When room clearance is the order of the day, SWAT cops work as a team. Provided they have a choice, they would no more clear a room all by their lonesome than wear frilly clothes and sing Broadway show tunes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .

If and when you hear a genuine bump in the night, don’t be so quick to go clear you house — even if you’ve been taught the fine art of “pieing” a room. Assume a defensive position, call the cops and let them scare away the bad guys and/or root them out.

Will they care if it’s a false alarm? They will not. Well, at least the first two times. Hey, your tax dollars hard at work.

There is a technique that SWAT teams have in their arsenal that you might want to consider: the contact or close contact shot.

As my good friend GY6 points out in his own special way, contact shots are devastating. When it comes to stopping an imminent credible threat of grievous bodily harm or death, devastating is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Don’t get me wrong: SWAT teams use rifles. Rifles are much better than handguns in a lot of ways. They’re especially awesome at longer distances. See bad, shoot bad guy. As many times as necessary. Threat stopped.

MAYBE.

Sometimes bad guys get lucky or dodge bullets (who knew?). Sometimes they wear body armor. Pelvic shots — one of the best way to defeat body armor — are a bitch on a moving target. Head shots? Same deal, only more so.

These disabling shots are harder at long distances than close (d’uh). So SWAT guys are taught to get close if and when they can’t git ‘er done from far a distance. You know: aggress towards the target. Fast.

How close? As close as possible. In fact, when it comes to active shooters, who may have a bomb activation device on their person, contact shots are a primary tool in the SWAT cops’ strategic toolbox.

It’s not something the police like to talk about, for obvious PR-related reasons.[So-called “anchor shots” even less so.] But contact shooting is something you should have in your head — and not just for close-quarters combat (as demonstrated above).

For home defense, contact or close contact shots have the three main advantages.

First, you’re less likely to miss. The possibility of collateral damage due to “stray” rounds or over-penetration (bullets penetrating walls and such and hitting friendlies) is reduced if not eliminated.

Second, again, close-range shots pack an extra special punch. As wikipedia.org points out, “Wounds caused by contact shots are very devastating, as the body absorbs the entire discharge of the cartridge, not just the projectile.”

Also keep in mind that your refrigerator provides the only real cover (a material that bullets can’t penetrate) in your entire house. Good luck putting your ‘frig’s condenser between you and a bad guy.

The trick: get close. How? Find your inner warrior and move, make that run towards the bad guy; ready to fire, several times. Bring your gun to the bad guy’s body and press the trigger.

Some people worry about their semi-automatic pistol going out of battery during a contact shot (i.e. the gun won’t fire when the slide’s pressed back). I’m not sure how much a real world problem this is. If you’re concerned, don’t jam your pistol into the bad guy’s body, make a close-contact shot and call it good.

I’m not saying that it’s always possible to get within bad breath distance of a bad guy, either practically or psychologically. But I am saying that you should give contact or close contact shots serious consideration.

Bonus! Most bad guys won’t be expecting you to attack. And what is a defensive gun use except a counter-attack? Nothing. Literally.

 

 

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

68 COMMENTS

  1. For a second, I thought the tactic in question was to lure the bad guy in with a click-bait title…

  2. That piece has got to be sarcasm. If not, it has got to be some of the worse advise I have ever seen. Ever. Distance is your friend for any number of reasons. Distance tends to favor the person with the most training. It’s hard for even a brand new novice bad guy who has never fired a gun and is on his first home invasion to miss at kiss-me distance. Distance also gives you time to react and think and find cover. Which you should be behind anyway, not charging through your house trying to close on a perp for that oh-so-devatating contact shot. Contact shots aren’t all that anyway except for muzzle flash burn and powder stippling. You won’t be shooting so called “ballistic gelatin”, which in no way simulate flesh in gunshot reaction. Contact shots are for when you have been completely surprised by an assailant at close range (think situational awareness) or you have been stupid enough to close with him when you could have shot him from 20 yards away. Before I retired, as a hostage negotiator I have trained in joint exercises with SWAT, as well as attending some of their training with friends on the team. I’ve never heard them mention this contact shot business. Regardless, a homeowner ain’t swat and isn’t kitted up with body armor and ballistic helmet.
    I seriously hope this piece was tongue in cheek, because if not, you are so far off base as to be completely out of the ball park.

      • If you hate it so much why are you reading this blog?
        However if you break into my home while I am there you will receive a load of double ought buckshot at bad breath distance.
        Troll somewhere else.

      • But you guys didn’t get the As wikipedia.org points out citation?

        Perhaps go back to the hot babes as clickbait?

    • You also have to be aware of cover vs concealment. There’s not really a lot in most homes that will stop a round fired at close range. A round may be deflected but I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it.

    • “Distance tends to favor the person with the most training.” -citation needed.
      If there was ever a rant showing ignorance and a lack of training, your comment is it. If your opponent is mobile, a,willing and able to kill you in your home, and at a greater distance than you can reliably strike them, your options are extremely limited. Flee if you can, or advance until you can effectively fire back.
      Closing the distance is not the only tool, but it has to be one of the tools you train for.
      It doesnt matter if you trained for decades if now he is young with good eyes and you can’t see past 5 yards in the dark without your glasses on. Welcome to reality, check in on it every once in a while.

      • And YOUR reality includes “training” for real-life home invaders…talk about a chance in a million. And you voluntarily went to the sandbox. Talk about a real threat to your well being.

        • The Gray Poseur, that statement made you look dumb and biased on many levels. I hope JWT doesn’t respond to your fail trolling.

      • “Closing the distance is not the only tool, but it has to be one of the tools you train for.”

        This.

      • You are sadly wrong about lsck of training sir, as well as having been involved in several shootings. I know you’re on the team here but that doesn’t make you the only trained experienced person around. And I don’t need any damn citation because you of all people should know about distance

    • Putting a shot into a guy who’s already down, usually in the head, to “anchor” him and make sure he stays down. It comes from hostage rescue scenarios where teams cleared entry rooms and moved on, only to be attacked from behind by opponents they thought they had eliminated.

      • “Putting a shot into a guy who’s already down, usually in the head,…”

        And depending on what jurisdiction you are in, very well may get your ass prosecuted for murder…

        • Very much so. Like I said, it comes from hostage rescue scenarios where they’re storming places and have to worry about people they’ve taken down getting back up again and attacking them from behind.

          The only kind of situation in which I could imagine using an anchor shot would be a Nigerian mall attack or Bataclan shooting. If a terrorist is down and he’s between me and the exit, I’d want to know he’s really down before I made my way past him and turned my back on him.

    • Head shot to an already downed “bad guy” to verify he’s incapacitated.
      A head shot will “anchor” his body to the ground, make dead.

      • The anchor shot is the just in case shot to an assalaint when you expect more problems in the immediate future and don’t have the time, or manpower to secure the downed assailant. Most military or LEO (in certain situations) use a form of it,situationally dependent. Generally speaking as the unit advances and encounters heavy resistance, assailants will be shot until they are stopped(read stop twitching).

  4. Can I just blow’em away with my 12 gauge?!? And let the wife shoot my pistol?

    • I’d treat it like a buddy-team- one of you cover the other and be ready to take aimed suppressive shots if the opportunity appears while the other maneuvers to a better position to assault the hostile.

  5. I’m of two minds on this article. On the one hand, I absolutely agree that the fighting measure is fluid and changes depending on the weapon brought to bear, and that generally with firearms distance is better, especially if you’re on the receiving end of the surprise attack. On the other hand, and please don’t remind me how silly this is, rushing your target- even if they’re prepared to fight back- allows you to engage much closer without focusing so much on accuracy. I’ve demonstrated this with my wife first-hand with Nerf guns. We’re both trained Soldiers, and we know how to shoot, move, and communicate. I know it’s stupid, but more than once I’ve charged the Nerf gun, broken from cover and essentially bum-rushed my wife’s covered position. Even though we were only playing, she never got a shot off and promptly got hit. Obviously I’m not equating Nerf to a no-shit gun fight, but the principle is the same. Should you rush every covered position hoping for an advantageous shot or a chance to mag-dump? Obviously not. But it’s still a potentially-effective tactic to keep in your tool bag should the circumstances arise.

  7. “Also keep in mind that your refrigerator provides the only real cover (a material that bullets can’t penetrate) in your entire house.”

    Rubbish.

    A refrigerator is a thin steel skin over a few inches of foam, backed by a thin plastic skin on the inside. Not cover.

    How about
    1) The soundboard and cast iron belly on an upright piano
    2) A file cabinet crammed full of documents
    3) A shower wall constructed of cementboard and covered with tile

    I don’t know if any of those things will stop a bullet. But they’ll surely slow one down more than a refrigerator.

    Also – The condenser on a refrigerator is the serpentine tubing held together by wires on the back (It’s where the refrigerant cools and condenses, hence the name). It won’t stop a fart, let alone a bullet. The heavy parts of a frige are the compressor and fan motors, located in the bottom. You won’t get behind those.

    • I thought that too.

      There are a lot of things that I don’t know….which is why I don’t write articles about those things.

    • A bookshelf (well, the books on it) will stop any caliber a home invader is likely to carry, and I have them located where I can retreat behind them. Lots of bookshelves.

      • One more I thought of: The inch-thick marble top on my antique dresser. It could be quickly rolled over and would cover a few people.

    • ““Also keep in mind that your refrigerator provides the only real cover (a material that bullets can’t penetrate) in your entire house.”

      Rubbish.”

      Completely agree. In my home we have book shelves…with real books on them. Paper (books or otherwise) is a heck of a lot harder to send a bullet through than most people think. Then again, it seems these days most people under the age of 25 or so don’t even know what paper is.

      We also have some antique (hence real wood) furniture. I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it, but in an emergency I’d trust that furniture to at least slow things down enough to keep me alive.

      With regard to a fridge making good cover, I’m making a couple of assumptions here::
      1) The fridge is one made in the last 10 (maybe 20) years or so
      2) The bad guy is carrying (cheap) 9mm HP or 45 caliber HP (none of us shoot 40 cal/10mm). The kind that don’t have wax or silicone (or whatever material) in the cone.
      3) The fridge is completely empty. No food items or drinks to slow down the projectiles.

      Like a car door (that hasn’t had everything removed from the interior side…), once the bullet passes through the first layer it should slow down (even if only a bit), and deflect slightly. Most (modern) refrigerators have some type of foam for insulation (probably expanded polystyrene) between the interior/exterior walls, as it doesn’t collapse like the old fiberglass stuff. Being EPS foam is somewhat squishy, it should absorb a non trivial amount of energy.

      Hitting the two interior walls wouldn’t likely have any significant impact at all, but punching through the second layer of foam, and then the steel of the outer wall should eat up almost all of the HP’s remaining (deadly) energy, preventing (serious) injury to the person hiding behind it. I mean yea it would hurt, it would suck, but there is a good chance it wouldn’t lead to a fatal wound…maybe several shots.

      Before anyone asks, no I haven’t tried this. I know I could be dead wrong, and I have no intention of testing my theory with anything other than a hollow dummy full of paint balls. I’m using the dummy because then I don’t actually have to worry about the trigger being pulled while I’m hiding behind the fridge. Not that I could fit behind it anyway.

      Lastly, how damn skinny do you have to be to hide behind a fridge, given most people keep them up against a wall? I can see it now;

      Homeowner: “Excuse me, could you please stop shooting long enough for me to move the fridge out off the wall? I’d like to test a theory. By the way, there is a ham sammich in there if you’re hungry.”…

      Raving Lunatic: POW

  9. Seems ready made for an anti-gun prosecutor to make out the homeowner as the aggressor, attacking and killing that poor, misunderstood victim of society who just happened to be in their house with a gun in the middle of the night.

  10. The whole point of a gun is to be able to employ force from a distance. You’re giving up all that advantage if you move within grabbing range of the threat.

    Unless you have suicide bomber burglars, this piece is really, really dumb.

    • The difference is that SWAT operators (and regular troops) in urban combat are taught to fire, close, fire close, and take down the target. It’s their job, for which they are armed with automatic weapons and body armor. An attack forces the opposing party to duck and cover (preventing shooting back), run away (same) or expose him/herself to incoming fire. Your job as a homeowner is to stay alive, and going all Krav Magna) or whatever it is called) is a last resort, when tie runs out before the police arrive and the BGs are knocking down your door.

  11. This is ridiculous. The difference in velocity between a contact shot and a 25-yard shot is going to be maybe 5% at the most. Yes you’ll pick up a little bit of damage in terms of muzzle flash burning, but only on those cartridges that are highly inefficient on a pistol (like .357 Magnum; that fireball might help do some damage to counteract the paltry performance from a 2″ barrel). For a proper self-defense round using low-flash powder from a conventional handgun, not so much.

    But in terms of actual bullet performance it’s going to be an insignificant difference whether you shot ’em at 25 yards or 25 mm.

    What IS significant is that you’ll have given up the whole point of having a gun — it’s a RANGED weapon. If you’re contact fighting you may as well use a knife, which has no recoil, no deafening, and is infinitely reloadable and won’t jam on a “contact shot”.

    The only thing you’ll really, really gain in the case of closing in, is accuracy. Now how many of you out there are in shape enough to go toe-to-toe with a probably 19-year-old male full of testosterone? I’d dare say most women will lose bad when they close the distance, and I’d dare say most guys over 35 are probably going to lose as well.

    So — yeah, this is bad advice and a bad article. Distance is your friend in a gun encounter.

    • The muzzle flash isn’t what does the damage. It’s the expanding gasses coming out of the barrel and being forcibly injected into the person that do the damage.

      The concept is similar to a “bang stick” for diving.

    • And revolvers won’t potentially go out of battery in a contact type scenario, i.e. 357. Semi auto?, not so sure, close up but maybe no contact. Although distance is my friend.

  12. Don’t forget, distance is your friend.
    And my Glock doesn’t work with a contact shot. The slightest push on the muzzle takes it out of battery.
    If hitting a moving target is hard, catching up to one is too.

    • If you have presence of mind in the incident, your thumb pushing the slide forward will let you take the shot.

      In bad breath distances, I doubt that I would have that presence of mind…

      • That presence of mind is that of premeditation. Know where I’m going with this? Has no business being discussed in a self defense symposium. A cop, soldier, or assassin can and do employ such techniques but self defense is and should appear reactionary. My reaction to being hand to hand with an attacker, each holding handguns, would be to deflect his, prevent him deflecting mine, distract with a pistol whip upside the temple, clear and fire close range but not in contact.
        Any argument about missed shots within a meter is nothing more than Internet speculation or fodder for instructor curricula.

    • I have a Streamlight TLR-1 on my G19. Sticks out about 1″ past the barrel. Hadn’t ever thought about it in terms of a contact shot, but unless I’m poking the stay puft marshmallow man, going out of battery wouldn’t (shouldn’t?) be an issue.

      Though I’m of the mind set that if I wind up that close to someone who is intent on killing me, I’m probably already screwed.

  13. A full contact shot introduces most of the hot gasses pushing the bullet down the barrel into the body cavity where they continue to burn and expand, causing significant damage to organs. So, yes it could be more effective than “just a shot”.

    I would rather introduce lead to the body cavity from a distance as needed to eliminate the threat. Maybe that’s just me.

  14. This isn’t something that’s going to be easy for a lot of people. Naturally you want to stay where you are are retreat from a serious threat (which it probably is if you’re shooting at it). This is simply a variant on the school of thought that says “Rush a gun, run from a knife, punch back against a punch”.

    The point here is to be aggressive, close distance and do damage. It’s the same idea behind most martial arts and knife fighting techniques. Now, with those you actually need to close distance but the psychological impact is what is really devastating. Most people simply shut down when you come at them aggressively. It causes a massive brainfart.

    I just saw this the other night. I was shooting pool with a friend of mine from BJJ when some guy mistakenly took my friend for someone who had just been hitting on his girlfriend. Homie comes up and throws two punches, both of which connect, quite well actually. This dude had been in a fight or two before. So my friend tackles the guy and the guy pretty much shits his pants. His brain is saying “This is unexpected, I wanted a boxing match! How did I end up on my back! WTF is going on!” Dude scrambles in a panic, gives up his back and is lights the fuck out to a rear naked in about six seconds in a fight that by all rights he should have won. He had the element of surprise, he was bigger, he was stronger and he clearly had some knowledge of how to fight.

    That’s what going straight at people does, it scrambles their thought process and allows you to project force over a narrower area and therefore to greater effect. You can see this kind of thing in a lot of the videos of robberies. No resistance is expected. When aggressive resistance is met the plan falls apart and BG’s flee.

    You can say it doesn’t work but it’s been proven over and over and over again that this technique of violently and aggressively counter-attacking does work and works extremely well regardless of the weapons in play. That said, there are times to do something like this and times not to. That’s up to you.

    • It is the civilian equivalent of advancing as a counter-ambush strategy. It is also completely contrary to instinct.

    • It’s situationally dependent for sure. I see a huge difference from advancing with fire to bum rushing an opponent to get a close shot. If I am suprised at close quarters I might just bring the assailant down to the ground and hope that I am not surprised again by another assailant or that my friend( you in the case above) has got my ass. If I have time to draw and fire my suprise is confronting an assailant or assailants who thought they were targeting a soft (or softish) target with fast accurate fire.

      • I agree there’s a big difference but situations can vary very, very widely.

        I can definitely envision a scenario where this could be quite useful. Provided of course that you keep your head.

  15. Color me skeptical. I have no wish to get close to an unknown invader for any reason. Also, if you are right up on them, how are you checking the backfield or making sure there’s nothing behind that you want or need to keep?

    Sure, surprise and violence of action are powerful but what happens if you should flinch, miss or misfire at that range? Recovery would be doubtful and retaliation almost certain.

    I’m sure some will say that they are trained and won’t miss at that range. Wouldn’t it be better to be trained and not miss from a good defensive position behind a bookshelf or doorframe?

  16. I didn’t hear anyone mention what happens upon shooting at close quarter.

    Equal and opposite reaction and all.

    You get sprayed with “stuff” from the person you shot.

    Ayoob covered it years ago and even pointed out that revolvers and automatics can be jammed by “debris” from a contact shot or near-contact shot.

    Hard to practice that…..

    • Hatcher, I believe, got pictures of this “splashback” When he did his stockyard testing. Splashback from a cow shot in the head at near contact range with a .45 covered the shooter in a fountain of gore. Jammed his 1911.

      I’ve never shot a person at contact range.

  18. If he is taller, a head shot upwards would be safer for other people in a single story house. If you are taller maybe a crotch shot(the bullet would continue through the floor) could be in order. I am not sure how many burglers are wearing armor these days, I would suspect only professional home takeover thugs would have armor.

  19. Making a contact shot is one of the reasons that I carry a snub nose .38. There’s no better, more efficient last ditch contact weapon on the planet.

    OTOH, I recognize that if the BG gets close enough to me to receive a contact shot, I’m already in deep sh!t.

    Distance isn’t just my friend — it’s the very breath of life.

    • To be technical a fixed blade knife, with a 5 in + blade, sharp and well pointed with good grips is a better contact weapon. However I agree that one of the best carry guns is a reputably produced short barreled revolver in 38. It’s super reliable, small enough to hide, yet big enough to hurt, Doesn’t have excessive recoil(I still love the 357) and doesn’t weigh too much.

    • I posted this higher in the thread, but in case you miss it, FBI stats over the last two decades show in half of the police shootings, the shot that killed the officer was fired from 5 feet or less. The good guy was at the same distance, so that tells you all you need to know about contact shots. Bad guys are the aggressors, and they will continue to move into your safe snowflake distance until they are dead. Carry a revolver and get ready for contact shots, the bad guys insist. run out of ammo? Pull that compact super ninja back up.

  20. Being a crime story aficionado, I can attest that ME’s have documented the considerable extra damage that the powder gases can do inside the contact wound. Not just powder stippling. My recollection is that the main extra damage is in the first couple inches of the wound entrance. So that may add up to quite a bit of extra pain but maybe not a great deal of extra lethality.

    A previous TTAG post warned me against the possibility of problems with contact shots, so I tried dry firing some shots at home with two of my handguns. I used the side of my bed mattress with blanket and spread as an approximation of a torso. The Springfield XD 9mm immediately went out of battery and disconnected the trigger. Very little pressure was required. Then I tried a Walther P22 in the same manner. Go ahead … laugh. The trigger and hammer worked fine. But I’m not sure the firing pin would have worked properly on a chambered cartridge.

    Finally, I recall the movie called “Next” with Nick Cage and Julianne Moore. Moore’s character was supposed to be some hot-shot FBI agent and there is a scene where she is practicing her close range defensive gun use with a ballistic dummy. She lunges forward smacking the dummy in the chest with her left hand while drawing with her right. Withdrawing her left hand, an extra foot of space opens up between her and the dummy, and she fires two rounds into the chest. It’s Hollywood, but it looked plausible; especially for a weight disadvantaged woman.

  21. In 90% situations I would prefer distance in a home defense scenario. Cops, neighbors and family( depending on how long) are being mobilized while the assailants are losing the element of surprise and manpower advantage ( if they have one).

    • “In 90% situations I would prefer distance in a home defense scenario.”

      So would I, and that’s the problem with most of these comments. We are not the aggressor, the bad guy is, and he’s most likely moving into your personal space, not out of it. The aggressor makes the rules, you are not going to back peddle your way to a safe distance, what do you do? This article’s solution, which could have been prefaced better, is to take the physical and psychological initiative and charge. In some cases that’s the right answer, in others, it’s not. It depends on too many factors to make a blanket statement. How much room is available to retreat? Does the attacker have something to disable your gun if you put it out in front to fire in a conventional sense? Obviously, if you are grappling you can keep the gun in tight to your body, so there’s some advantages and disadvantages. How about defense? Is there an opening you can exploit, such as a swung club allowing you to step inside it’s usefulness? The logic employed by most of these comments is “It’s better to shoot someone from 25 yards” so don’t train for the worst. The real world answer here is it’s usually the bad guy’s decision whether you are at range or face to face, so you’d better train for up close shots if not contact shots, they happen half the time according to FBI stats on police shootings.

  22. Worst “advice” I’ve read on here in quite a while. (Likely to get you hurt, in jail, or both)
    But I do find myself reading TFB more and more these days.

  23. OK, I haven’t read every comment – this post created an avalanche of comments – but I skimmed and never found what first occurred to me. What does your ability to close to contact distance without being shot, whatever, presumably unharmed, say about your justification for using deadly force?

    • Guy walks into Caffè where you are carrying and starts hacking random people with a machete.
      I don’t think anyone would have a problem with you closing distance to take this asshole out.

  25. This is idiocy. Any average criminal are STRONGER, more AGRESSIVE and has MORE violent experience than average homeowner. And he can be under drugs. And there is very high chance of multiply intruders situation! So for homeowner (not SWAT-SF enforcer with a lot of PT-MMA-CQB training and real world experience) it is suicidal mission to give up his distance (and weapon) advantage and come in. This is what intruders exactly wants!!!

    Better is to buy some security system with cameras inside and outside house, get guns (and bodyarmor?) for yourself and wife, buy big guard dog and place it INSIDE house near kids bedroom for close combat protection, fortify walls and windows at least in “safe space” in house, call 911 and wait! Average intruders (not matter they numbers) has totally NO chances to penetrate corridor guarded by two long guns (even break-action shotguns and 22LR will be ok) and serious dog in reasonable amount of time. You need to survive just 15-30 minutes and you will be fine. And i think that this static defence tactics is best, no matter how much experience and training you have.

    RF, you are good writer, but, please, dont write more articles about self-defence and house defence at all.

  26. I have to have my head examined for jumping into this discussion, but here goes. FBI statistics of police shot to death in the line of duty have been pretty darn consistent for the last several decades. Somewhere around 50% of these killings came from a shot fired from five feet or closer. A sane person would recognize many of these were scuffles, and contact shots are therefore the norm in a gunfight, certainly not 50% but a very high percentage of half, if not THE MOST COMMON TYPE OF SHOT. You might object that these were felons shooting, but I would counter that the police were at the same range, and it’s a scuffle, you can bet they are firing a lot of contact shots too. Before we discuss the wisdom in taking the fight to the enemy and seeking out contact shots, which would confer some physical and psychological advantages, let’s talk equipment. Everybody and their brother are carrying a semi auto. But doing so requires you to protect both yourself and the gun, taking away one hand that would have been otherwise engaged in the fight. I agree with the author on at least one level, you have to maintain your ability to move towards the enemy, who can be assumed, being the aggressor, is going to do the same thing to you. It’s sheer folly to fail to prepare. This is why I favor revolvers. They make great bludgeons and don’t have to be protected, actually enhancing your hand to hand options whereas a semi nerfs your ability to mix it up. They also don’t mind contact shots one little bit. “But, but, but”, says the super ninjas, what about rate of fire, what about capacity, and what about recoil? Very few gunfights go beyond 3 shots, 2.5 being the average, whereas many gunfights involve hand to hand and contact shots. Capacity can be had by dropping your revolver and pulling your compact backup (NY reload) which should be a semi in my opinion. Rate of fire? Have you ever seen competition revolver shooters fire a wheel gun? I entered on duty with a wheel gun, and anyone who shot a few thousand rounds through one can confirm this, your rate of fire isn’t a big concern, the gun will fire faster than you. Finally, recoil (sigh). People today act like recoil is a bad thing. It’s not. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. The recoil that rocks you on your heels if you shoot standing straight up is the recoil that’s going to MAKE your opponent miss you (from an average five feet away I might add) because he can’t control your recoil when he’s shot. But YOU CAN, so why the heck would you choose a gun with no recoil like 9mm? That’s the “Let’s shoot each other to death” Caliber.

    I know girls, how dare I make fun of your nifty ninja guns. Hey, I carry one too, a Glock 22, because that’s what’s approved by my agency. The day I retire I go to an 8 shot .357 and a small backup semi. You do what you want, none of my business, but if you carry a semi, and you want a little advice, put a compensator on the end of it so contact shots won’t cause it to malfunction. Train like you fight.

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