The Old Argument

From Comments in yesterday’s post about the CMP 1911s, Longtime Friend & Reader Vonz saith:

Certainly, I love the 45 ACP quite a bit and have one (not a 1911 though, which are good but I think there are better options, at least for me).
What is with the hate on 9mm though? It is a great round as well (I have one of them too). It has different advantages and disadvantages, but that is why it makes sense to own both or at least to have as options for different people.
Why does, “I like this” have to morph into “everything else sucks”? It is not an attitude that makes any sense to me.

As with computers (Apple vs. Windows), cars (Ford vs. GM), guns (Colt vs. S&W), cameras (Pentax vs. Canon), etc. etc. etc., I think it’s all an ego thing.

The “bullet wars” probably started when some prehistoric hunters were arguing about the optimal size stone to use in their slings, and the stupid argument has persisted to this day because we guys are always searching for the “magic bullet” [sic] in all our endeavors.

As much as I make fun of the 9mm Europellet, it’s really all about the bullet itself: the typical 9mm FMJ projectile is (I believe) only slightly better than marginal as a self-defense option (and I actually have some personal experience to support that thesis); but put some more-recent technology (jacketed hollowpoints etc.) into the 9mm Para casing, and it’s a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I would have absolutely no problem carrying a Browning Hi-Power instead of the 1911, for example, as long as the 9mm bullets themselves were of the Hydra-Shok / SXT / Gold Dot / XTP / etc. genus. In fact, given that with the onset of age-related arthritis, my beloved Springfield 1911 is starting to really beat my wrist up, I can actually see a time in the near future when I might make that swap.

So nobody should take me too seriously when I slag off choices that people make. A lot of the time I’m just stirring the pot for fun, but underneath there lies a sound reason for it: if I question someone’s choice or action, they are forced to defend their position which means they have to think about the topic — and their rationale might even make me reevaluate my position, if it’s sounder than mine.

Good luck with that, though. Most of my opinions have been formed over many years of thought, contemplation and study, not to mention personal- or third-party experience. But it’s a stupid man who doesn’t listen to a sound, reasoned argument, and I’m not that stupid.

Just don’t try to convince me that Communism is a preferable system to free-market capitalism; scorn will follow in gargantuan quantities.

About Time

So the Army is going to be selling off its old 1911 pistols through the CMP. About time, too. Thank you, President Trump. Under The Commie Obama, these fine old things would have been scrapped, and the world would have been a poorer place.

Because as I’ve said so many times before:

…and also:

 

Pocket Pistols

Following the Top New Guns Of 2017, we now have the list of 14 Great Pocket Pistols for Personal Defense.

I’m going to start off with a question: how can a pistol with the following characteristics be called “great”?

The magazine is, of course, a proprietary design, and only certain kinds of ammunition can be used in the BullPup9. If bullets aren’t crimped tightly enough, the extraction of the round from the magazine can mechanically disassemble the round inside the gun. Also, only a limited number of guns are produced by Bond Arms each month.

Forgive me if I shudder at the thought of ammo being pulled apart inside the gun. I’m a huge fan of Bond Arms Derringers — owned one for many years and carried it as a backup with complete confidence — but I can’t help thinking they’ve stepped outside their area of expertise here.

But that’s just an aside. There’s a bigger issue at play, and it’s this.

I see the need for a pocket pistol (or, as we used to call them, “7-11 guns”) — you shove it in your pocket when you’re out running an errand simply because any gun is better than no gun, right?

Well, not exactly. If you peruse the above list of pocket pistols, what will strike you quite forcibly is that they mostly shoot lil’ tiny boolets because if you shoot something manly (i.e. effective), the tiny frames of said guns makes them almost impossible to control with any degree of confidence and therefore of accuracy. I’ve fired enough of the pistols on the list to be pretty sure of my ground on this issue — the little Kel-Tec, for example, is cheap, handy and not too nasty, but at any distance outside halitosis range, you’re almost better off throwing the gun than shooting it.

The guns that look as though they will be effective are, surprise surprise, the ones which are basically shrunken full-size pistols like the Kimber Micro 9 and the Glock 42 — which begs the question, “Why not, then, just carry their slightly-bigger brothers with confidence?”

I don’t like pocket pistols much, and I hate them as a primary self-defense weapon. And yes, I’ve been as guilty as anyone else when sticking a little popgun into my pocket when running out to make an emergency purchase from the liquor store or convenience store, because yes, I too can be lazy.

But it’s a bad habit, and I’ve worked really hard to overcome it over the years. Now, in those circumstances, I forget the pocket pistol and go instead with my backup handgun, a S&W Mod 637 Airweight chambered in .38 Special +P.

A wise man once told me: “If you use a pocket pistol on someone, there’d better be some serious powder burns on his skin afterwards” — in other words, you use it with the muzzle pressed up against his neck or chest before you pull the trigger.

And under those conditions, don’t bother with a pocket pistol shooting its BB +P rounds; use a decent pocket pistol, such as made by the aforementioned Bond Arms, but chambered in something like .357 Magnum, .45 Long Colt or .410ga (the last two, of course, being interchangeable).

If you think of a pocket pistol as being “last-ditch” rather than “primary”, you won’t go wrong, I promise you.

To spell it out: the pocket pistol should be the third gun you carry, rather than the only one — and I would suggest that under those circumstances, you can do a lot better than any of the fourteen listed.

 

Top 14 New Guns Of 2017

Via Insty comes this list.

My comments: I already own one (the Ruger Mk IV .22), and most of the others look like line extensions of guns I either have owned (e.g. Bond Arms Derringer) or am not especially interested in owning (e.g. striker-fired semi-auto 9mm pistols or AR15 5.56mm variants).

I do find this one interesting, though. It’s a .45 ACP carbine:

It might make a decent companion piece for a 1911 pistol, IF it could accept 1911 magazines as well as its issue 25-rounder (which is yummy).

Mostly, though, my overall opinion of the list is… meh.

I’ll be attending the SHOT Show in Vegas next month, and if anything stirs my loins there, I’ll let you know. (It will be a tough sell, by the way.)

More Feinsteinism

Reader Mike G. decides to elevate my blood pressure by sending me a link to this piece of filth:

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and a number of her colleagues today introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, a bill to ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Joining Senator Feinstein on the bill are [the usual set of fucking GFW tools — Kim]

They never give up, so nor should we. Please write to your senators and representatives, just to remind them that we don’t support this bullshit. (I know, they probably already know that, but it never hurts to provide pointed commentary.)

Please use calm and reasoned language instead of what you’d really like to write. I just did, so you can too.

How do I really feel about it?