There's a ton of advice and information out there about self-defense in general, most especially self-defense with firearms. Some of it is bad - remember daffy old Joe Biden's advice about firing a couple of shots in the air? Some of it is good, some of it is well-meaning but technically incorrect.
The people who forward a lot of this information endlessly mean well. But some myths and legends around self-defense are just plain wrong, and it's time to set the record straight on a few of these items. For example:
Shotguns are brooms. All you have to do is point it in the general direction of an attacker and fire.
Nope. A shotgun can be devastating at close range; I can attest to this from personal experience, having personally taken a hit to the leg from a 12-gauge at a range of about three feet. (It was just a minor difference of opinion; call it a misunderstanding and leave it at that.) But it’s not a paintbrush. The shot charge leaves the barrel in a tight clump, not spreading out much beyond bore size for several yards. A good tight aim is still required.
A .44 or .45 will knock a man down no matter where you hit him.
Nope. Part of the reason you still see this line of horse squeeze served up is because you see it in the movies and on television so often. One of the best portrayals of an old Western gunfight is in the excellent Kevin Costner/Robert Duvall flick "Open Range." This admittedly beautiful film shows a real gun battle, with old guns made with varying tolerances and inconsistent black-powder ammo, with opponents literally just blasting away at each other at short range until hits are scored.
But there is a scene that ruins the whole thing; Robert Duvall fires his double-barrel 12 gauge through a plank wall at a bad guy, and the blast picks the baddie up and slams him against a wall. Not even a 12-gauge at a range of about six feet will do that; not even close. A 12-gauge at short range packs a considerable wallop (believe me!) but Newton's laws of motion still apply; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and a gun powerful enough to knock a man six feet across an alley would do considerable damage to the shooter as well.
The 5.56mm round fired by the AR-15 rifle is designed to tumble on impact and cause devastating wounds and is illegal in many places for hunting as it's too powerful.
Nope. The 5.56mm round, in its original 55-grain loading, as most high-velocity rounds will do, will tumble at times if it hits bone, but it wasn't designed to do so, and later loads with heavier bullets, fired from newer rifles that have a faster rate of rifling spin, are more, not less, stable. The reason the 5.56mm and its civilian counterpart, the .223 Remington, are outlawed for hunting game like deer in some states is because it's not considered powerful enough to deliver a clean, humane kill.
If you have to shoot a bad guy outside, drag him into your house before calling the cops.
Nope. This is an especially dumb myth, as acting on this may actually change a perfectly legal act of self-defense into a felony, such as tampering with evidence at a crime scene. We live in a time when any halfway-awake forensics type can reconstruct your life history from the remains of your gerbil’s three-week-old flatulence, much less note that a body has been dragged away from the blood splash where it fell. It's baffling that some people are still spouting this nonsense.
Some politicians, of course, are trying their best to strip away our right to self-defense, as I wrote earlier on Tuesday:
See Related: California Legislator Introduces Bill to Gut Self-Defense Protections for Citizens
Which brings me to a couple of pieces of good advice:
Understand the laws of the jurisdiction you live in.
Here in Alaska, we have stand-your-ground/castle doctrine laws, and as I'm fond of noting, out here in the Borough even the hippies have guns and know how to use them. Your state may differ; some places require you to flee before using force, which to my thinking is a horrendous abuse of government authority and a denial of basic human liberty. But if you don’t want to end up in the crowbar Hilton yourself, know your local laws. Red states, of course, are far more likely to have civilized self-defense laws than blue ones.
Never fire a warning shot.
Daffy old Joe Biden’s advice on the topic notwithstanding, this is a bad idea. For one thing, you may well be guilty of negligent discharge of a firearm. But more to the point, if things are bad enough that you have produced a firearm to deter a threat, and if you are called upon to fire, your first shot should be center mass. Shoot to stop the threat; a shot in the air does nothing to that end. Also, wasting ammo is bad.
And for another piece of great advice, my colleague Sister Toldjah recently brought us a classic from the pride of Lousiana, Republican Senator John Kennedy:
A Sen. John Kennedy Classic Gets Put Back Into Rotation Just in Time for Valentine's Day
Self-defense is a serious business. It's vital to know the facts: What your weapon is and is not capable of, the pros and cons of different types of weapons and cartridges, and the laws of your jurisdiction. These things are as important to your personal self-defense profile as range time. Learn them, look for facts, and understand everything before - not after - you may be called upon to put that knowledge and those skills to use.
