Waaaayyy OT!!! Concealed carry opinion

Fred19Flintstone said:

The aggressor has the advantage of forethought (usually) and more times than not the advantage of surprise.  This allows the aggressor to calmly aim and fire at fish in a barrel.  The defense has to respond to a high stress life or death situation which severely reduces most people's ability to shoot straight.  Apples and oranges my friend.

So, as a defender, i would somehow be more accurate at shooting a 44 magnum than shooting a 22 lr round.  Cuz, if you are going to miss, a miss is a miss.  Now if you want to talk home defense, I won't argue against the merits of a sawed off shotgun.  But to dismiss a 22 as inadequate as a defensive weapon due to it's "ballistics being a joke", sorry, I respectfully disagree.

And I find it dangerous when anyone refers to a weapon with lethal force as being a joke.  If you think it is a joke, then you are no longer thinking of it as a deadly weapon and that is how deadly accidents happen.

Sorry if you take offense to my viewpoint, but I take gun ownership & handling as a very serious responsibility and it scares me to hear people downplay the lethality of any gun.  22's are NO JOKE !!!!!!

Zmokin said:

Fred19Flintstone said:

The aggressor has the advantage of forethought (usually) and more times than not the advantage of surprise.  This allows the aggressor to calmly aim and fire at fish in a barrel.  The defense has to respond to a high stress life or death situation which severely reduces most people's ability to shoot straight.  Apples and oranges my friend.

So, as a defender, i would somehow be more accurate at shooting a 44 magnum than shooting a 22 lr round.  Cuz, if you are going to miss, a miss is a miss.  Now if you want to talk home defense, I won't argue against the merits of a sawed off shotgun.  But to dismiss a 22 as inadequate as a defensive weapon due to it's "ballistics being a joke", sorry, I respectfully disagree.

And I find it dangerous when anyone refers to a weapon with lethal force as being a joke.  If you think it is a joke, then you are no longer thinking of it as a deadly weapon and that is how deadly accidents happen.

Sorry if you take offense to my viewpoint, but I take gun ownership & handling as a very serious responsibility and it scares me to hear people downplay the lethality of any gun.  22's are NO JOKE !!!!!!

I never said a .22 was a joke.  Perhaps you confuse me with somebody else.  A larger caliber weapon does not help your aim.  That is true.  But it will inflict more damage in areas it does hit compared to a .22.  Inflicting more damage defending yourself is a good thing.  For example, let's say you manage to shoot your attacker in the arm.  A hit with a larger caliber will damage more tissue & bone as compared to a .22.  More damage has a greater chance to incapacitate the arm (or wherever you wound the attacker) compared to lesser damage caused by a .22.  The greater mass of larger calibers do more damage giving you a better chance to escape.  It's physics my friend.  That's why cops don't carry .22.  Let's pray neither of us learn which caliber is best for defense the hard way.

Zmokin said:

Fred19Flintstone said:

The aggressor has the advantage of forethought (usually) and more times than not the advantage of surprise.  This allows the aggressor to calmly aim and fire at fish in a barrel.  The defense has to respond to a high stress life or death situation which severely reduces most people's ability to shoot straight.  Apples and oranges my friend.

So, as a defender, i would somehow be more accurate at shooting a 44 magnum than shooting a 22 lr round.  Cuz, if you are going to miss, a miss is a miss.  Now if you want to talk home defense, I won't argue against the merits of a sawed off shotgun.  But to dismiss a 22 as inadequate as a defensive weapon due to it's "ballistics being a joke", sorry, I respectfully disagree.

And I find it dangerous when anyone refers to a weapon with lethal force as being a joke.  If you think it is a joke, then you are no longer thinking of it as a deadly weapon and that is how deadly accidents happen.

Sorry if you take offense to my viewpoint, but I take gun ownership & handling as a very serious responsibility and it scares me to hear people downplay the lethality of any gun.  22's are NO JOKE !!!!!!

You're taking the joke way out of context. I also take firearm safety extremely seriously, and I treat a BB gun the same way I treat 308, they are always loaded and you never point it anything you don't want to destroy. 

I know the caliber debate is as old as the fat up or fat down debate, but to Fred's point above, there's a reason cops, military, LEOs don't carry 22s. Yes, they CAN kill people, but the point is to neutralize the treat as quickly and humanely as possible and a 22 isn't considered humane for most of the US. Most states don't allow hunting with a rim-fire cartridge for this reason.  

I'm not saying you have to carry a 44 mag or nothing, I carry 9mm every day, I'm just saying there is no way I'd trust my life in a self defense scenario to a 22 (from a ballistics perspective and 22s arent exactly known for being the most reliable weapons out there, they are notorious for being quite picky with ammo).

We can agree to disagree, but I think if you ask the nations top 100 firearms/self defense instructors in the nation, the vast majority would say 22 is not an effective caliber for self defense and most of them would say the same about a 380.