While researching articles for this week’s edition of the Weekend Knowledge Dump, I found so much good .22 content that it merited its own post. Let’s start with the article titled:
The “Defensive” .22
I suppose I’ve been a fan of the .22s for self defense far longer than most. Interestingly enough, the gun pictured above (Astra Cub in .22 short) was the gun my dad most often carried off duty when he wasn’t working as a cop back in the 1970s. His off duty “big gun” when he expected trouble was a S&W Model 60 .38 snub. By the time I was 10 years old I had fired hundreds of rounds out of both weapons and it just didn’t seem abnormal to carry a small gun defensively.
One Astra Cub story…
I was probably about eight years old when I was in the car going somewhere with my dad. He had a police radio in his personal car and was listening to the radio traffic about a manhunt after a suspect had shot a cop in a neighboring jurisdiction. The suspect fled into a fully grown cornfield nearby. My dad responded to the scene with me in tow.
He took this “big” .38 snub and left me in the car with the little Astra. His instructions were to shoot anyone who approached the car who wasn’t a cop. I watched another of my dad’s cop buddies respond in an off-duty capacity as well. He (the firearms instructor for my dad’s police department) pulled a .22 Walther TPH from his cowboy boot and they waded into the tall corn stalks looking for an armed man who had just shot another cop.
I arrested a few murderers in my cop days. I always had at least two pistols and generally a long gun on my person when I did so. I couldn’t imagine hunting a killer with just a .22, no body armor, no radio communications, and no spare ammo. Cops back in the day did it constantly. Have we grown soft?
Dad and his co-workers ended up catching the shooter and baby Greg didn’t have to shoot anyone. The 1970s were a different world. I still have both the little Astra and the “big” model 60.
Back to the topic of .22s…
Clint Smith shares his opinions of sub-caliber weapons in a recent piece titled Right Or Wrong?
“You see, after my limited experience doing this carry-a-handgunfor-personal-protection-stuff for 30 years or so, I have, in fact, come to a conclusion. There is probably no right or wrong when you select a personal defense handgun. If that split instant in time comes when you need to deploy your choice of personal defense weapons, there will be no right or wrong choice. There will be only consequences.”
For even more info about .22 ballistics, listen to Chuck Haggard, Steve Moses, and Lee Weems talk about the issue.