Surprising advocate of the J frame

[Condition Yellow]

I stumbled on an article by Rob Pincus, of Personal Defense TV. The link can be found here: Choosing a Defensive Handgun The 3rd paragraph from the end was pleasantly surprising to me.

[captbahbah]

Yes. J frames rule! I tried switching to the Kahr MK40 when I retired but it never carried like my 649 Bodyguard with the 1 7/8 inch barrel. Something about that gun just lends itself well to pocket carry and any other mode of concealed carry. Recently, I traded in that MK40 for a PM45. Still carrying my 5-shot.

[off road]

Some wisdom here: http://www.keepandbeararms.com/Puckett/firstgun.pdf

If you don't feel like a J-frame is enough firepower, the carry TWO of them!

[Frank46]

I believe that was shown on the outdoor channel. When faced with an assailant with only two rounds how do you reload?. Simple carry another j frame. Frank

[Texas Star]

Originally Posted by Frank46

I believe that was shown on the outdoor channel. When faced with an assailant with only two rounds how do you reload?. Simple carry another j frame. Frank

One might, of course, simply kill the assailant with those two rounds, then reload.

[Decker]

It's nice to see some common sense about self defense like this once in a while.

Too many new CC licensed newbies buy into the "huge bullet" or "lots of bullets... plus more bullets" mindset for self defense.
All of that is nonsense, and a J-frame with 5 rounds of regular old hollow point .38's will get you out of serious trouble in any real world situation.
Note that I said "real world" situation, because these newbies so often fantasize about getting on a bus with 15 gang members and similar such nonsense.

I've mentioned elsewhere that if you read "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De Becker, you will virtually NEVER allow yourself to get in a situation where you need to shoot, and if you do, a .38 snubby will get you out of it.
In all the years that I've been carrying (yes, many years before it became "legal" to carry... my "license" was the Constitution), through situational awareness, there have been only two times I have been in situations where I thought I might have to draw, and one of them involved just one person, and the other involved two people.
In both cases, just my attitude and body language that indicated that I was both willing and able to seriously hurt them stopped any further discourse and led to their vigorous exit from my view.

So yes, it's nice to see a SD "professional" talk common sense about practical considerations of the kind of weapon that is more than sufficient for self defense in the real world.
The term "stopping power" should be eliminated from the discussion anyway. Shot placement is everything, and if you really want to make a person "stop" immediately and fall to the ground, just shoot them in the groin/lower abdomen with ANY caliber. Now that's stopping power, even with a .38 J-frame.
Think about that for a moment, and do you recall ANY incident of ever getting kicked in the groin (yourself or anyone else) and being at all able to stand up straight, let alone keep moving? Think about it.

[twogunjay]

I've known Rob for about 8 years. He has always carried a J frame in his pocket and is a strong advocate for them!

[6pack]

I became a convert over a year ago.

I love the "5-for-sure" performance of my nice Airweight.

I'll take the 5 +P Gold Dots in a reliable and pocket carry format over dozens of other options.

Anyone that carries should own one, IMHO.

It's full summertime down here, now. Shorts and tees have taken over the wardrobe choices on days off work. The J-frames rule here.