P.08 as a home defense weapon ?

[Thor]

ichabod, if you live alone (not other innocents in the house to worry about) use winchester Silver tips or Remington Golden sabers, those expand better than most 9mm Hollow points. If you have others in the house, use Glaser Safety Slugs and check for function (expensive) but devastating and low penetration beyound the first impact mass. I prefer a 45 in the house, I use Federal 230 Hydra Shocks and do believe the muzzle blast of a round going off with out a sonic boom (slower than 1150 fps) is way better than a 357 going off inside at 1425. I think I shoot better if I can see and the muzzle blast didnt blind me or make me deaf. I do believe the 115 silver tips would be my going away favorite (if all I had was a 9mm)as they are very soft and have a lot of shock for a small bullet.

[Aaron]

The horriffic stories you Brits relate are very worrisome, especially to we who live in the PRK who can now clearly see the handwriting on the wall. As my wife is an Edgeware girl, we do occasionally visit the UK. I remember one day at her cousin's home four policemen appeared and demanded his shotgun, as his permit had expired the previous day! However, the worst experience was when we were leaving England and our carry on baggage was being inspected. I was using one of my shooting bags for travel, and they discovered an empty Colt .45 magazine I had overlooked. You would have thought they found a bomb! I was charged with having part of a "destructive device" and what I went through was something I would like to forget.

[Doubs]

Tacfoley, the incident (one of many) I clearly remember involved the Metro Police. They were searching a flat for a suspect. An officer with a revolver in hand placed his hand on a bed and bent down to look under the bed. His gun went off and killed a sleeping 5 year old child. While I've never heard the outcome of the investigation, I've always suspected that the officer's revolver was cocked when he laid his hand on the bed. Unconciously squeezing through the double action simply doesn't wash in my mind.

Aaron, when I departed England through Heathrow, my three handguns were locked inside a 20mm ammo can that I'd had very heavy chain-link hasps welded to and secured by heavy-duty locks with long shackles. I arrived at Heathrow at 0800 and my flight wasn't until 1400 so I requested that my hold baggage be processed. I was told I had to wait until two hours before flight time. I explained the contents of the locked ammo can and the attention was immediate! They quickly found a Custom's agent to check my paperwork (but didn't look inside the can) and secure the guns until flight time. They processed my others bags as well. When I landed at Dulles, the US Customs agents took the Forms 6 that I offered, stamped them, and sent me on my way without so much as a peek inside the can.... which came out of the baggage chute with the other baggage.

[Odie]

I generally feel confident having a loaded P-08 nearby when appropriate but when in an area with a population of grizzlies ( whether fishing or sleeping or counting my money ) I'd prefer a 12 ga with slugs...Odie

[hermit]

To the fellows who have their weapons acessible in their home--do you not worry about a child or scared wife accidentally shooting themselves or someone else at the height of a scare? I also have a 9 year old son who is trained since he could talk about guns and hunting, but there is still the off chance that a friend may talk him into looking at the piece or the wife being alone and hearing you stagger in late after some good drinks and shooting an innocent person? It seems to me that this is the type of weapon ownership that the anti gun nuts are attacking; and, they use that as ammo to get these crazy laws passed. Even before these new laws came into effect here I always had a trigger lock on all my guns for that "what if?" situation. I realise that I may make some enemies with this post, but for God's sake be careful. In Canada, if the police were to come to your home for any reason and seen a loaded weapon in each room, you would probably be cuffed and your guns taken indefinitely. I would hate to see this stuff happen in the last country with fair gun laws. Just food for thought and hope I don't offend anybody. Rob <img src="graemlins/beerchug.gif" border="0" alt="[cheers]" />

[wterrell]

Our consitution says "infringe". The fringe is the outer edge. The laws cannot even nibble at the most extreme outer edge of our right to bear arms.
Most politicians ignore the word.

[hermit]

You can't deny that a large percentage of your population would love to "infringe" on your rights. In a democracy, the larger percentage of a view wins. That seems to be what happened here, where the largest populations are in cities, and have probably never seen a gun much less fired one. As one of our city folk " Wendy Coulkier" said "she would not rest until all guns are held by the police and military". All I am saying is to stick together as a responsible group and do not give the people who want to change the laws statistics to prove they are right. you can see how much our government trusts it's constituency by going to any large protest march where they now have armed snipers on rooftops. That helps them keep an eye on our "right to gather" Way off the sites topic now I guess

[AGE]

Hermit,

It is a fact that gun accidents in the U.S. go down every year in spite of what the media implies. Our politicians (at least the more responsible ones) know this and we remind them often. Nevertheless, many states mandate gun storage rules when there is a danger of unauthorized access by children.

In addition, it is becoming more well known that firearms are used successfully to ward off attacks many more times than they are involved in accidents.

Finally, legislation has now passed in 32 of our 50 states to permit concealed carry permits (on demand) for qualified citizens. Applicants must have a clean background and undergo safety training and testing for the permits. Obviously, at least some of our politicians trust their citizens.

Also, we remember how defenseless England was at the beginning of WWII and how they asked U.S. sportsmen to send firearms for their homeland defense (most of which were destroyed rather than returned after the war).

I believe the U.S. guys are very responsible people who are careful about access to their guns by children, incompetents, etc. although they are a little paranoid about home defense and like to talk a lot.