"Robert Green" wrote in message
...

I have to disagree. A criminal wants firepower. A sawed-off double
barrel
"two and you're through" gun is no match for a pair of Glocks you can
stick
in your pocket.

Your average liquor store robber can't afford a pair of Glocks, he's going
to have some piece-of-crap Lorcin or something similar, a .32 or .380--that
he can afford. Or maybe he's going to have a cut-down shotgun that was
stolen from some knucklehead who left it unsecured in his home or vehicle so
it could easily be stolen and chopped down. Tour your local PD seized
weapons lockup sometime, note that for every Glock or other handgun on the
pricey side there are a barrelful of old rifles and shotguns, many of them
stolen, that have ended up being used in crimes, aside from the crap-quality
handguns that street punks can afford.

"When the .44 Magnum laid claim to being the most powerful handgun in the
world, its standard load produced about 900 ft.-lb. of muzzle energy . . .
The 500 S&W Magnum will produce almost 2600 ft.-lb. with its heaviest
load,
and more powerful loads may well be on the way."

Let us know when significant numbers of street thugs start carrying $1,000
revolvers with ammo at $2.50 a round. In the meantime the argument that
cut-down shotguns shouldn't be illegal because such hand cannons are
available strikes me as odd.

Firearms law is full of irrational measures, but in the case of a
sawn-off
shotgun (or one made to be that small) that does seem to be a weapon of
interest almost exclusively to criminals.

I have to disagree here, as well. The first SBS I ever saw was owned by a
DC cop who kept it stored in a very neat hidden compartment in his
nightstand. It was there so that his wife could defend herself against
someone breaking in looking for him (it had already happened before and he
was very apprehensive about it). The SBS takes no shooting skill, will
disable an attacker quickly and unlike, say a S&W .500 won't shoot through
three or four wallboard walls on its way to killing the next door
neighbor.
When I pointed out the SBS's illegality, he just shrugged and said "Better
to be tried by six men in a box than carried out by six men in box."

I used to shoot at a range where the operators hated those nights when cops
or prison guards came in to shoot because that's when they had lights shot
off the ceiling, the safety barricades shot up, furrows dug in the floor and
walls etc. The fact that a cop does something does not mean it's a smart
thing to do. Hell, I knew a cop who got fired for "jokingly" pointing his
weapon at other cops. The first time they chewed his ass, the second time
he did it his feet didn't touch the floor on his way out of the building,
badgeless. The cop you mention could have taken his wife to the range
enough that she would be comfortable with a revolver or for that matter a
legal "coach gun" shotgun, and if the situation ever arises where she has to
use a firearm against an intruder the cop won't end up losing his job over
providing his wife with an illegal weapon.