When it comes to your personal defense, your life and the defense of your family, what is the right or wrong gun?

After many years of teaching and a minimal amount of practice at staying alive, both as an infantryman and police officer; I’ve come to some conclusions about training, tactics and weapons. As I review these, based on a few years experience, I think — just maybe — a blue pot metal special in .25 caliber might be the optimal self-defense gun. Maybe the little self-loader with pink plastic stocks just might be the cat’s meow.

I mean if the gun sort of worked, like if I hit my opponent once with a block-buster .25 hollow point, wouldn’t that be enough to stop the guy cold in his tracks? Ready for action, shoved in my pants pocket, set for imminent use, I’d be armed to the teeth. Should I have to close with an opponent at the ranges generally documented in contemporary conflicts, I could just whip this hand cannon from my trouser pocket and go to work on him. Or could I?

Re-Thinking This Thing

Then again, maybe I could use a steel 1911 chambered for the .45 ACP, launching a large frontal area .452 projectile at 900 fps. It could be topped off with good day-and-night sights I could actually see, and finished with a clean-breaking trigger. Then filled with good ammunition, packed into tested and reliable magazines, the pistol should work slick as grease on glass. Carried in a Sparks Summer Special IWB holster mounted to a proper belt, the pistol would be supported by reserve ammunition carried in a proper pouch. This well-operating pistol, carried in quality leather gear should solve most any problem I could encounter. Shouldn’t it? Will it?

As we banter over the optimum “carry gun of the month club” contender, we may often lose sight of what this is all about. For the knowing, you are carrying a handgun you really don’t want to use. If you have to use this handgun, you’ll only be betting your life on it as it clears the leather. Will it work mechanically, or will some of the goofy extended rods and lever junk on the pistol affect how it works?

Will that trick ammunition you selected perform as you thought? Did your opponent ever read a book on ballistics? Did they read the chapter where “you shot and they fell down”? Will one shot be enough, or will you need two or three — or four, or five, or six — cognizant that each projectile clearing your barrel will have a lawyer attached to it? Did you use a system effective enough to stop your threat with the least amount of rounds possible — or did you “fill the sky with lead”?

Choices And ...

You see, after my limited experience doing this carry-a-handgunfor-personal-protection-stuff for 30 years or so, I have, in fact, come to a conclusion. There is probably no right or wrong when you select a personal defense handgun. If that split instant in time comes when you need to deploy your choice of personal defense weapons, there will be no right or wrong choice. There will be only consequences.

Choose wisely.