Triggernometry

Last month in Part I of this series you may have been shocked to find that I didn’t instruct you to go out and buy my “pet” favorite carry pistol. I have one of course, but I have changed what I carry over the years as my preferences changed. The point was that there are a lot of factors, but the most measurable “correct” answer is to measure what you are shooting well, and weigh those choices against the standard “bigger is better” considerations when choosing a handgun for carry. No, I’m not going to tell you what to buy this month either, but we will get into some interesting details about aspects that many people just gloss over, but that are vitally important and will affect your ability to survive your gunfight.

Choices have consequences. People have died for the inability to stay in the fight until they prevailed. Just recently I had a student report that he won his second fight, immediately following his first, because of a technique we taught him for reloading in combat. An enemy fighter suddenly materialized after the first fight was over, presumably out of “nowhere.” He was able to choose the best option, and simply shot said bad guy, because his head, and his gun, were still in the fight! He did not “unload to reload”. He did not stick his muzzle into the air where it might take a lifetime to re-index or block his vision (or act as a flag to tell every bad guy in the vicinity that someone is going to be out of action for a brief period). Rather, he had kept up his guard up when his first attacker fell and, after a threat scan to insure there wasn’t another immediate threat, he started to execute a reload. When a threat did materialize without warning he was able to stop mid-stream and change gears. I could not, of course, be more pleased.

Within the same week we received a report (in the form of an excellent but sad magazine article) from a young Marine who is disabled for life because he did not know how to do this. That of course was not pleasing. Forward this article to your friends! Nobody wants to learn these lessons the hard way, whether carrying a gun as a CCW, as a Police Officer on duty or off, as a security guard, or in the sandbox so far away protecting our freedom.

That is a question I get a lot. Sometimes it is from folks who have little or no shooting experience and sometimes it is from folks who just want me to tell them that the latest weapon they have chosen wasn’t a really stupid choice.

Friends, I don’t have an ambiguous bone in my body but I cannot give you an answer without more input. Even then I don’t usually make specific make and model recommendations for I cannot know the totality of your circumstances or, without spending at least a day on the range with you, your skill level. It is truly a case of the Biblical admonition to “work out your own salvation”. All I can do is report on what you might expect to find, but you will have to go shoot the guns and do more study on your own in order to make an informed decision.

Surviving a gunfight isn’t what you think it is. Don’t let conventional wisdom get you killed. A well place round to “center mass” in your attacker may not take him out of the fight. Lots of people stay in the fight after “center mass” hits, and some even win it. If you expect to win your gunfight, you have to make sure that you have effectively ended the threat of your attacker. One, two or even several well placed “center mass” shots may not do what you think it will, and learning to recognize this before you gunfight may save your life.

There is a self styled self defense “expert” under every rock, and perhaps two behind every bush, these days. If you have a pet theory on what might work on the street then you can probably find a champion for that idea who actually charges people to teach them that skill. But few of the experts out there have ever been in gunfights, and even fewer have studied real gunfights to see how things really work out when the bullets really fly for blood.