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Originally Posted by ABPOS
Well, you can blame Claude Werner for the suggestion. I suggest you watch the video. Whether or not I'm responsible for repeating what he said as a viable way to think of things, I guess you can blame me for that.
We're just talking here. We all can make our minds up and carry what we want. Not sure why that would be offensive. I promise I'm not trying to be. But I realize the suggestion was probably controversial. I'm definitely no expert on self defense and I apologize for offending you. But again, I'm repeating a theory by a Ex Military trainer that may have some wisdom more than I.
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What Claude's doing is saying "something is better than nothing", and fluffing it out into a big thing to try and generate buzz and sell stuff. Which is what his job really is. You can be a great trainer and fail horribly if you can't generate publicity. I used to think Gabe Suarez was a literal retard, but the guy's a negative-publicity genius. He says crazy stuff, everyone starts raging about it, and then he goes back to pushing non-crazy stuff now that is name is back out there.
Anyway, CW isn't wrong...sort've. I think he's jumbling up his words a bit. Most incidents that require a pistol
do require nothing more than being able to truthfully shout "Leave me alone, I have a gun!". And many beyond that are resolved because the subject decides that getting shot sucks (psychological stop). For that, having a pistol that actually fires is sufficient.
So, given concealment requirements or non-permissive environments, being armed with a itsy-bitsy gun will still handle a great many incidents. And if Werner is actually trying to say "small guns are okay because they can make bad guys run away"--well, then he is wrong and I am right.
But small pistols aren't acceptable self-defense tools because they can make bad guys run away. They're acceptable self-defense tools because they're still capable of physically stopping an attacker.
What I don't see is where this has anything to do with ammo selection.
Next, where you ran afoul was where you juxtaposed
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I'm not sure my main goal is to kill someone.
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with
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That doesn't always mean, or hasn't always meant DRT. Military and Police may have different missions.
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which implies that the police
are trying to kill. That's the part that's offensive. I generally don't consider bad gear choices offensive, I use a color-coded silly/dumb/suicidal system. Applying lethal force =/= shooting to kill. And it's absolutely not what Claude Werner said.
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I've heard stories of some .38's and other guns actually not defeating a skull.
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Pretty much every defensive cartridge has bounced off someone's skull, or burrowed under the skin and popped out the back without entering the cranial cavity. In fact, I know of a situation where a guy took a
penetrating .357 Mag to the brain and kept fighting--with multiple hits to the torso already. Brain shot #2 dropped him.
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Like I said, if I were in your shoes, I'd just keep carrying that 442. Evaluate whether you really shoot +P badly--are you inaccurate, do you lose your grip with +P, or do you just not like it--and carry whichever you decide on. I don't think carry a .38 m'self, but my objection is capacity, not terminal performance.
In other words, even if you believe JHPs won't expand and FMJs will penetrate deeper, I don't think that switching to FMJs will solve the 442's limitations. I further think that switching from standard pressure to +P ammunition won't solve the problem you perceive, either.
PS--I also don't think that gear is really that important compared to making good decisions leading up to the fight (i.e.--setting yourself up for success). One of the few things I think is a worthwhile lesson from the military line of reasoning is that if you find yourself in a fair fight, you're doing it wrong.