We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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I agree with .40 S&W is an excellent round, with the caveat that it can be quite punishing to shoot over a long period, and I would contend that you need to shoot your self-defence weapon a lot before you can rely on it. 45 ACP has, like my favourite calibre (455 Webley, I own a Webley Mk VI and a Smith 2nd Model Hand Ejector) has the advantage that it can deliver an authoritative hit with a relatively low velocity load; even a light target load from a Colt can end an argument very effectively and more certainly than a lighter high velocity round. To quote (I think) Colonel Cooper:
There are many ways of making a bullet lose velocity; I know very few of making it lose weight.
I think magazine capacity is a chimaera in self-defense pistols; modern high capacity weapons have been driven either by a military/police agenda or competition requirements; there are going to be very few few self-defence situations in which you need more than five or six rounds. What is, I believe required is a pistol portable enough to be carried all the time, rather than an ersatz SMG.
Natalie and I own (In Belgium, these days I’m afraid,) a little Charter Arms Undercover, and a good friend owns its big brother the bulldog. On the day I bought it for Natalie I carried it for several hours in my trousers pocket before she even realised I had it. Only 5 rounds of 38 special, but practice and intelligent choice of ammo made it very credible self defence weapon, had we ever been in a place it were legal to carry one. Of course, If I were expecting trouble I’d make a different choice, but even with the little Charter I’d be prepared for it…
Mike Solent
I have to agree with the majority of Perry’s comments on both the 40 cal. and the SIG 229. Excellent choice of caliber and weapon. The 229, like most weapons chambered for the 40 S&W, also has the advantage of being readily converted via a simple barrel change to the .357 SIG, a caliber that has garnered rave reviews in both civilian and government circles. As for leaving home without it, however, depending on dress and circumstance the somewhat smaller SIG 239 might be more appropriate.
Unfortunately for Perry, he lives in the UK where the great experiment in civilian disarmament continues unabated despite all the evidence proving it is simply a bad idea. So until he makes the move back to the US, his desire will remain a futile, unfulfilled dream.
Pity, old chum.
Now Dawson is certainly entitled to his opinion that the Colt .45 “has never been surpassed as a combat weapon side arm”, but I think times have moved on. Sure, it is a fine choice, but I cannot see any real advantage over more modern .40 cal weapons like the excellent SIG 229 but I can see several disadvantages. The SIG has 12 rounds in the magazine (vs. 7 in the Colt), is a smooth double action out of the box and just as reliable as the venerable 1911-A1 (and it’s various grandchildren). To be honest, I think the Colt is only really competitive these days if heavily modified (polished feed ramp, extended slide release etc.). Most importantly, I just don’t like a Colt style lock safety in a combat piece… it is just too easy to forget that it is on at the moment of truth and too dangerous to leave it off in the mean time.
Don’t get me wrong, the Colt .45 is a great weapon and fun to shoot but when the chips are down and it is time for business…I want a 40 cal SIG 229…Don’t leave home without it.
I was reading Ian Murray’s blog The Edge of England’s Sword and followed a link to an interesting article he wrote for Britannica regarding the use of statistics in the victim disarmament debate. It is a excellent piece but the bit that stood out to me was:
The level of contention is so high that acceptance of a set of data by one side often means a knee-jerk rejection by the other. The research of U.S. government agencies should be objective enough to be acceptable to both sides, yet some data produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have been criticized for being biased in favour of gun control.
Now whilst I realise I am a wild-eyed libertarian, it never ceases to amaze me how many people do indeed seem to think that government agencies are somehow less likely to have an axe to grind when they make some pronouncement. States are in no sense a disinterested third party standing apart from sectarian concerns of society. What they are is a group of people defending their own narrow institutional objectives and with a vested interest in finding ‘reasons’ to expand the remit of their authority. To think otherwise is almost hilarious.
Only it is not really funny at all.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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