Originally Posted by
TCinVA
It's interesting to note the correlation between one's assessment of "good enough" and whether or not an individual has actually had to reach for a handgun to solve a problem. I've not kept scientific statistics but I have noted a rather curious pattern: Those individuals who have actually had to solve a problem with a handgun before (either by drawing it as a show of force or actually pulling the trigger) tend to have a much higher estimation of what "good enough" actually is than those who have not. While I know of folks who have successfully used something like a J frame to solve a problem, in the moment they were keenly aware of the limitations of their hardware. There's only so much problem you can solve with a J frame because of the capacity and how difficult they are to use.
I've never had to shoot someone with a J frame but there has been a time or two when I thought I was going to, and I wasn't exactly brimming with confidence. In contrast to that, last Christmas Eve I encountered a vagrant who attempted a strong-arm robbery while I was carrying my P30. I had absolutely zero doubt in my mind about how things would end for him.
When you believe you could be seconds away from actually having to fire a handgun to stop the hostile actions of another human being, your understanding of "good enough" tends to change considerably.
Something is always better than nothing...but something may not be what you want in your hand should things get real on you. Handguns are not magic talismans that ward off evil spirits. They are tools. You need to use one that is adequate to the job at hand.
In these discussions I frequently see the mention of avoidance, deescalation, and escape. I'll go ahead and lay this out there and anyone who wishes to take me to task on it can feel free to do so:
Concepts like avoiding threats, deescalation, and escape are fine and dandy in the moments that precede the one where you reach for a firearm. Once it reaches the point where you're pulling a handgun, however, I hold that it's probably past the point where any of that stuff is a realistic option. When you reach for the handgun you are not reaching for it because you have half a dozen good options on the table to resolve the problem and you just feel like killing someone that day. You're reaching for the handgun because you are down to one extremely unpleasant option. You're pulling that handgun because you're convinced that you need to put bullets into another human being to preserve your existence or to preserve the existence of people you care about.
I'll also point out that you can't exactly call quitsies in the middle of a gunfight. Bad guys can throw up their hands and surrender...you can't. If you've run out of offense before the bad guy is either incapacitated or has decided to rethink his choices in life, he will probably kill you.
Lastly there's the notion of the caliber of threat that the individual faces. There seem to be a lot of people who think that uniformed police officers deal with more severe threats than the average joe or off-duty police officer. I also find this to be an extremely silly assertion. The cop on the street deals with the violent scumbags that walk around in your community breathing free air. The violent scumbags generally end up on the radar of law enforcement because they first victimize someone like you.
The situation where you are actually going to have to pull the trigger is more than likely not one that is under your control. The bad guy you are actually going to have to shoot to stop likely isn't the sort who pisses himself and runs when he meets the slightest resistance. The encounter where you actually have to try and take another human being's life to continue yours or to protect your family is not likely to be one you can rely on to end when it suits you. Once it reaches the point where you are essentially trying to commit homicide, running away is no longer a viable option.
Much of the discussion out there on the internet is based in a fundamentally flawed notion of what a lethal force encounter really is and that trickles into discussions about what is "enough" tool to fix the problem.