"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
Robert Green wrote:
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in message
...
You bought a .380 to take out a 300 pound crazy man? Do you
think that's enough gun? I doubt it.

I bought a .380 because I was applying for a carry permit and a 16
gauge would have been awkward to carry around in a ankle holster.
(-: This was way back in the day when money (for me) was pretty
scarce and it was "either-or." I had to make do with a weapon that
could be both carried discreetly and used for home defense. A couple
of well-placed shots from a .380 will take out a fat man or a thin
one unless he's wearing a bulletproof welder's helmet. One or two
shots up through the jaw will do it. Very little bone between the
barrel and the brain.

But I will agree that a .380 is not an intimidation weapon, it is a
weapon of last resort. I wouldn't shoot a 300 pound man in a leather
jacket in the center of mass and expect good results. I'd aim for
the head and pray he wasn't a relative of Joe the Boss Masseria, the
man who could dodge bullets:

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Joe_Masseria

He eventually ran out of luck and died in a hail of .32 and .38
caliber slugs. As someone else noted, the Mob has historically made
very effective use of the .22 caliber round as a murder weapon. It
all depends on how you use it.

Ironically, the only time I had to depend on my .380, displaying it
was enough. The guy on the other end weaved his head from side to
side to try to determine if it was a real gun (it's pretty damn
small) and ran away when he concluded it was. It was good for him
that he just moved side to side because I had already decided he was
close enough to grab it from me and if he moved forward even an inch,
I would have shot him. And emptied the clip.

Eventually I graduated from the Beretta to a Browning 9mm HiPower.
There's no way that the Browning was anywhere near as conceable as
the Beretta, although it had tremendously greater power as well as a
13 round clip v. the Beretta's 7. It had substantially greater
intimidation power as well. Now I have a .40 Glock, a Ruger mini 14
and a few others around the house.

I still prefer a pistol to a shotgun for really tight quarters but
for carry purposes, a Baby Browning .25 with 7 rounds of steel-tipped
ammo is enough gun for most situations. At least for me. As someone
else said a while back, a powerful gun that's too big to take
everywhere is no better than a small caliber gun than can go
anywhere. Escape is still preferable to a shootout, at least for me.
The Baby is for when escape is not an option. Even a justifiable
shooting is going to cost big bucks, especially if you're arrested as
a result. But being arrested is still a lot better than being dead.

Your points are all excellent.

I carry two guns. In addition to my regular concealed gun (a CZ-82),

I say now, ain't that a commie gun, son? (-:

I have a fold-up .22, five-shot, single action revolver

I've never seen a folding revolver. Got any pix?

that I keep in my back
pocket. It's a "Back Up Gun (BUG)". Our local range has BUG matches, and
you'd be surprised at the devastation some of these BUGs can cause to a
paper target!

I look at it this way. If you're in serious trouble, what would you rather
have: Your schvantz in your hand or a .22 "ladies gun?" I'm sure I posted
this before, but I had a good cop buddy who kept a 32 in his back pocket and
who shot himself in the butt when he took it out somewhat carelessly. He was
on rubber donut detail for quite some time. His co-workers NEVER let him
forget it, either - they even went so far as to make a paper target out of a
photocopy of someone's butt. That was 20 years ago and I'll bet he's still
getting grief over it. I'll bet they bring it up at his funeral.

I was lucky to find a mint condition Baby Browning while helping a neighbor
buy a .357 Python to use if her ex-husband came around violating her
protection order (after bashing her head in with a hammer - only netting him
4 years in prison). Derringers are illegal to sell new in Maryland (AFAIK)
but old guns are grandfathered in. Got it for a steal. It had no marks
whatsoever - apparently never even been fired. The only problem is that
it's SO damn small that if you don't hold it exactly right you'll skin
yourself but good. Happened the first time I fired it and I didn't realize
I had been cut until I saw the puddle of blood on the range rest/shelf. The
damn slide edge is razor sharp and slit me open quite cleanly. My first
reaction was "what idiot bled all over the damn shelf!?" (-: Oops!

Same thing happened with the Beretta, but never with the Glock or the
Browning HP. They're both hefty enough to keep big hands like mine away
from rapidly moving pistol slides.

The only thing bad about BUGs is that you can almost never count on them to
work through intimidation alone. Racking the slide back on my .25 makes
less noise than flipping a Zippo lighter. The Browning HP has a much more
authorative "snap" to it. Of course, for intimidating pistols, nothing
beats the SW.500. Useful for putting down rogue grizzly bears, werewolves,
elephants, blue whales, dinosaurs, zombies and Mack trucks:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/outd...eation/1277336

"With its 8-3/8-in. barrel, the overall length of the Model 500 is 15 in.
and the empty weight is 4.5 pounds. The cylinder alone is almost 2 in. in
diameter and approaches 2.25 in. in length. Thumb the cylinder open and five
charge holes await. Each is 1/2 in. in diameter, and the .50-cal. cartridges
they hold are almost 2 in. long. Load five of them and the total weight of
the handgun climbs to 5 pounds."

Now *that's* intimidation. I guess I won't be strapping that puppy to my
ankle, either. I have a bad feeling that some psycho will one day take a
..500 to Red Lobster on a Saturday night to see how many people he can shoot
through with one bullet. At 2600 ft-lbs, it's gotta to be at least four or
five. They used to make it with a short barrel for carrying but it wasn't
very popular so they discontinued it.

Maybe next Christmas if I can convice SWMBO that we need another gun.
That's gonna be a hard sell, even though she's a retired Army colonel.
She's a crack shot with a .45 but it's just a qualification thing with her,
not a passion. There's clearly a gender component to gun love. (-:

Now that I've read the specs again, I really, really want one. Just for
bragging rights. And for keeping escaped circus animals under control.
(Shades of an old Gahan Wilson cartoon.)

--
Bobby G.