http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_x884RLBPQ
Americans who carry a firearm for self-defense aren’t like you, or the people in the video above. In the main, they don’t go to the range. Ev-a. They’re don’t learn how to bring their weapon to bear from concealment, or master the finer points of marksmanship, or consider basic combat tactics. They don’t study the legal use of lethal force. They shove their gun in their pocket or purse and call it good. As I said before, it is what it is. But if there’s one thing I’d recommend to these law-abiding non-gun gun people it’s this: buy a hammerless snubbie . . .
If you make something idiot-proof, Mother nature just builds a better idiot. So I’m not going to say that a snub-nosed revolver—or any wheelgun or any gun full stop—is idiot-proof. But a revolver is the most idiot-proof of the handgun genre.
Open the gate, insert bullets (pointy end forwards), close gate, hide weapon. Remove weapon with one hand. Point and click. I mean, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Run. (Or continue running.) Done. No magazines, no racking, no “I didn’t carry a gun today because it’s not comfortable,” no external safety, no fuss, no muss.
Quick digression. Despite its rep, a snubbie is an incredibly accurate weapon over long distances. In the right hands. Just for S&Gs, here’s an expert shooting a target with a snubbie from 100 yards.
[HTML1]
OK, back to reality. For the average non-gun person, a snubbie is a wildly inaccurate firearm. In the midst of a major league adrenalin rush, the snubby wielder forgets all the training they didn’t have. They don’t aim. Shots go everywhere. Which is why the average snub-nosed revolver shooter should consider the weapon a binary defense system.
Option A) get as close to the bad guy as possible—up to and including pressing the revolver against the attacker’s body—and then shoot. Option B) run! What about Option C) shooting the snubby while you’re running away? Excellent idea! And much easier when you’re firing the weapon one-handed (as you should). Not so binary now, eh Mr. Bond? Yes, well, let’s talk trigger control . . .
When push comes to shove, the average snubbie shooter treats the trigger like a slot machine handle. Make that five slot machines handles in a row, all pulled really fast. This multiple shots in rapid succession strategy is not a bad plan—provided there’s just one bad guy (good luck reloading) and the snubbie owner’s close enough that all five shots hit their target.
[Legal disclaimer: only fire as many bullets as you need to stop the progress of an active and credible lethal threat.]
The main problem with this “technique”: recoil. Hemingway fans note: as the gun fires, the snout also rises. The shooter should wait a fraction of a second for the snubbie’s muzzle flip to finish and the gun to settle back to its original attitude, so they can place the follow-up shot in roughly the same location as the first supersonic sortie. Nope. They’ll pull the trigger mid-rise. Each shot will land progressively higher.
If you start shooting a snubbie at center mass (chest level), there’s a good chance the second and definitely the third and following shots will fly over the attacker’s shoulder. That’s not much help in the stopping power department and a major PITA in the lifelong guilt and civil lawsuit arena. So start shooting the snubbie at the bad guy’s belt buckle and allow the gun to rise with each shot.
Zip ’em up!
I hate to sound flip about this. The idea of creating a line of gunshot wounds on another human being at bad breath distance is horrific. But I find the idea of dying at someone else’s hands (other than a kindly Kevorkian at the end of the proverbial day) worse. A man’s gotta do. As does a woman.
And there you have it. Carry a snubbie. Move in or run. If you shoot, aim for the belt buckle. Done? Run. It’s not a weapon system or strategy I’d recommend for TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia (who don’t need me to recommend anything, really). But I reckon it’s a viable plan for most of the people most of the time. No foolin’.