Home Defense Firearm For A Woman

[Will Munny]

It takes a lot longer to get back on target between shots.

You've been watching too many Hollywood movies.
Most home defense shootings are resolved favorably in 1-2 shots. A firefight is very rare.
The difference in time to return to the target is offset by the significant increase in stopping power. Six one, half dozen the other. If someone has a problem with the recoil and can't operate the firearm efficiently then fine, but plenty of people can shoot 357 Mag plenty fast for 99% of real world use cases.

 

[old lady new shooter]

You've been watching too many Hollywood movies.
Most home defense shootings are resolved favorably in 1-2 shots. A firefight is very rare.
The difference in time to return to the target is offset by the significant increase in stopping power. Six one, half dozen the other. If someone has a problem with the recoil and can't operate the firearm efficiently then fine, but plenty of people can shoot 357 Mag plenty fast for 99% of real world use cases.

One reason I picked the 686 Plus as my first gun was because I thought I would be able to use it right away with .38 spl and meanwhile learn to shoot .357 out of it. Then I started watching youtube videos where people were shooting both calibers out of the same gun (not necessarily a 686, just whatever they were shooting) and observed that normal people (i.e. not Hickok45) took way longer to get back on target between shots.

As for resolving a home invasion in 1 or 2 shots, I remember hearing a recording a few years ago of a woman hiding in her attic with her kids when a BG invaded the home. Her husband was on the line with her coaching her, she shot BG in the face and nothing happened. Husband said "Shoot him again." Lather, rinse, repeat, she emptied her entire revolver into BG's face and he didn't go down. Colion Noir picked it up more recently.

I think anybody who expects BG to go down and stay down after 1 or 2 shots is the one watching too many Hollywood movies. A few years ago there was a case in Israel where a terrorist drove his car up onto the sidewalk by a bus stop to run over a Jewish man. Then he took out a hatchet and starting hacking the victim. An armed civilian ran up and shot the terrorist at very close range. Terrorist went down, but got up after a few seconds. Armed civilian shot him again, he went down again. And got up again and got shot again. This was captured on video and I previously posted it on THR but now youtube removed it saying it violated their rules.

 

[Jim Watson]

You can also read a lot of accounts of mortally wounded game animals going long distances before organ damage and blood loss finally kills them. Same for criminals.

There seems to be deprecation of a head shot to deal with an assailant not being stopped by center of mass hits. I have read of cops being discouraged from the Mozambique Drill/Failure Drill.

 

[hey smepl this]

I brought my wife (42) and mother in law (66) to the range. They tried several handguns: a snubnose 38spl, a full size revolver in 38, a 1911, a couple Canik 9mm, and a Taurus TX22.

Neither of them had any experience with guns. So the power and loudness was startling for them. We here all forget that for someone with no experience, even a 38 spl will feel like a hand cannon. Movies absolutely do not convey the explosive power and loudness of a gun.

Neither have any interest in practicing, and neither became adept at handling a semiautomatic at that one range session. At the same time, both strongly preferred the TX22 bc of the reduced recoil and noise of 22lr, and its light trigger compared to the revolvers.

So take her to the range. For my wife, the TX22 is what I keep available for her in a pistol safe. She isn’t great at working the slide, but it’s cleaned, loaded, and proven reliable, and holds about 16 rounds.

 

[hey smepl this]

As for resolving a home invasion in 1 or 2 shots, I remember hearing a recording a few years ago of a woman hiding in her attic with her kids when a BG invaded the home. Her husband was on the line with her coaching her, she shot BG in the face and nothing happened. Husband said "Shoot him again." Lather, rinse, repeat, she emptied her entire revolver into BG's face and he didn't go down. Colion Noir picked it up more recently.

Multiple rounds to the face didn’t drop him?? I have to find that Colion Noir video bc that seems impossible if she was actually hitting him in the face.

 

[.308 Norma]

We here all forget that for someone with no experience, even a 38 spl will feel like a hand cannon.

Not "all" of us here, but some certainly seem to.

Movies absolutely do not convey the explosive power and loudness of a gun.

That's absolutely true!
I've probably told this story on THR before, but here goes anyway.
When my wife (a southern California girl) and I first got married (52 years ago BTW) I brought her home to Idaho to meet her new family. Dad had just bought himself a "commemorative" Model 94 Winchester 30-30 of some kind, and he wanted to shoot it. So the three of us, Dad, my brand-new wife and I climbed in the pickup truck and drove up to "Mud Hill" to give it a try.
Dad took the first shot at a box we'd set up about 100 yards away. Then he handed the gun to me, and I took a shot.
I then turned around to ask my bride (who was standing next to the truck behind Dad and me) if she wanted to give it a try. To my surprise, my bride was standing there trembling, pale as a bed sheet, and tears were running down her face.
I had not realized that because my wife had been born into and grown up in a family that never even had a gun in the house, the only "gunshots" she'd ever heard were on TV and in the movies. So, when she heard two, real blasts from a real gun, even though it was a "little" 30-30, it scared her real bad!
I'm proud to say I handled the situation well. The next day I took my bride out with my little .22 High Standard "Sentinel" revolver, my .22 Winchester Model 55 rifle, and a box of .22 "shorts." In a few minutes, my bride was delightfully punching holes in tin cans 10 or 15 yards away.
"The rest is history"(as they say). By the '80s, my wife was one of the top IHMSA competitors in the state with her Ruger 44 Mag "Super Silhouette" revolvers, she had as many guns as I did (still does) and she's killed as many head of big game as I have. She's still not all that great with a shotgun, but for that matter, neither am I. She uses a highly customized Model 70, 7mm Rem Mag for big game hunting nowadays. However, she used a .243, and then a couple of different 7mm-08s for big game hunting for years. Her "varmint" rifle is a .22-250.
She carries a little Smith .380 Shield "EZ" now - because a 9mm in that small of a package bothers her arthritic thumb joint now that she's older. But believe me, my wife knows how to use that .380, and if I was to ever get in a gunfight, there's no one else I'd rather have on my side.

 

[Ignition Override]

If those women's homes have a security system, at least they have a possible first warning (assuming that they use it).

Also, do they have enough common sense to Never unlock a door when a stranger knocks/rings?

 

[Will Munny]

As for resolving a home invasion in 1 or 2 shots, I remember hearing a recording a few years ago of a woman hiding in her attic with her kids when a BG invaded the home. Her husband was on the line with her coaching her, she shot BG in the face and nothing happened. Husband said "Shoot him again." Lather, rinse, repeat, she emptied her entire revolver into BG's face and he didn't go down. Colion Noir picked it up more recently.

I seriously question the accuracy of the first story, since we don't know exactly how he was hit or with what. Something is clearly not adding up however. Might have been the use of FMJ 22 or something like that, but this story sounds like one of those tall tales where lots of detail is left out, but once you know the full story its neither surprising nor informative.

I think anybody who expects BG to go down and stay down after 1 or 2 shots is the one watching too many Hollywood movies.

False and strawman, the expectation is not that 1 or 2 shots always takes someone out.

Most legitimate home defense incidents are resolved favorably with 1-2 shots, but not for the strawman reason you proposed. Rather, out of all cases, some percentage are resolved merely by producing a firearm, some further percentage are resolved by firing it (regardless of if anyone was hit), and a further percentage is resolved by hitting someone in a non-disabaling manner that still persuades them to leave.

The residual after all of that is the cases where only a stopping hit actually ended the attack (and of those, its possible that quite a few would have been resolved by scenarios 1-3, but that is not knowable if the stopping hit was the first thing that happened).

Cases where 2 solid hits with appropriate ammo choice fail to stop someone do happen, but those are the a very small portion of all cases and trying to solve for those typically has tradeoffs to other considerations.

 

[luv2safari]

One reason I picked the 686 Plus as my first gun was because I thought I would be able to use it right away with .38 spl and meanwhile learn to shoot .357 out of it. Then I started watching youtube videos where people were shooting both calibers out of the same gun (not necessarily a 686, just whatever they were shooting) and observed that normal people (i.e. not Hickok45) took way longer to get back on target between shots.

As for resolving a home invasion in 1 or 2 shots, I remember hearing a recording a few years ago of a woman hiding in her attic with her kids when a BG invaded the home. Her husband was on the line with her coaching her, she shot BG in the face and nothing happened. Husband said "Shoot him again." Lather, rinse, repeat, she emptied her entire revolver into BG's face and he didn't go down. Colion Noir picked it up more recently.

I think anybody who expects BG to go down and stay down after 1 or 2 shots is the one watching too many Hollywood movies. A few years ago there was a case in Israel where a terrorist drove his car up onto the sidewalk by a bus stop to run over a Jewish man. Then he took out a hatchet and starting hacking the victim. An armed civilian ran up and shot the terrorist at very close range. Terrorist went down, but got up after a few seconds. Armed civilian shot him again, he went down again. And got up again and got shot again. This was captured on video and I previously posted it on THR but now youtube removed it saying it violated their rules.

A brain full of meth can keep BGs going way too long. I like a big shotgun hole through their middle. That's not always possible.

My wife has been shooting a 6 shot Charter Arms Police Bulldog with 130gr JHP ammo. It's the bedside gun. The bull barrel keeps recoil down, and the grips are not too large or too small. The double action is smooth and not excessively hard.