Revolver or high capacity auto

[cheeseinwisconsin]

Ok everyone,this question has been posed to me a number of times from my customers throughout the years. There have been a lot of opinions expressed regarding this subject and I thought I would give my take for what is it worth and ask you all join in and let us all know what you think. When I first became a officer for the City of Los Angeles back in 1973, we were issued a 38 caliber K frame revolver, and a wooden night stick. Add to that twelve extra rounds and that was it. No pepper spray or taser and or hand held radios. Fast forward to now and you will find an array of tools available to law enforcement and civilians alike that offer more choices on how to react in volatile situations. One upgrade, namely the high capacity auto handgun such as the Beretta 92 have allowed a officer or citizen a leg up so to speak in dealing in situations involving the use of deadly force. However, the carrying of a high capacity auto handgun comes with a price. My opinion is that it can give a individual sense of inflated confidence. Although the thought that more is better, sometimes that is a hindrance in employing good tactics. When we had only revolvers, we knew we had only six rounds before we had to reload so therefore we had to have acute awareness of our surroundings, i.e. cover. Unnecessarily placing ones self in the open was a no-no tactically and doing so meant a high possibility of being seriously injury or death. The point I'm alluding to is that although high capacity autos are a great tool to have for self defense, please be aware of the feeling of over confidence as all it takes is one bullet coming your way to wreck your day no matter if you are carrying a flintlock pistol or a machine gun.

 

[murphydog]

Thank you for your service, past and present. You're going to get a lot of responses and this one may not be the best.

My perception is the high capacity pistol was authorized/issued in response to higher threat levels. I grew up in L.A. in the '60s and '70s and clearly recall the sense of peace and security there, but that is no longer the case in many areas of any large (medium, and sadly small) cities. I would guess not every officer in the '70s had a long arm (shotgun) readily available but now I see 5.56 mm carbines or rifles almost universally, in the car and ready to go.

I also suspect in the present day, the larger the LE agency the less time (money, effort) expended on training beyond basic firearms handling and use. The LE "gun people" like the ones inhabiting this site are more likely to get the extra training in tactics that you mentioned - seeking and shooting from cover, etc.

Those who are motivated and can find the money and time for the extra training would probably still prevail with a model 14 or 15 .38 today. That should be the desired confidence level for LEOs (or anyone who carries), but not everyone can or wants to achieve this.

 

[Roller Delayed]

I think you have to already be a cop to fall into a self confidence trap when it comes to armed combat.

 

[misswired]

A sheriff in Mayberry might be comfortable with a concealed Chiefs Special.

I doubt you'd see an Elite Forces Team headed to combat with revolvers.

For every day carry a model 36 is fine... if headed to B'ham or similar dangerous city I'll probably grab a high cap pistol. It depends on the perceived threat level; As a citizen, my duty is to avoid the fight if possible.

 

[URIT]

Situational awareness and an action response plan may be worth one reload. On the job, we needed to be hyper-vigil which carried over into our off-duty hours. These are important survival skills.

Today, nearly two decades into retirement, I'm still vigil and believe my situational awareness is far greater than most folks.

Knowing your limitations, both legal and physical, are important to develop a workable armed response plan. Remember, when we draw our firearm we may have to kill.

 

[stansdds]

For the legally armed citizen, I agree with Misswired. Avoidance is the best defense, but should that fail...

A 5-shot J-frame revolver is more than you are likely to ever need. But, in areas where crimes may be committed by gangs, you might find yourself in need of more than 5 shots. Yes, I'm sure many of the gangs are depending on you not resisting and certainly not shooting, they may scatter if shots are fired, but just in case they don't, a high capacity pistol is nice to have.


It's different for law enforcement. Their duty is not to avoid or flee from a fight, but to run towards the fight. For them, they should be very well armed and trained. 16 rounds in the mag plus one in the pipe is great, but if you cannot hit the intended target it is of little value. Some agencies stayed with 6-shot revolvers long after others transitioned to pistols and the emphasis in training was on quality, not quantity.

 

[Laketime]

Revolvers forces you to shoot better. Look at current day police encounters and shots fired compare to 30 yrs ago with the same results.

 

[haywood]

I like Revolvers. Most days I carry Two J-Frames. I understand being a citizen not a Police Officer, pulling a gun is a last resort. I try to be aware of my surroundings and the people I see. I don't drive to known bad areas just because I feel safe there with a gun. I carry pepper spray in hopes that if something happens it may handle the job. It worked on a dog once. When I go places I watch for escape routes and cover. The last thing I want is to use a gun. I am in no hurry to see how our justice system works. I would have to be in a no escape fear for my life situation.

 

[18DAI]

I would choose neither the revolver nor the high cap semi auto. I chose a single stack 45 semi auto. Either 7 or 8 in the mag and one in the tube. Were I still on the street today it would be my choice again.

When I was still on the job, the single stack 45, with two mags on my belt was sufficient - to get me to the 870 in the trunk of the Crown Vic.

These days, on my own time, one spare mag is sufficient. Based on experience, I will be out of time long before I am out of ammo. YMMV. My 0.02 Regards 18DAI

 

[ContinentalOp]

I can't remember where I got the stats, or the exact numbers, but when NYPD issued revolvers they were averaging around 4-5 shots fired during gun fights. Right after switching to double-stack 9mms that number went up to around 10 or so. IIRC, this was at a time when NYPD officers only qualified once per year, and that was about all the in-service training they got (not counting special units like ESU). What I remember from that article was that the nature of the encounters (i.e., number of bad guys, capabilities of the bad guys, etc.) hadn't changed. So I think that there does seem to be a tendency for some to fire most, if not all, of their rounds during an encounter.

I would agree that for non-LE, a snub revolver, or a pocket semi-auto, is sufficient for most people, most of the time. As Claude Werner has put it, the purpose of a civilian self-defense gun is to "break contact" with one's attacker(s). From what I've seen after reading about self defense encounters, and seeing attacks on video, once the victim starts returning fire, the vast majority of the time the attackers do everything they can to get out of there.

I'm not saying there's no need for non-LE to carry higher capacity guns because people have different needs regarding what they perceive as the risks in their environment(s) as well as what their abilities/capabilities are, and there have been instances of determined attackers pressing their attack, ableit very rarely. I've switched to a double-stack 9mm from a 5-shot snub for EDC (most of the time), but capacity was down near the bottom of my list of priorities.

 

[Ziggy2525]

...
I'm not saying there's no need for non-LE to carry higher capacity guns because people have different needs regarding what they perceive as the risks in their environment(s) as well as what their abilities/capabilities are, and there have been instances of determined attackers pressing their attack, ableit very rarely. I've switched to a double-stack 9mm from a 5-shot snub for EDC (most of the time), but capacity was down near the bottom of my list of priorities.

I think the trade offs between perceived risk, concealability, and carryability are definitely part of decision that affect many rounds people carry.

The other thing from the training classes I've taken around here in the last few years, usually taught by retired LEO's or .mil, is there is a bias to put more rounds on target rather than less. Makes it hard with a 5-shot revolver. Unless it's a specialty revolver course, most training places where I'm at won't let you use a revolver in a tactical training course. Too slow to reload and doesn't match their training paradigm. When you train that way, you start to inherit that bias.

 

[JH1951]

Police officers and armed citizens are two distinctly different categories with distinctly different needs. I clearly recall the days when police carried revolvers, and that was all they needed. Those days are over.
For the 'armed citizen', who is practicing awareness, avoidance, and self protection, a .38 Spl. J-frame (or something similar) should suffice.
But, it seems that there are several categories of 'armed citizens' these days as well. They range from those as described above, to those looking to eliminate all threats large and small, and to a degree, looking for an opportunity to do so. Of course there are a lot of degrees between the two extremes as well.
Unfortunately, times have changed dramatically over the last several decades. Back when LEO's were carrying revolvers, there were fewer folks feeling the need to be an armed citizen.
Times they are a changin'..... My hope is that common sense prevails, and that deadly force will only be used when necessary. But as society declines/decays, that situation becomes more frequent as time marches on.
Unfortunately none of us can set the clock back fifty years. I would if I could. I keep looking for a solution to all of this, but to do that we need to get a handle on the problem, and that seems to be somewhat elusive too, at least finding one that people will actually address.

 

[Rammer Jammer]

I prefer

High capacity 9mm for HD.

5 shot snubbies for carry.

 

[RGVshooter]

All respect to our LEO's out here.

The following is my opinion, my opinion is based on my experiences & observations. Your experiences & observations may differ. Hence we all have different opinions.

It's been my observation for years that most "experts" & gun sales counters (punchline coming) put too much emphasis on stopping power, one hit stops, shoot until the threat is gone. etc. Here's the punchline..... Most gun stores will lead the customer towards a more expensive pistol or one that is of higher capacity or larger caliber (generally more costly than a lower capacity gun) and use this "professional advice" as a selling point. And as a result, the gun industry exploded into a plethora of every gun size & caliber to fit every conceivable ones needs or in most cases, their pocketbook. And to add further injury to insult, resulted in the demise of the 25 auto, the 32 auto and ridicule of the .380. Which IMHO are still very viable calibers for civilian self defense.

I'm licensed to carry for the purpose of saving my hide after all else fails to get the heck out of there. After watching hundreds of surveillance YouTube videos of armed robberies/home invasions, 99% of the time the civilian wins with either the bad guy/s running out the door or becoming incapacitated. Caliber wasn't the issue as most of these were with pistols ranging from 22's up to 45 autos. Most if not all were solved within 1-4 shots.

In my humble opinion, average joe citizen would be well protected with at least a 5 shot snubbie 38 special or 8 shot .380 pistol. Police officers however although they deal with the same bad guys that civilians do, are called into the situation. Therefore their training and equipment requirements differs than civilians.

But at the same time.....

If a officer shoots at a bad guy, hits the bad guy but the BG runs off for example, than that was a failure. The officers main goal is to put handcuffs on the bad guy. If a civilian in a violent encounter with a bad guy shoots and misses, but the bad guy runs off, then that was a success for the legally armed civilian.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

I am not at all against slabside guns that carry a dozen and half rounds, nor carrying a few dozen more in the (by me) mandatory additional magazines. This does NOT have to encourage wasting ammo, if your head's on straight. However, as a non-LEO and a tourist who mostly gets to select where he tours, I consider the risk of being unarmed fairly low. So low, in fact, that I feel that I need to weigh it against the risk of being armed.

On the street, I feel that the risk of being armed is ridiculously low. However, I don't feel that the risk involved in loading and unloading inside my house is ridiculously low. I feel that it warrants considerable attention. I try to avoid it with all arms, but particularly with autoloaders. I'd rather carry a good revolver and a few speedloaders on the street than put up with regularly playing with autoloaders inside the house.

This is just MY answer. I am well aware that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of LEOs routinely carry autoloaders without incident. They don't have a choice. I do, and I usually choose a revolver.

 

[Old cop]

I started my career in 1968, retired 30 years later and went through the transition from revolvers to auto loaders. I've also had the experience of running out of ammo in a gunfight in '74, plus surviving two other deadly confrontations. Given those experiences my choice for EDC is the no lock 340PD b/c I'm not a cop anymore, and my daily travels are pretty tame. Modern high capacity auto loaders make sense for law enforcement and the military but they're too bulky & heavy for me. I shoot my EDC often and have confidence in it, and don't I judge others for their choices. My belief is that many will leave that new semi-auto in the car (bad idea) or at home (even worse) when the novelty wears off and not have it when and if it's needed. Many of us old/retired cops were required to be armed 24/7 and we learned how handy a good J frame was. Those who are new to EDC quickly discover it can be a PIA, especially under certain social circumstances.

 

[reddog81]

There's a logical difference between what a police officer will carry and a civilian will most likely choose to carry. The police officer will get called into any situation within a couple miles radius and be expected to help stop whatever confrontation is happening. In most scenarios a civilian should avoid conflict even if it's 50 ft away. For a police officer it's expected that they will be open carrying a gun at all time. This makes it much easier to carry a full size pistol and multiple reloads. For most civilians this is impractical.

Realistically most police officers don't even fire 6 rounds under threat their whole time on the force and a revolver would be sufficient. I'm not saying police officers should go back to carrying revolvers, however if they choose to there's a good chance it wouldn't ever be a detriment. With that said, I'm sure there are a handful of scenarios every year where having that extra capacity is helpful and it's impossible to predict when or where one of those scenarios will happen.

 

[Well Armed]

Whenever this debate has come up on several forums I've been a member of over the past going on ten years, I always ask this one question that no semiautomatic guys has been able to ever answer... You know, the guys that claim revolvers are a thing of the past, and you a need to carry enough rounds and back-up guns to be able to take on a small army and a gang of terrorist to truly be safe.

Out of the millions of revolvers that have been sold over the past 50 or so years, our of the millions of civilians who have carried or used revolvers for home defence over the past 5 decades up until this very day, PLEASE cite a few or even one out of all these alleged cases where a civilian carried a revolver, ran out of ammo, and was wounded or killed as a result??? I'll wait....

All I see is the same faceless based logic and fear mongering anties use. I thought we were the side of facts and statistics? To be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with carrying as many rounds as you can and that is comforting to you, I just have issues with people conjuring up dooms day assertion on why others should not carry revolvers as a primary when they do not have any facts or statistics to back it up.

 

[delcrossv]

I think a good point has been made as to the different goals between LEO's and armed citizens. As a citizen, my goal is to give me an opportunity to disengage from the conflict and get away. For that, my 5 shot 940 and a couple of moon clips in the pocket is sufficient.

There are a couple of other practical considerations for me: If I walk around with my P-01, and get into an incident, it's more likely that a claim can be made that I was out "looking for trouble", at least in the People's Republik of Illinois; secondly, high capacity autoloaders are not "legal" in the areas where carrying them would make sense (e.g. Chicago).

Additionally, I take a cue from my two LEO friends (both CPD, one active, one retired) They carry either J frame revolvers or small, low-capacity semiautos when off duty.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[raylan007]

Really the question in my mind is HOW we got to this ratcheted up spray and pray mentality? I also grew up post WW2 and must say it was a kinder and gentler world. Now when you see police response it looks more like a wartime military response, optimum word I'm afraid on both ends of the spectrum is escalation, for unknown reasons. It is hard to imagine Joe Friday and his lowly M36 getting the job done thru the 60's and even prior to that the .32 caliber in many cases being the standard carry, in most instances today those calibers wouldn't even be considered for a back up.