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Running out of Ammo in Private Citizen Self-Defense Shootings?

The reason I ask is because I've recently transitioned to carrying a 5 round revolver with one speed strip as my EDC.
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I have been leaning this way as well.

My Glock 23 in an IWB Mitch Rosen holder is great, but I have to be conscious of printing and exposure. Not so with an enclosed hammer jframe in the jeans pocket. Plus, I can discretely have my hand on the grip ready to draw without presenting any sort of threatening posture. (Sure... I am getting my wallet now .... )
 
sigfanboy13 said:
I agree with carrying what gives you piece of mind; that's the most realistic answer. The numbers state you having to draw is fire more than 2 is infinitesimally small.
But everyone has heard that one story where the attacker was either jacked up on meth or was just one of those people who just downright refused to go down without eating the whole mag. If it only takes a spare mag or speedloader in your pocket to cover all the possible scenarios from bad to worse, why not?
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Probably my worst nightmare in a home invasion scenario. To wake from a dead sleep to a loud crash only to find a couple crazies on meth, bath salt, flakka, etc.

I've seen these people in the ER and it takes 6-8 of us to hold them down, joint locks and all. They cannot be reasoned with or talked out of anything. They have animal strength and it's the reason why I have a home defense shotgun nearby and carry a spare mag.

YouTube: people on meth, people on flakka, people on bath salts.
 
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I'm in basically the same boat as you, OP. My go-to carry gun is a Glock 19 but for deep-concealment (such as at work) I have a snubnose .38 (LCR). I don't carry reloads for either one because I've already got too much crap to fill my pockets.

That said, I've never heard of anyone who has come out of a gun fight wishing they had brought LESS ammo. I'd rather have it and not need it... you know the rest.

Yes, there is a statistic that most gun fights involve 2.5 shots or something. There is also the statistic that LEOs have a 30% hit rate and that it takes three rounds to stop an attacker - that's nine round per bad guy.

I definitely prefer having 16 rounds to just 5. That said, there are times when I simply can't haul my Glock around, even though that's the gun I'm more proficient with and I am confident I can get the job done with it. When I resort to carrying the little .38 I do so knowing it's limitations and knowing my own limitations with it. Snubs have some advantages and some disadvantages - learn them. I don't lose a single minute of sleep worrying that my 5-shot LCR is somehow inadequate, even though I'd rather carry the Glock. At the end of the day, five rounds of .38spl is a hell of a lot better than sticking keys between my fingers or some other nonsense.
 
milktree said:
If this is the case, it's hard to argue that we need 15 or 17 round magazines for self defense.
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Then you have the case of the woman holed up in her attick with her infant son. She pumped 5 shots from her .38 (emptying it)into the home invader that was clearly looking for blood, and that dude was able to walk back to his car. Had there been a another assailant or had she missed a shot, she and her infant son would have likely been murdered.

I know that you are playing devil's advocate here, but people miss shots especially under extreme duress. Look at NYPD throwing 84 shots at some dude and striking him once? Hit a few bystanders in the process but missed their target 83 friggin times!

And if this were true (that standard capacity mags are not needed), why do LEOs need them when they have an entire Police Department to back them up? The average citizen doesn't have that sort of help.
 
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SKumar said:
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=149_1433115107 10 rounds would've been sufficient, right? And if you run out, well, that's just bad luck isn't it?
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Don't be an idiot. 15 rounds probably wouldn't have been enough there either.

The Koreans in the LA riots weren't targeted explicitly by a gang that was all armed, so this is a terrible comparison. Trying to compare them is intellectually dishonest.
 
I tend to pack like the ending of The Way of the Gun. Heck, I even work on my Ryan Phillippe Jersey accent for effect.

Park me in the "Revolver + speedstrip = adequate" camp.
 
milktree said:
Don't be an idiot. 15 rounds probably wouldn't have been enough there either.

The Koreans in the LA riots weren't targeted explicitly by a gang that was all armed, so this is a terrible comparison. Trying to compare them is intellectually dishonest.
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The only one intellectually dishonest is you, since you're utterly failing to understand that when fighting against multiple assailants, the more rounds you have, the better. This also applies to the LA riots, where businesses were broken into by multiple rioters at a time (armed and gang-related or not). See the similarities yet or do I need to start from scratch with you?
 
gamma19 said:
I've been researching this topic but can't find much in the way of any credible sources of a self-defense shooting that was botched in favor of the assailant because the victim ran out of ammunition. I've read some of Ayoob's work and he details several high profile cases of this happening to LEOs, sparking the transition for most PDs to go from revolvers to semi-autos. The only private citizen case that I can find is that of Lance Thomas, the LA watch store owner who was robbed by multiple armed assailants but survived because he kept three revolvers under the counter and therefore had enough ammo on tap to successfully repel the attack.

The reason I ask is because I've recently transitioned to carrying a 5 round revolver with one speed strip as my EDC. I'm plenty accurate with it, it carries light and conceals well, points and feels great in hand. But there's always the lingering thought in the back of mind that 5 rounds with an extra 5 might not be enough, and makes me want to go back to my Glock 19 plus spare mag. That said, I figure that the most common deadly force encounter I would most likely have outside the home would be some sort of attempted mugging or gas station robbery with one or two assailants, where my goal would be to look for an exit and get out, with engagement as an absolute last resort. Same thing if it was an active shooter situation. In my home though, my primary concern would be a home invasion with multiple assailants, and no practical or safe way out of the house. My home defense firearms in that case are the revolver in addition to semi-autos with extra mags on hand.

NES braintrust, what are your thoughts and opinions on this?
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Glock 19 + a spare mag (both pre-bans in my state) = 31 rounds of 9mm goodness

It's hard to argue the case for revolvers. They're novelty items for range use IMO....


also:

 
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EJFudd said:
Let's face it: If you aren't carrying a Glock 19 with at least 3 square-notch, drop-free, full-capacity mags, you ain't nuthin' on NES. [rockon]
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^ I guess I'm borderin' on sumpthin' then. 1 in it, 2 next to it.

CCW said:
Glock 19 + a spare mag (both pre-bans in my state) = 31 rounds of 9mm goodness

It's hard to argue the case for revolvers. They're novelty items for range use IMO....
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It isn't hard to argue the case for revolvers. They're great for backup, or for deep concealment. I have 38SPL for both. Summer carry gets harder,

I get looks if my shirt is untucked at work.
 
ScottS said:
If you go by the law of averages, the average person will never be in a position to need a gun, so why carry one? Nor will the average person have need for a frontal airbag. So why are they mandated?
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What are the statistics on airbag efficacy? Do people stop wearing seatbelts because they have airbags? Could the extra cost of an airbag be better spent on driver training? Is forcing people to buy airbags a form of class warfare? I'm joking of course, mostly. I expect that nobody hates airbags or wants to campaign against them, so they get mandated because they "could save just one life"...

But, statistics *do* matter. Do you carry a fire extinguisher in your car? I do. Do you wear sunblock to go to work because of the sun between your car and office? I don't. If you multiply the chances of needing a gun *at all* with the chances that if you need a gun you'll need more than 10 rounds, you come up with a very, very small number. How does that compare to the chances of needing a defibrillator, or Epipen, or GPS homing beacon?

Don't answer those questions, they're rhetorical.


We don't prepare for the statistical average, or at least I don't.
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I bet you're mistaken about that. Clearly you don't prepare for the average *in this area*, but you probably don't buy two gallons of milk just in case one is bad, or an extra car just in case one breaks, or keep a second pair of pants and undies at work just in case you crap your pants. We *all* work statistical averages into nearly everything we do, all the time. I decide how prepared I'm going to be based on how likely I think the event is compared to how much of a hassle it is to prepare for it.

In the case of "15 rounds or a 10 round cripple mag", the difference in hassle is absolutely tiny. (Hence it being a fine idea to carry one)


I plan for the most-plausible worst-case scenario for the situation at hand.
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Indeed! The thing is (for me, at least) the difference between a full cap magazine and a cripple-mag might not matter from a self defense standpoint, but it also doesn't matter from a comfort-and-convenience standpoint. If you're carrying a handgun that will fit a 17 round magazine, literally the only downside of carrying one is the slight weight increase. (almost none)



Horrible said:
Then you have the case of the woman holed up in her attic with her infant son. She pumped 5 shots from her .38 (emptying it)into the home invader that was clearly looking for blood, and that dude was able to walk back to his car. Had there been a another assailant or had she missed a shot, she and her infant son would have likely been murdered.

I know that you are playing devil's advocate here, but people miss shots especially under extreme duress. Look at NYPD throwing 84 shots at some dude and striking him once? Hit a few bystanders in the process but missed their target 83 friggin times!
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Oh, absolutely! And yet the in the overwhelming majority of self defense situations fewer than five rounds are fired.. So while really bad stuff *does* happen, it's really quite rare.


And if this were true (that standard capacity mags are not needed), why do LEOs need them when they have an entire Police Department to back them up? The average citizen doesn't have that sort of help.
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Well, the cynical answer is that cops are special people. I think nearly all the arguments why cops should have big guns and we shouldn't be allowed to are straight up bullshit. I only put "nearly" there just in case I think of one later.
 
JayMcB said:
^ I guess I'm borderin' on sumpthin' then. 1 in it, 2 next to it.



It isn't hard to argue the case for revolvers. They're great for backup, or for deep concealment. I have 38SPL for both. Summer carry gets harder,

I get looks if my shirt is untucked at work.
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So tuck it in then? I carry the G19 any time carry is legally possible. My legs and ass are too big for my waist so I always have to buy a size up and use a belt anyway. But....I can even carry IWB with elastic waist shorts or sweatpants or almost anything I want. Belt and holster over underwear and then shorts on top and good to go. Those guns suck to shoot and the .38 ammo is more expensive. No, thanks....
It kinda gets like my fav rock band is better than yours and in fact yours sucks....
But...


nvestigators said Slater then chased the family into a crawl space near the attic - and when he opened a door, the mother opened fire striking him five times.Police said Slater stumbled out of the house, got into a car and crashed into a tree line in an apparent get-away attempt.
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He keeps going at her instead and maybe she dies....

http://www.cbs46.com/story/20506821/homeowner-shoots-intruder-in
 
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SKumar said:
The only one intellectually dishonest is you, since you're utterly failing to understand that when fighting against multiple assailants, the more rounds you have, the better. This also applies to the LA riots, where businesses were broken into by multiple rioters at a time (armed and gang-related or not). See the similarities yet or do I need to start from scratch with you?
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You're absolutely right that when fighting against multiple assailants you're way, way better off with the largest magazine that will work reliably and you can handle. I never said otherwise. In the video you posted the home owner would have been better off with a belt fed machine gun or an M4 with a 100 round Beta mag. I'm not arguing that.

But the LA riots and a gang invasion are very much not the way the overwhelming majority of us live. Those are statistical outliers that aren't representative of the whole.

You don't carry an M4 and three 30 round magazines with you all the time, do you? Why not? The answer is because you believe that a 15 round magazine and a spare is plenty.


The problem is that if "worst possible case" is your metric for making policy or decisions, (which it shouldn't be) than people who are pathologically scared of guns will point to the Pulse nightclub or Sandy Hook or Kent State or San Bernadino or that lunatic who shot up the birthday pool party yesterday and argue that no civilians should have any guns at all. (while ignoring the fact that violent crime and murder has been dropping steadily while gun ownership is at an all time high)

It's intellectually dishonest to use one set of criteria for the data that suits you, and another set for the data that doesn't.

If you're going to use "worst case scenario" for "why we should have guns", you have to be prepared that the other side will *also* use "worst case scenario" as to why we shouldn't.
 
I keep hearing 3 shots, 3 yards and 3 seconds (the average gun fight) from some real instructors (former Police). I used to carry a 5 shot J-Frame and a speed strip, nope not anymore... Not in 10 years...

I personally think revolvers are not the best choice. But its your choice.
 
Sheesh, and I though everyone around here carried a 150 round belt on them at all times..[rofl]
Because you never know there might be two of them![smile]
 
milktree said:
But the LA riots and a gang invasion are very much not the way the overwhelming majority of us live. Those are statistical outliers that aren't representative of the whole.

You don't carry an M4 and three 30 round magazines with you all the time, do you? Why not? The answer is because you believe that a 15 round magazine and a spare is plenty.


The problem is that if "worst possible case" is your metric for making policy or decisions, (which it shouldn't be) than people who are pathologically scared of guns will point to the Pulse nightclub or Sandy Hook or Kent State or San Bernadino or that lunatic who shot up the birthday pool party yesterday and argue that no civilians should have any guns at all. (while ignoring the fact that violent crime and murder has been dropping steadily while gun ownership is at an all time high)

It's intellectually dishonest to use one set of criteria for the data that suits you, and another set for the data that doesn't.

If you're going to use "worst case scenario" for "why we should have guns", you have to be prepared that the other side will *also* use "worst case scenario" as to why we shouldn't.
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Whether multiple assailant defense situations are common or not is irrelevant to the argument over magazine capacity. The fact is, situations where 15+ rounds are needed DO occur. If there is any opportunity to adequately defend yourself, as inconvenient as it may be, why would you deny one the option to do so? I hope excluding statistical outliers isn't your metric for making policy.

Regarding your M4 argument, I'm talking about magazine capacity, not spare magazines. If a magazine is built to hold 15, why would i carry one with 1/3 empty space? Not only am I carrying less rounds in a single magazine, but the bulk remains the same whether 15 or 10. If, hypothetically, I was able to carry 100rds in a 15rd magazine, why wouldn't you? In a given space, it only makes sense to carry as many rounds as possible. Look at companies offering +1 and +2 extensions in single stack magazines with adding minimal (if any) extra bulk.

The "worst possible case" IS the metric among law-abiding gun owners for magazine capacity (in addition to 2A). LEOs need full magazines because the data shows that their miss rate is between 70-80%. Do we not face the same threats they do?
Let these anti-gun people point towards highly politicized mass shootings. This is exactly why people allow liberals to walk all over the gun control debate. We allow them to avoid the fact that criminals don't listen to laws, and that only good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. They'll continue to spew nonsense until the inner city creeps into their suburbs. And believe me, I'm fully prepared to rebuttal the "why we shouldn't have guns" argument. Not sure which data set you're referring to that doesn't suit me.
 
CCW said:
It's hard to argue the case for revolvers. They're novelty items for range use IMO....
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A revolver is good enough to probably bail most people out of 99% of the bullshit they're likely to encounter, that's why they're appealing. That said, I don't own and don't carry one, but I can see why other people do, and back when I had my SW640, I didn't hesitate to carry it. . In this part of the country the dude with the j-frame w/38+Ps in his pocket is still better armed than most randoms. It's easy to justify saying "**** this shit" and leaving the auto and special belt at home, but a little wheelgun drops into a pocket holster in your pants or jacket. It's harder to be annoyed by that premise.

Carrying a gun is a pain in the ass. For some people carrying a small revolver is less of a pain in the ass. [laugh]

-Mike
 
Anyone can fire a revolver till it's empty.
Hand a new shooter a magazine fed, self loading pistol and that thing called a slide moving rearward may scare the carp out of them!

A revolver is easier to load and unload for safety reasons.

A revolver is not ammo sensitive and is generally more reliable than a self loading, magazine fed pistol.

It is faster to train a new shooter how to operate a revolver than a self loading, magazine fed pistol.

The negatives are....

Slow to impossible to reload during a fight for some people. It can be overcome with training such as under the stress of a competition.
More recoil during firing.
Harder to hit a target at any distance for some people. Training again will help with this.

That said a 22lr revolver can be fired easily by an elderly or even a younger person if the need arose for self defense.
Any firearm is better an not having one. Lots of people are killed by a 22lr round every year!

I typically don't carry a revolver.
When I do it is because there are little ones around and I can unload it for their safety easier than a magazine fed pistol.
With that said I have carried one around as a spare to arm another member of my family should I decide we need more shooters involved in a fight!

The original point and shoot interface!
 
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Honestly why does everything have to be so absolute? I vary my carry based on the probability of need and the type of threat im likely to encounter. I carry a glock 42 sometimes when i go for trail runs with my dog or mow my lawn, i feel like a homo, but its enough for whatever im likely to encounter around my house. When i go out in public i day to day stuff, grocery store etc, i upgrade to a G19 with a spare, any time im traveling on the highway or further away from home i usually put a rifle in my truck on top of my edc g19.

I guess what im saying is that its cool to game your probability of need and base your carry options off that. But i absolutely think you're kidding yourself if you think a j-frame shoved in your pocket is good enough for anything more serious than random street crime stuff. I dont carry for that, im not gonna shoot some kid trying to steal my wallet, im much more oriented towards mass shooter stuff or terrorist attacks that i could find myself in the middle of. I guess it depends on your outlook.
 
AllaSnackbah said:
Honestly why does everything have to be so absolute? I vary my carry based on the probability of need and the type of threat im likely to encounter. I carry a glock 42 sometimes when i go for trail runs with my dog or mow my lawn, i feel like a homo, but its enough for whatever im likely to encounter around my house. When i go out in public i day to day stuff, grocery store etc, i upgrade to a G19 with a spare, any time im traveling on the highway or further away from home i usually put a rifle in my truck on top of my edc g19.

I guess what im saying is that its cool to game your probability of need and base your carry options off that. But i absolutely think you're kidding yourself if you think a j-frame shoved in your pocket is good enough for anything more serious than random street crime stuff. I dont carry for that, im not gonna shoot some kid trying to steal my wallet, im much more oriented towards mass shooter stuff or terrorist attacks that i could find myself in the middle of. I guess it depends on your outlook.
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Stop making sense: Adherence to absolutes is what keeps NES arguments going page after page.
 
You have a point.
So a revolver and 20 fully automatic moon clips..Got it![rofl]


PS. No one in my family has any interest in firearms. Only my son.
So a revolver to arm them in an emergency makes sense.
In an emergency there will be no time to train them and easy is best!
If you ever pictured my wife throwing a punch then you would understand![smile]
 
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