famously said (and again I summarize to save time) that possession of a firearm doesn't make you qualified to use it any more than possession of a piano makes you a concert pianist. Much more important than anybody's opinion here is that you get out and train and use your firearms. Go hunt some 100-200lb mammals with shotgun loaded with birdshot. If you do this, you will soon be able to sort through those various opinions a lot better and you won't need my input whether it is fact or opinion. You'll know through your own experience. You'll also better understand whether despite that a PGO meets whatever unique needs you might have.
There is a saying: "Wise people learn from the experience of others. Smart people learn through their own experiences. Monkeys learn through repetition."
The thing with firearms is that unless you get out there and shoot them, you won't even be able to learn much from the experience of others since you can't sort the experienced shooters from the 15yr old Counterstrike/Airsoft crowd.
I'm not really sure how so many of these replies came back to my single post.... I'm feeling the love though
Hmmmm, have any of your other posts here drawn that kind of response? What do you think the difference is in this case?
