Monday, March 7, 2011

.22lr For Self Defense?

Every now and then (less often lately, thankfully...) I notice the search term "M&P15-22 for home/self defense" (or something much like that) pop up on the site tracker.  Every time I kind of cringe a little at the thought that someone is seriously thinking along those lines.  Then I see stories with lines like this-
Police say the men did not know they had been hit and began chasing Garcia down Mussey on foot.
A guy pulls a .22lr handgun of some flavor and starts shooting at a couple other guys on the street, and hits the two a combined 5 times.  They didn't even realize they'd been shot until they had been hit until well after the adrenaline wore off.  They were still able to chase the guy down and detain him until the police showed up.

Granted, one of them is still listed as being in critical condition due to chest and abdominal hits, but they were still able to effectively function after being hit, and those hits were so insubstantial that they were not immediately noticed.  Combine that with the flaky reliability inherent to trying to cycle dirty, rimmed ammunition with mediocre QC (necessary to the amount pumped out) and you're only setting your self up for failure.

I know for over 90% of you guys this is like preaching to the choir, but it still seems like it needs to be addressed every couple months or so.

2 comments:

JD said...

There are a couple of circumstances where it's OK to carry a .22.

If one is truly unable to handle any kind of recoil due to physical inability such as arthritis etc. it's OK to use a .22, but it better be a .22 Magnum revolver.

My biggest beef with .22s for defense is the high rate of mis-fires with almost every brand of .22 ammo I've ever fired, a revolver lessens the severity of a mis-fire as the "remedial action" fir a misfire with a revolver is simply pulling the trigger.

Other than that, I'm with you and the choir, no .22s for self-defense.

Fred said...

.22mag does tend to have better QC overall, and much better bullet options.