2009 may be remembered as the year of the .22

If you've had your head in the sand for the last 6 months, you may not have noticed that the price of ammo is going sky high and that is IF you can find ammo at all. Some calibers have become flat out impossible to find. This trend will really hurt the firearms training industry because people can't find or can't afford enough ammo to complete the courses they'd like to take. At the same time, concealed carry classes are booked solid. The shop I used to work in is now putting 75 people per week through the class and said they could easily do 100 if they had another instructor. That is just in one single shop.

For all those reasons, more and more shooters are turning to the .22 Long Rifle cartridge. It is cheap and at least for the moment it is still fairly easy to find. You can shoot all day for $20 worth of ammo. In comparison, I spent 1 hour at the range this past weekend and used up $90 worth of ammo shooting mostly 9mm and a little 12 gauge. If I had been shooting .45ACP I can't even imagine how much I would have spent.

There is a lot of value out of a day at the range with a good .22. Without the recoil and without the limited quantity of ammo, you can spend your time working on proper sight alignment, trigger control or drawing from a holster. I truly think you can improve your shooting just as much shooting a .22 as you can shooting your chosen self defense caliber. Now, of course you need to practice some with the caliber and gun you will use for self defense, but I think if you put 200 rounds of .22 down range in an afternoon (about $8 worth of ammo) and then a single box of your chosen self defense caliber, you'd be just fine.

Save some money, shoot more often and have more fun. If you've forgotten your .22 pistol or rifle in the back of the safe for a while, pull it out and give it some use. If this ammo shortage continues, that .22 might be your new best friend.

Stay safe out there... and watch your six.

My wife is a keeper

Well, I already knew that, but it got confirmed again last week. April 4th was our 5th wedding anniversary and my wife gave me the gift every gun nut wants. A shiny new gun. Last month, I had put a $100 deposit down on a Glock 19 to start a lay away. My plan was to slowly pay it off after our anniversary because my extra cash until then was going to buy my wife's gift. For my anniversary gift, my wife paid off my lay away! We went this past Saturday to the gun shop to pick it up. It was just a plain jane Glock 19 like millions of others that have been made but I really like that model. Then, I look in the case and notice they have a new one with the OD frame (that is Glock's Olive Drab frame for those that don't know). Other than the color of the polymer frame, it is identical to any other Glock, but they make a very low percentage (I don't know the exact number, but I've heard about 5%) with the OD frame. I decided that since this gun would be sentimental to me and would never get sold, I'd like it to be a little more unique. So, I swapped out the standard black Glock 19 that was on lay away for the OD one. I like it a lot and have not regrets. I'll be heading to the range this weekend to break her in. I'm just hoping that between now and then I can find some extra ammo.

I'm sorry for the short post, but things have been busy. I'll try to write something with more meat next week. Stay safe out there... and watch your six.

"2 is 1 and 1 is none" - Clint Smith

That saying is a famous "Clintism" from Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch. Clint Smith is considered by many to be the top firearms instructor in the country. This particular "Clintism" though has always made a great deal of sense to me. Basically, what he is saying is that any tool you use (be it a gun, knife, flashlight, etc...) is a man made thing and can fail. If you don't have a backup, you having nothing when it fails.

This is one of many reasons I believe anyone who owns a gun for self defense should own more than one gun for self defense. Many years ago, I worked part-time in a very large gun shop. I was talking to one of the other sales staff during a slow period. This guy also worked there part time and his full time job was as a law enforcement officer. He told me a story he had heard from a fellow officer he had met in NYC.

For those of you that don't know, the gun laws in NYC are ridiculously strict. It is very difficult to get a permit to own a handgun, and the process can take many months even if you are finally approved. There was an owner of a small jewelry shop who apparently had been robbed by some gang members on several occasions. He got fed up and applied for a permit to buy a handgun. After about 6 months of red tape, he finally got his permit and bought a handgun. Not long after, a couple of gang bangers tried to rob him again, but this time they got lead instead of gold. It was a perfectly legal, self defense shooting. The gang bangers had him at gun point and he prevailed by pure luck. When the police took his statment, they took the gun as evidence. He pleaded with them that those gang bangers had friends and that was his only gun. It would take months to get another permit and he'd never survive that long. The police had no choice but to take the gun until the DA ruled that it was a self defense shooting. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, friends of the original robbers showed up and killed ths shop keeper in his store. Think how much different that story would have ended if he had owned more than one gun.

You don't just need a second gun though for an unlikely event like that. What if it is something much less dramatic like one of them breaks. What if one is stolen? What if you find yourself in a fight and your primary gun is wrestled away from you? If you don't have a backup gun, I hope you have your affairs in order.

Here's another scenario to consider... You buy a gun for home protection. You have practiced with it and you feel confident you know how to use it. One night you and your wife and sleeping the sleep of the righteous when you are awoke by the sound of broken glass. You do what most people would do. You tell your wife to dial 911, you grab your gun and you go see where the noise came from. Now, if it was just a limb breaking a window in a storm, you will be fine. If it is a bad guy who flees when he sees you, you will be fine. If it is a bad guy that you manage to defeat in a gun fight, you will be less fine but you will be fine. However, what if you lose? What if the bad guy is faster than you and he kills you or at least injures you badly enough to take you out of the fight? What about your wife now? What about your kids now? If you had the only gun, you just left her unarmed with a pissed off bad guy in the house. If you had two guns, you could have left one with her. Better yet, you shouldn't go clearing a house anyway unless you are going to retrieve a kid, but that is another article.

The point of all this is... there are many many scenarios where one gun is not enough. Since none of us can know what circumstance we will be faced with, we have to prepare for as many of them as we can. You will be much better prepared with at least two guns in your arsenal than you were with one. Remember, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. Thanks for your wisdom Clint.

Stay safe out there... and watch your six.