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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Opinions on Conceal Carry Permits?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-13-2007 06:22 PM
I'm one step closer to getting the carry permit. I bought a handgun specifically designed for conceal carry use, a Springfield Armory XD-40 subcompact:
The Springfield Armory XD line of handguns has been gaining a great deal of popularity. They're built well, don't cost a fortune, have all the design advantages of a Glock but with a number of improvements. The grip angle and ergonomics are better. There's additional safety enhancements, such as a 1911 .45 style grip safety, a loaded chamber indicator and a cocked striker indicator. It has a higher quality hammer forged barrel. The slide is CNC machined from high grade steel (instead of stamped or cast) just like guns costing twice as much. Some police departments are trading their Glocks for XDs.
The XD subcompact is also the smallest handgun to also include a "rail" for mounting accessories, like tactical lights and laser aim pointers.
The subcompact I bought is chambered in .40 S&W. 9mm is popular (mainly for the cheaper ammunition and slightly higher magazine capacities). But .40 S&W has better stopping power and the bullets don't cost too much more than 9mm. I also bought a .40 S&W barrel for my Sig Sauer P226 so I can practice shooting it at a more affordable level. .357 Sig ammunition is expensive. It costs nearly twice as much as .40 S&W.
Springfield Armory throws in a number of extras with their XD pistols. The subcompact came with two magazines, one of which is an extended model for higher capacity and a full size grip. You also get a magazine loader (which does come in handy because those magazine springs are pretty stout), a magazine holder for your belt and a plastic belt holster. The plastic holster sucks, but it's better than nothing. I'll get a high quality shoulder holster and/or an inside the waistband holster. Here's a photo of it alongside my Sig P226:
A friend of mine and I will probably take the conceal carry class together. A couple places here in Lawton offer the class. Another thing you have to do is get your fingerprints put on file at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Normally, most people get their fingerprints taken at the County Sheriff's dept. But OSBI often rejects lots of fingerprints after taking their sweet time to review them. I figure making the appointment directly with OSBI in Oklahoma City will speed things up a good bit. They'll at least tell you the same day if the prints they took are good or not.
BTW: I do have a "Series 4 Deatomizer": an Ithaca Model 37 Featherlight shotgun.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-14-2007 12:44 AM
quote: Chad Souder
Does it have the 200 round break-in period the Kahr does? If I had the money, I would have bought them both and let practice make my decision for me.
Springfield Armory gives the XD a lifetime warranty. Their customer service is very good. If anything is wrong with the gun they will fix it (provided you haven't been doing something stupid with it, such as shooting it without any lubricant on the slide, etc.).
The XD is a nice gun. The most important selling factor for me is that the XD grip fit my hand very nicely. I love the grips on factory SigSauer and Springfield XD pistols. They're both fairly similar. I can't stand how the Glock feels; the angle just seems wrong. And the finger separators on the grip just screw up things even worse. As much as I admire Heckler & Koch for their quality standards on making handguns, I don't really like how their grips feel in my hands. FWIW, their newest pistols (the H&K P30 and H&K 45) have interchangeable backstraps to adjust for differing hand sizes. The problem is those pistols cost a LOT and aren't widely available.
quote: Ray Faultless
Guys how much are these guns selling for now and how much are the bullets.
I bought my Springfield Armory XD-40 subcompact for $530 (including sales tax) at a recent gun show here in Lawton. Not too bad for the "two tone" model. The main gun store in my area of Oklahoma (located in Duncan) sells the same gun for nearly $100 more.
SigSauer pistols are definitely more expensive. The venerable P226 in a standard all-Nitron blued finish currently lists for $853. My P226 has Meprolight night sights, which brings up the list price to $920. I originally purchased it chambered in .357 Sig, based on research of incident reports from various law enforcement agencies. The Texas Rangers, Texas Dept. of Public Safety and Virginia Highway Patrol recorded a high degree of "one shot stops" when using their department issue P226 pistols chambered in .357 Sig. (and jacketed hollow-point ammunition). The Navy Seals, US Marshalls and US Coast Guard carry SigSauer P226 and P229 pistols.
.357 Sig ammunition is expensive. But it is growing in popularity due to its high velocity and intense stopping power. You'll pay around $20 or more for a 50 round box of Winchester White Box practice ball ammo in .357 Sig. The price per 50 round box has gone up a good $5 over the past year. It now literally costs nearly double that of .40 S&W.
Wal-Mart sells 100 round "value packs" of Winchester White Box practice ball ammo in .40 S&W for around $20. You'll shoot $2 to $4 cheaper when loading up with 9mm. But 9mm doesn't pack very much of a punch at all. Basically it's the old .38 slug on a shorter cartridge built for higher capacity magazines.
If you can't tell already, I don't really care much at all for the 9mm round. Our troops in combat have been having to deal with the wimpy factor of 9mm in their standard issue Beretta 92F pistols loaded with 9mm ball ammo. It's against NATO regulations and the Geneva Convention for soldiers to have pistols loaded with hollow-point ammunition. There's some exceptions, but generally you have to play by those rules.
Ball ammunition is only designed to punch little holes through paper targets. Nothing more. It's practice ammo. Not hunting ammo or self defense ammo. The slugs are not designed to expand much at all when impacting into a target. You could literally empty a magazine through an assailant and he may still be healthy enough to still get to you and kill you before he is able to bleed to death -if that even happens at all.
The pansy ass-hats out there try to ban the use of hollow-point bullets as if they are less humane. Here's a news flash to those guys. Any cop, soldier or person who has gone through some self defense training knows you keep shooting and continue shooting until the threat is neutralized.
So what's more humane? Shooting a bad guy just once? Or emptying an entire magazine into him and them pistol whipping the shit out of him if he's still alive and wants to strangle the hell out of you?
My SigSauer P226 is my home defense gun. I have it loaded with .357 Sig caliber Speer Gold Dot jacketed hollow-point bullets. If I hit an intruder "center mass" in the torso within a few yards, he is going to drop like a sack of dead weight. If I have the same gun loaded with ball ammo, he may get to me, take my gun away from me and beat me to death with it. Sure, shot placement, even with ball ammo, can be enough to get the job done. Still, you must be using the right kind of ammunition for the given purpose.
Naturally, self defense ammunition costs a good bit more. But not too much more. I got a 50 round box of Speer Gold Dots in .357 Sig from an Internet based law enforcement seller for around $24. You also tend to have to order more exotic types of self defense rounds (Glaser Safety Slug, Hydra-Shok, etc.) off the Internet if you want the best price.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-16-2007 11:12 PM
The mere threat of getting shot is usually enough to scare away any would be home invader. Even if you have to eject an unfired round from the chamber, it may still be worth it to rack the pump on your shotgun within earshot of an intruder. That noise is definitely enough to give anyone with any lick of sense a feeling of fear.
Still, you have to be prepared to deal with the fact most criminals are either sociopathically insane or just plain dumb as a rock and intent on entering your home regardless of the threat you pose to them.
The anti-gun crowd is really good about vomiting out anecdotal statistics about how a home owner's gun is often taken from him and used against him.
The anti-gun crowd is also very quick to bring up stories of people getting killed in gun related accidents.
In one respect I can kind of agree with those ass-hats, but my motivations on gun use and gun rights are far different. They just want to ban guns. I merely want people to use common sense. Our society uses all kinds of very dangerous tools even without any requirement of certification or competence with the tool. Hundreds of people are killed using chainsaws every year. It's arguably the most dangerous tool you can buy from a hardware store. Chainsaws are even sometimes used to deliberately kill other people. But I don't see any noises being made to ban chainsaws, or nailguns, baseball bats, knives or anything else that can be misused for sinister purposes.
My own opinion is Americans do have the right to bear arms, but if they choose to do so they need to do so responsibly. That last part is the big problem. I think people take more care in a new chainsaw purchase than they do when buying a gun.
Lots of people buy guns in a casual manner and then don't take the extra steps to truly learn safe use of the weapon and practice using the weapon. They don't sign up for classes on safety, marksmanship and self defense. They don't visit the gun range regularly to hone their skills. Instead, they just leave the loaded gun in their dresser and figure that alone will be enough if some really threatening incidents happens. Unfortunately, an intruder breaking into your home will likely be more prepared to deal with you than you are with him -especially when you're bleary-eyed, jarred awake by the sound of the intruder kicking in your front door. Being unprepared or simply hesitating in the face of the threat can be deadly.
Shooting accidents are far easier to prevent.
I contend nearly all shooting related accidents involve violation of one of the four cardinal rules of gun safety. If you religiously obey the four cardinal rules, you won't have a tragic accident involving firearms.
The Four Rules:
1. The gun is always loaded.
2. Never point the barrel at anything you don't wish to destroy.
3. Never put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to fire.
4. Identify your target and what is behind it.
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Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 10-19-2007 08:56 PM
quote: Ray Faultless
Guys how much are these guns selling for now and how much are the bullets.
The 9mm has the cheapest cartridges, but they can get pricey. A box of 100 practice rounds will run you $18 at Wal-Mart, but a box of 20 Federal Hydro-Shok Jacketed HP will run you $18 as well. The Kahr PM9 cost me $549, used through Gunsamerica.com, with Trijicon night sights installed. It is made in America.
I'm not sure what anyone's hang-up is with the 9mm. Of course there are more powerful rounds, but if you want to get in a pissing match just buy a 10mm and be done with it. With the risk of getting into technical mumbo-jumbo better left for a gun forum, the 9mm+P is every bit as powerful as the .40 anyway and most every gun chambered for the 9mm can also shoot the +P. The 9mm bullet, actually, is the exact same projectile as the .357 sig shoots, only the .357 sig is moving faster. The .40 S&W (Short and Weak according to some) is a tamed down 10mm, which was too hot for many to handle, so it got weakened into the .40. The 9mm rounds also weigh less, which can make a big difference if carrying concealed for an extended time.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Our troops in combat have been having to deal with the wimpy factor of 9mm in their standard issue Beretta 92F pistols loaded with 9mm ball ammo.
The problem, as you detailed so well, is the bullet, not the caliber. Ball ammo was never intended for self-defense. A recent study by the Illinois State Police showed their 9mm to be 87% lethally effective.
quote: Bill Enos
If your weapon of choice is a shotgun, the Backup looks like a good idea to me.
In home defense, a shotgun is always the best idea. A handgun, by definition, is a back-up weapon, chosen only for its concealment and portability. In close quarters, take the shotgun over a hand gun every time. You have a much greater margin of error and a heck of a lot more power with a shotgun than with any handgun. If your situation allows it, I would leave the shotgun close at hand and likely never need the handgun.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-26-2007 12:30 PM
Let's see...
I've got a Rem. 870 under the bed, loaded with tactical buckshot.
There's a Glock 19 (9mm.) in the nightstand.
There's an FAL in the gun safe inside the closet.
There's another Remington shotgun in the downstairs closet under the stairway.
My wife carries a Baretta in her purse.
She can hit a target smaller than the size of a standard CD/DVD (4 inch.) from 25 feet away 10 times, virtually as fast as she can pull the trigger.
I can hit a 6 inch bullseye 7 out of 10 times with a rifle from 100 yards away... Offhand. Using no rest. I'm not quite as good with a handgun as my wife is. She practices more with the Baretta. I practice with the rifle.
Simply put: If you walk into my house, uninvited, you won't be walking when you leave.
In Pennsylvania, you do not need a permit to carry a firearm as long as it is not concealed. You have the right to take your guns from your home to a place of legal use, such as a firing range or gunsmith. You may carry one in your car as long as it is properly secured. (e.g. Locked in the trunk.) Within certain limits, you may openly carry a weapon as long as you are not brandishing it or carrying it in a dangerous/threatening manner.
Certain cities and townships have ordinathences against carrying a weapon without a permit but they range only from a summary offense to a misdemeanor offense, except when in the commission of another crime. Some cities and towns have ordinances against the discharge of a weapon within their limits unless it is for protection of life.
My wife has a permit because she carries her handgun in her purse or in a concealed holster. (Along with an industrial-size can of 18% pepper spray.)
I don't have a permit because I don't need one. I can carry whatever weapon I need, whenever I need it. Because I work at a college, carrying a weapon there is illegal and ill-advised. It's not safe to keep one locked in my car, unattended.
I don't have a permit because I don't want my name on some government list of people who have guns. However, if I traveled or had to go places where a gun might be needed, I would go get a permit as soon as possible.
Just because you have a permit, doesn't mean you have to carry all the time.
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