Incremental Update

It's fairly common knowledge at my workplace that I'm a shooter. From time to time I will get questions from coworkers about guns or shooting, and sometimes even about buying firearms. Last week a coworker expressed interest in going to the range. I'm happy to oblige any new shooter, so we're tentatively going to be heading out this weekend. The forecast calls for 104 degrees, so the plan is to head out early to avoid the heat of the day.



In other news, while Michael works on the custom rig I requested for the LCP, I figured that I really ought to get that pesky recall service thing out of the way. I would have done it sooner, but the LCP is my everywhere gun. If I'm going somewhere where I can't carry, I won't strap on the OWB pancake for the Hi-Power - that setup is nigh-impossible to unload discretely in a parking lot. But the LCP can drop in the pocket with an Uncle Mike's pocket holster (or soon-to-come OWB clipper rig) and get secured in the truck in a matter of a couple seconds. Having nothing to stand in for the LCP in this capacity, I've put off the recall service.



Well, along came someone at work selling a NAA Guardian .380 at a good price, so I jumped on it. I had the opportunity to try one out a few years back, and was quite surprised with the accuracy of such a small gun. The NAA was on my list of prospective pocket guns for a long time until I bought the LCP. What I didn't realize was that NAA produced a version to cater to California's ridiculous regulations, and installed an integral "lock" on those guns. My newly-purchased NAA happened to be one of these.



If you know me, then you're probably aware that I'm not a fan of unnecessary potential points of failure in firearms. Fortunately, this turned out to be a tack-on solution, and was easy enough to remove without affecting the functionality of any other systems. I appear to be the only one in the history of the internet who thought it would be a good idea to put up a guide for this procedure, as my search for such information returned nothing. Look for a guide on removing the Integral Locking System from the NAA Guardian here in the near future. I'll also be putting the pistol through reliability testing and should have a review soon with my general observations and photos.



I haven't done a food post in some time, so I'll be putting one together in the near future. A comment on my last post from Jim (flier389) over at Granddad's Corner got me over to his blog, which got me thinking about foods of years past, and those that remind me of my childhood. I thought it would be a fitting subject for an upcoming post.



Anyhow, there's a preview of things to come. See you then.

Road trip on the horizon...

Christina over at Lucrative Pain has graciously invited nearly everyone she knows for a shindig at her place this coming weekend, including several of the bloggers (gunny and otherwise) I've been following for a good couple of years now.

Being a Friday night party and all, most in attendance will be relatively local to her area. Having missed Phlegmmy's Texas Gunblogger meetup early last year (due to lack of employment and therefore discretionary spending money at the time), I've decided I'm going to make this one. I'm told this is not a gunnie-only meetup, but general bloggers and even non-bloggers alike getting together for a party. I also figure it's the neighborly Texan thing to do, seeing as how she's only recently moved to the state. Also, I love road trips, and this will be the first of any significant distance in the truck.

I'm taking off of work midday, and it's something like a 5 hour drive up to her place. It just so happens that Dublin is located along my planned route, so I'll be stopping there to provide some premium Dr. Pepper for the party.

I'm looking forward to it!

Blogroll updates and meh.

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's been a rough and busy few weeks, so I've been busy dealing with other issues. I don't have anything to post of substance quite yet, but I do have some long-awaited blogroll additions in the queue, so go check them out. I'll see what I can do about getting a real post up soon.

Politics, Guns, and Beer - a delightful lady blogger named Laurel from Idaho. Her blog is about politics, guns, and beer (as you might have guessed), as well as some family topics. Good reading.

Another Gun Blog - as you guessed, another gun blog. Mostly political/gun stuff with some new shooter range reports and other random commentary.

The Eclectic One - Another guns/politics blog, with some random entertaining posts sprinkled in for good measure.

The Anarchangel - There's too much to say about this blog really. Chris and Melody have been had a rough time in courts due to a vindictive ex bent on sapping them dry with legal costs. They've received some great support in their times of need from the gunblogging community, and are determined to pay their own way in true American entrepreneurial style rather than continue to rely on the generous charity of others. Bayou Renaissance man has some backstory rundown of their predicament with some links, if you're interested. If you're able, consider making a purchase of their cookbook and help support them in their fight.

The Arizona Rifleman - Enjoyable reading, with topics of guns, politics, life philosophy, and plenty of insight into the practical use of firearms by ordinary people in daily life. Plenty of good range reports with new shooters.

That's all for now. Go read the links!

Status update and blogroll additions.

I apologize for the lack of original posts as of late. I have been attending to the business of securing new employment, and simply haven't had time to do much here. The discussion in the preceding posts hasn't really progressed, simply because I haven't had time to pay attention to it. I may get back around to it eventually, but not right now. Too much to do. I have secured gainful employment once again, so once I normalize my routine, I'll get back to the serious business of writing new entries.

I've been collecting new blogs for a blogroll addition over the past couple of weeks, so I'm going to go ahead and post them here.

Confessions of a Gun Toting Seagull is the writings of a private charter pilot and fellow gunblogger conspirator, aepilotjim. I've been meaning to add him for a while, but the notion has always escaped me when I did blogroll addions in the past. Now that's remedied.

Brillianter.com has a lot of practical tips for self-defense and use of force. Good reading when you're thinking of "what if" scenarios.

Sipsey Street Irregulars - lots of good political commentary, gun-related and otherwise.

Shangrila Towers - a geeky fellow whose writings are interspersed between technical gadgetry, movies, music, and guns. Sitemeter informed me of my addition to his blogroll, and I was flattered at his description of my blog: "He posts less frequently than I do, but the posts are much longer and more detailed - nice for grabbing a mug of coffee and pondering.". Welcome to the blogroll, Mulliga.

ricketyclick is a good mix of political and gun-related content and interesting oddball entertainment pieces. Whee!

Ballistic Deanimation - an almost exclusively gun-related blog, with the occasional saddening or funny story regarding the state of society. Appears to have BOFH tendencies, which makes my SysAdmin self giggle.

Followup commentary on my last post

There has been some extended discussion over in the comments section at Aunt B's blog. Dolphin has replied to my commentary, so I have posted a response there. I'm posting his response and my followup below, for your reading pleasure.

UPDATE: dolphin has once again responded, and so have I. Additional entries added below.

dolphin wrote:

John the Texaner,

For not wanting to make a partisan argument, you sure are trying your best to do just that.

You ask why there are no Texan cities on the list? Good question, why not any New York cities, or Maine, or Virginia, or Illionois, or Maryland? The reason is simple. Because it’s a list of 15. There are over 10,000 cities in the US (according to the 2000 Census, a little outdated I know), so it’s obvious that ALOT more will be left off the list than included on it.

I think you’re dismissing the very logical conclusion of higher population = higher crime rate, while jumping to embrace conclusions that are far more dubious. You can’t simply dismiss the correlation between population and crime on the basis that the 6th highest population missed the list. I’m not suggesting that high population is THE factor that causes higher crime rates. I’m suggesting that it is a major one that interacts with a near infinity of other factors.

If a person who is willing to rob my house is walking down the street in the city and sees a 50″ HDtV sitting in my living room through my window, I’m likely to get robbed. On the other hand, if the exact same person is walking down my street in the country, they are far less likely to walk an acre and a half to my house just to see if there might be something inside they want to steal. I don’t think they care whether I am “dependent on government assistance in their everyday lives,” it’s a matter of convenience.

Then of course the question is whether that person would be walking down my street in the first time. If, for math simplicity, we assume that 10% of the population are potential criminals, then in a town of 1000, there are only 100 people who I’d have to worry about, where as I’d have to worry about 10,000 in a city of 100,000. And because of population density, I’d be even more likely to come in direct contact with 1 or more of those 100,000 in the city.

All of these make far more logical sense in explaining higher crime rates than wild speculation on people’s political views or attitudes towards the government.

--------------------------

John The Texaner wrote:

dolphin.

As I noted at the beginning of my post, I was exploring Jim's suggestion that the violent cities were democratic-leaning. They were. I left that argument where it ended.

I do admit that I didn't look at all the specific reasons for why Forbes listed the cities as "most violent", and it's likely an over crime/accident indicator they're looking at. Reviewing it now, the list includes both violent crimes and property crimes such as theft and larceny - which don't seem to me to be an accurate indicator of "danger" as applicable in this discussion.

As a note, you will never find Chicago on any of these lists. The reason for this is that Chicago does not report rape to the FBI, making it impossible to calculate a comparison to other US cities with regards to violent crime.

If we want to get more specific, we can look at murder rates per 100,000 as an indicator. Forbes has another list of most Murderous Cities, and it is a top 10 list. You can find the article here, and get a rundown of each city by clicking the "In Pictures: America's Most Murderous Cities" link.

Detriot (47.3) still tops the list by far, followed by Baltimore (43.3), New Orleans (37.6), Newark (37.4), St. Louis (37.2), Oakland (36.4), Washington (29.1), Cincinnati (28.8), Philadelphia (27.7), and Buffalo (26.4).

Still no Texas cities in there, but only one in the "South", being New Orleans.

I'm not dismissing that large cities tend to have higher rates of crime. In fact, I said that I do agree that it is a factor. I should have phrased it better. Correlation does not equal causation, and that was the specific point I was trying to make. While crime is higher in larger cities, there are plenty of large cities that lack the level of violent crime of smaller cities, so it is obvious that other factors come into play. I believe societal attitudes towards crime are a significant factor, and this was the point I was trying to make.

As for your HD TV example, you missed my point. In a society where criminals have little fear of resistance to the commission of crime, crime will flourish. If conditions exist that make a burglar or robber more likely to meet armed resistance, logically the risks to the criminal are higher and the criminal will be less likely to commit a high-risk crime.

Taking this instance of robbery as an example and the two cities I cited earlier - Houston and Philadelphia, let's compare statistics. I'm pulling these stats from the FBI crime statistics for 2007, which can be conveniently found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate. Numbers are again per 100.000 in population.

Houston is a city of 2,169,544, with an instance of robbery of 529.

Philadelphia is a city of 1,435,533, with an instance of robbery of 715.

Despite its greater size and a significant influx of crime post-Katrina, Houston still comes in considerably lower than Philadelphia in robbery statistics.

I find it significant that a violent crime against a person is less likely in an environment where the possession of firearms for self-defense is considered the norm, as opposed to Philadelphia, where it is actively condemned by local authorities. The essence of my point here is not the guns, but the accepted societal norm of defending one's self, family, and home.

Guns are simply the best tools for accomplishing these aims when faced with criminal deadly force. They are tools of last resort, and an equalizer when push comes to shove in a life-threatening encounter.

As for your static example of 10% of the population to be flawed. While there is certainly a portion of the population that will be inclined to commit crimes, you completely ignore the social influence on the choice of an individual to pursue a life of crime. Where the personal risk and consequences of committing a crime are more severe, an individual would be less likely to pursue those paths. Were risk is low to an individual, the rewards may outweigh the possible risks involved, making criminal acts more attractive. If we want to talk in degrees of severity, one may find the low risk involved in petty theft more attractive than the high-risk robbery or burglary. When a population has been conditioned to offer no resistance to a criminal involved in a severe or violent crime, the low risk versus high reward in such an act transcends that of petty theft, and a criminal would be more inclined to commit the act.

To use recent international events as an example, we have a situation off the coast of Somalia where the violent act of piracy has gone almost completely unchecked. The risk in such a venture has become nearly zero, while the rewards of the crime are incredibly high. We have an environment where shipping companies and entire nations have written off the payment of huge ransoms as a part of doing business, and effectively encouraged Somali criminals to engage in acts of violent and organized crime. In the absence of risk and the presence of great reward, the crime of piracy has flourished.


--------------------------

dolphin wrote:

John, unless I’m severely misunderstanding you, you’re still basing your entire argument on speculation about people’s motivations, which you have no way of knowing. That and the fact that Houston doesn’t happen to appear on a few lists of 10-15 of 10,000+ cities.

Here’s your (apparent) assertions that I’d either outright dispute or at the very least argue that we need much more information before we could argue the validity of them:
1. Guns are the only way (or even the most effective way) one can defend oneself against a criminal.
2. There are a higher proportion of people who choose to pursue criminal activity in the city than in the country.
3. That there are a lower proportion of people willing to defend themselves in the city than in the country.
4. The notion that widespread gun ownership has a deterrent effect on crime.

And here’s the thing, I’m not a gun control proponent. Own all the guns you want, I’m just opposed to drawing really shakey conclusions on not enough information just because those conclusions might fit into your preconceived notions and agenda.

--------------------------

dolphin,

I'm basing nothing on motivations. I'm talking about social influence. I'll give you a very simple example:

A person may be motivated to break into my house and commit robbery or other heinous crimes against me and my loved ones. When I meet him with my shotgun ready to defend my family, I act to influence him to choose another path or pay the consequences of his choice to persist against me.

I chose Houston as an example because it is similar in size to Philadelphia, and provides a contrast in violent crime trends. I also chose it to provide a conservative example, knowing full well that Houston has a crime problem.. If I had wanted to make a drastic example with a closer population number, I would choose San Antonio instead. Here is a comparison of statistics between San Antonio and Philadelphia, with data taken from the FBI 2007 statistics that I referenced in my previous post.

Population:
San Antonio: 1,316,882
Philadelphia: 1,435,533

Murder (per 100.000):
San Antonio: 9
Philadelphia: 27

Robbery:
San Antonio: 186
Philadelphia: 715

I was being generous with my Houston comparison. Other large cities in Texas fare as well or better.

I'll address the assertions you claim I make individually.

1. As I have already stated above, my assertion is not that guns are the issue. The issue is when governmental restriction serves to influence public perception on the social acceptability of defensive force, deadly or otherwise. What I did say is that the gun is the absolute best and most efficient tool in a specific set of violent encounters where other options are unavailable or ineffective. When the government disarms law-abiding citizens, it sends a message that we cannot be trusted to protect ourselves against crime and must rely on the police (who have no duty to protect us).

2. If we are to go by your HDTV example in your earlier comment, then rural living provides less opportunity, less likely reward for effort, and less frequent incidence in crime. And yes, I am saying that both violent and property crime rates are higher in urban areas. The U.S. Burea of Justice agrees with me.

To quote specifically:
"Urban residents had the highest violent victimization rates, followed by suburban resident rates. Rural residents had the lowest rates."
and
"Urban households have historically been and continue to be the most vulnerable to property crime, burglary, motor vehicle theft and theft in the United States."

You can find the report I pulled that from at http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/cvict_c.htm

3. That really depends on your city. If you want to go with your 10% criminal rule, obviously the cities with lower crime rates have fewer citizens who are willing to be victims. To more specifically address the assertion, it is not so much a matter of will than it is ability. As I've stated previously, rural populations are more self-sufficient by nature. The need for self-protection is a much more distinct reality, as police assistance is often immediately unavailable. City-dwellers (again, this varies depending on the city) have been conditioned to rely more exclusively on police response against crime - they are generally not as mentally prepared for the reality of a self-defense situation.

4. Yes, that is a correct assessment. The only modifier here is that owning a gun is not on its own an effective deterrent. To be truly effective, the gun owner needs to be proficient with the weapon and be willing and ready to use that weapon if the need arises.

For all your claims that my opinions are shaky conclusions and speculations, your own arguments in this thread have been based completely on supposition. You have yet to point out a single piece of data or study to support your position. Essentially, your side of the conversation has been "you're wrong, you make bad assumptions".

In effort to address your concerns, I've provided you with statistical data and my own observations as to why I think that data is significant. While these may be conclusions to fit into my preconceived notions, you've countered with your own conclusions with no data or even anecdotal evidence to back them up.

An agenda would imply that I have some specific goal in mind. I have no goal other than to live my life with liberty and in the pursuit of happiness. I'm flattered that you believe I have some sort of agenda, but in reality I'm just a guy in Texas who values his civil rights.

A liberal comes out against gun control.

SayUncle linked to a post by Aunt B about the recent addition of two Tennessee cities to Forbes' list of the top 15 Most Dangerous Cities. Her take on it was unexpected, and refreshingly she comes out against gun control. It is good to see a self-described liberal looking at the issue rationally. Of course, I am no stranger to this phenomenon, as famously liberal Austin is full of liberals (and even a self-described socialist friend of mine) who see the sense in firearms used for self-defense. Here is one personally-observed example I've noted in the past.

I posted a reply to her post and some of the commentary, but it seems to have gotten caught in a spam filter or is awaiting approval - I'm not sure which. I'm going to post it here in the meantime for your reading enjoyment, and hopefully it will show up there.


Aunt B: If the comments are moderated for approval, sorry for the double-comment post. I thought perhaps that it had not gone through. Not seeing any notation that comments were moderated, I attempted to post again.


Jim made the statement that the democratic-leaning counties are the ones where violence is worst, and said he may look it up later.

I took it upon myself to research the entire Forbes list you linked, and compared it against the recent 2008 election results by county. Red represented a majority of Republican votes, Blue represents Democrat votes. Want to guess what I found? Every single one of them went to Obama. Here's the list. I used the NY Times map as my source, and you're welcome to go look it up.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

1. Detroit, MI Blue
2. Memphis, TN Blue
3. Miami, FL Blue
4. Las Vegas, NV Blue
5. Stockton, CA (San Joaquin County) Blue
6. Orlando, FL Blue
7. Little Rock, AR Blue
8. Charleston, SC Blue
9. Nashville, TN Blue
10. Baltimore, MD Blue
11. New Orleans, LA Blue
12. Baton Rouge, LA Blue
13. West Palm Beach, FL Blue
14. Charlotte, NC Blue
15. Philadelphia, PA Blue

Now, far be it for me to make a partisan argument out of this. I don't identify myself with either the Republicans or the Democrats. I consider the pros and cons of each candidate in each election. It is nearly always an issue of who is the least despicable of the candidates. Both parties enjoy the lion's share of corruption and self-servitude. Gun control has been, however, a pet issue of our President and the current Democratic leadership in Congress, so for the purposes of this discussion, the data is corollary. After all, the only point Jim made was that the violent places are all Democrat-majority.

And please do not lump California in with the South. That is an insult to southerners. Also, Las Vegas would be considered "West", not South.

In response to dolphin's comment, why are there no Texas cities on this list. Last I checked, Houston is the 6th largest city in the U.S., but somehow it didn't make the cut. While it does have its share of crime, especially post-Katrina, it still pales in comparison to the other much smaller cities on the list. I agree that crime does tend to increase with population, but it's not directly corollary.

An interesting side note, Houston is another blue city in an otherwise red state, comparable to Philadelphia. Texas has preemption laws governing the the regulation of firearms, where Pennsylvania allows its cities to create local ordinances banning possession and carry of arms. Somehow Philadelphia with its strict gun laws beats out Houston in this most dangerous places list.

Beyond the gun issue, I believe this reaches much further into the perceived role of government in the daily lives of citizens.

If the issue were proliferation of gun ownership, then it would seem logical that the most dangerous places to live would be more rural areas where gun ownership is highest. On the contrary, people living in rural areas are inherently more independent and self-sustaining - less likely to be dependent on government assistance in their everyday lives. Rather than turning to the police as a talisman against crime, these people have a personal interest in self-preservation against criminal acts, knowing full well that they are responsible for their own safety.

By contrast, city-dwellers have been lulled into the notion that crime against one's person is to only be dealt with by the police, and are largely mentally powerless against a criminal. This is only pushed further when conditioned by laws that prohibit citizens from possessing the most efficient tools for self-defense, making not only self-preservation difficult and often times illegal, but actions of self-defense themselves socially taboo as well. How many times have we heard public officials claim that if we just "give the person what he wants, no one will get hurt"? In practice, that doesn't work out so well, and we're slowly becoming a nation of victims with social convention running counter to our inherent instincts for self-preservation.

Aunt B, I appreciate your willingness to look at facts on this issue. Your post was quite refreshing.


[UPDATE]: My comment was indeed caught in the spam filters, and Aunt B. has graciously fished it out for me. Hats off to her for the quick response!

Superb addition to the blogroll...

...and an incredible source of information!

Clayton Cramer and David Burnett's Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog. They have gone and documented over 4000 accounts of civilians defending themselves with guns, starting in late 2003. The number continues to climb daily. Incredible.

Everyone needs to go read this stuff.

Thanks to Robb Allen over at Sharp As A Marble for linking to this.

More blogroll additions for your reading pleasure.

Here's a couple of folks I'm adding to the blogroll:

A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver
I've known about AD for a long time, by way of LawDog (my first blog to ever follow, incidentally), so this add is long overdue.

Lucrative Pain
The adventures in the life of a Licensed Massage Therapist in Las Vegas. Christina is a regular over at the Gunblogger Conspiracy, who I somehow missed adding to the blogroll in the past.

Welcome to the blogroll!

Enjoy the reading, it's good stuff.

Another addition to the blogroll

Via ASM826 over at Random Acts of Patriotism, I have been made aware of CmdrFenix. A hearty salute and welcome to the blogroll!

A Discussion on Home Defense Firearms

I started this post as a comment to Hsoi's post over on Stuff From Hsoi. I soon realized that the comment rivaled the original post in length, so it warranted a post of my own. You should probably read it first to get a context of the discussion.

For what Hsoi posted, I'll agree for the most part - with the stipulation that this deals with new shooters. Honestly, an optimal solution would be to make sure the new shooter gets enough range time and shooting experience to make a logical personal choice on his/her own. This not being an ideal world, we end up in a lot of discussions as to what weapon would be best for these new and inexperienced folks.

I've got a Remington 870 18" 6+1 shotgun as my primary home defense gun. I practice with it frequently, to the point where I am quite confident that I can put all my shots squarely on multiple targets while moving and shooting.

The rub of the shotgun for the uninitiated is the recoil, and practicing enough for its operation to assimilate it into muscle memory. Not long after I got mine, I took my girlfriend to the range so that she would know how to operate it if the need were to arise. Unfortunately, the only range option that day was Red's. As those familiar with the range know, Red's has the usual restrictive rules of typical indoor ranges, and I was informed that we could only shoot slugs. This does not make for a happy introduction to the shotgun for most first-timers. She only put a couple of rounds through it and decided that was enough. Not good when you want someone to be intimately familiar with a defensive weapon.

To deal with this problem, I later replaced the rear stock with a Knoxx SpecOps stock. The difference it makes in felt recoil is amazing. This particular stock provides an M4-type 5-position adjustable/collapsable stock with a pistol grip. Additionally, it has two sets of recoil compensators that take all the bite out of shotgun recoil. I tested it out at the range and found that 3" Magnum slugs approximate felt recoil of a 2 3/4" bird hunting load. It's really that spectacular of a difference. What's more, follow-up shot delay is shortened to however long it takes you to rack the slide - the normal muzzle rise and operator movement experienced with heavy defensive loads is marginalized to the point where the sights remain on target after recoil.



In addition, Blackhawk makes an add-on shell-holder/cheekpad kit that provides on-gun storage for an additional 5 rounds. The "low" cheek pad provides the perfect cheek weld height for shooting with the bead sight (the "high" pad is made for rifle-type sights or optics). My girlfriend has picked up on my enthusiasm for the recoil-reducing capabilities of the stock, and has promised to give it another try the next time I can get her to the range.

I've taken it skeet shooting, and found that quick sighting on moving clays to be very natural and effective. This was only my third time shooting skeet, and I managed to get a score of 14, shooting doubles.

As for the "racking the slide" deterrent discussion, I bought into this initially. After thinking about it logically, I came to the conclusion that this was tactically unsound. Any element of surprise I can get on an intruder benefits me and my loved ones. The shotgun lives with one in the pipe these days, and the only sound it's going to make is a little "click" from the safety disengaging.

I agree with Hsoi on semi-auto vs. revolver. Practically, the issue comes down to what a person is willing to shoot with. My girlfriend is much more comfortable with the idea of a revolver as a personal defense weapon, and has favored them at the range when trying them out. For her, the operation is straigtforward and easy to understand, so she's simply more confident with them. That's the most critical part of the equation - whatever your choice in defensive weapon, you have to be confident, willing, and ready to use it.

Personally, I agree that more rounds available is better. I do, however think that the devistating effect of 9-12 (depending on your load of choice) simultaneous 00 buckshot pellets in a defensive 12ga makes the shotgun my #1 pick for home defense. I am confident of this because I've put in the time and effort to practice with it in varying scenarios. I do keep a high-capacity semi-auto as backup, should circumstance warrant it.

As for new shooters, it really depends on the individual. Generally, I will recommend a shotgun for a few reasons.

Long guns in general are easier to be accurate with, and my experience has shown me that muscle memory learned on a long gun (and shotguns in particular) is retained far longer than with a handgun. This is helpful for the individual who wants a weapon for self-defense but doesn't go to the range all that often.

Secondly, shotguns are cheap and require relatively low maintenance. Ammunition is relatively easy to find, especially given the recent run on handgun and common rifle ammo. This means that a defensive shotgun and ammunition can be acquired quickly and more readily on a tight budget. These days, that's an increasingly important factor.

Lastly, there is the firepower factor. A shotgun is simply unmatched when considering how much damage it can inflict in a close-quarters defensive scenario with a single pull of the trigger.

I'm no expert, and just about any choice a person can make for a defensive firearm is better than nothing. Again, the weapon you're willing and able to use is what you should go with. If you think revolvers are the bee's knees, then by all means go with that. The universal suggestion I give anyone asking about a self-defense weapon is to practice with it, and know it well.

[UPDATE]

Hsoi has updated his post with a couple of points in response, and I'll address those here.

Just to clarify, the above mentioned range trip with the girlfriend wasn't her introduction to shooting. We had made her introduction something like a year prior, with a good friend and experienced shooter doing the instruction. For her first range trip, we started her on a Ruger Mk II (.22) pistol. She worked her way up to some revolvers and semi-autos in .38 and 9mm. We also touched on rifles with a nice little .22 he had. She'd also been to the range another time before the trip to Red's. As you noted, starting off with something light and easy to shoot is critical with new shooters, and this is my standard practice. I have a Walther P22 and a Marlin Model 60 that I purchased specifically for this purpose.

I also agree that indoor ranges are a bad place to introduce someone to shooting. I never have and will not take a new shooter to an indoor range for the reasons Hsoi listed. Also, they're no fun because of lane restrictions (which make it difficult to instruct), the noise, and time constraints due to hourly rates common at most indoor ranges. In fact, the only time I'll go to an indoor range is if I'm meeting up with another experienced shooter who can't make the long trip out to the outdoor range.

This trip was, however, her introduction to shotguns, and I was unaware of the restrictions on shotgun ammo in place. I'd brought along plenty of light #4 Buck loads for use on our trip, and ended up unable to use any of it. Being on a time constraint, I tried to make the best use I could from the situation. The result was negative, and I've learned from the experience. Put in the same situation today, I simply would not have gone to Red's at all and scheduled a trip to the outdoor range for another day.

As for our disagreements on what's best for a new shooter, I'm cool with that. As posted above, the weapon you are comfortable with and will practice with is what you should use. If someone is more inclined to get a revolver, pistol, or rifle over a shotgun, that's fine by me. I'll point out the strengths and weaknesses of any weapons system so that person is able to better make an independant and educated personal decision. As an example, while a M4-style rifle (as Hsoi suggests) is appropriate for some people, others who have apartment neighbors to consider might find that a rifle presents too high a risk of third-party injury or death; Handguns allow one-handed operation, so the weapon is at ready when opening doors or for defensive hand strikes at extremely close range, but are more difficult to make quick and accurate shots with under stress.

As Hsoi also noted, a plan is essential for effictively defending your home and loved ones. Evaluate your options, know where your line of fire will be in relation to where your family members and neighbors are. Come up with plans for as many possibilities as you can. I take these factors into consideration when running drills at the range. This can mean taking kneeling or crouched shots against an intruder, shooting from your weak side, shooting one-handed, transitioning to backup weapons, reloading, drawing and shooting from a seated position, failure drills, etc. The more you know and have trained for, the more options available to you under the stress of a life-threatening situation.

Thanks for the response, Hsoi.

Blogroll Additions.

In response to my post about 20/20's most recent bit of investigative reporting fellatio for the Brady Bunch, I've gotten a lot of traffic and links from several better-known bloggers. My traffic has gone through the roof - relatively speaking - and many have been kind enough to add me to their blogrolls. I will do my best not to disappoint.

Here is a list of the many who have been added to my own blogroll over the past few days:

Bore Patch

extranos alley

Found: One Troll

Just The Library Keeper

Sensibly Progressive in Politically Correct America

Stuff From Hsoi

the munchkin wrangler

The Real Gun Guys

Women of Caliber

Give 'em a click and a read. Lots of good stuff is being written.

That is all for now.

[EDIT]

2A Musing and Alphecca have also been added to the blogroll.

I've also just found Random Acts of Patriotism and saw that it was good. Another add to the blogroll.