How Do I Choose the Gun That's Right for Me? - Part 1

The internet is full of information about which gun and ammunition is the best for concealed carry use. You can find discussions on gun forums, demo’s on YouTube, explanations on Wiki and dozens of other sources. If you are looking to purchase your first handgun, we've provided some generic information to help you decide which one is right for you.

If you are a woman, a lot of people will tell you to buy a revolver. They are simple to understand and operate,  can be small and lightweight, and they are easy to load (flip open the cylinder and pop in the bullets).  For the purposes of this discussion, we will only cover the other spectrum of handguns which are commonly referred to as semi-automatic pistols.  

Basics:

   There are a lot of (semi-auto) guns on the market and all of them have the same thing in common. That is, they all are designed to sling a projectile, at some considerable velocity, in a specific direction. This last bit is VERY important, because in a defensive situation, you want the bullet(s) to go in the direction of the person you are defending yourself against.  Forget about, for the moment, caliber, muzzle velocity, bullet construction, etc. - the bottom line is you have to hit the target to benefit from a gun's defensive purpose.

   Most handguns today are made up of a combination of materials, metal, plastic, and wood. There are some other exotic materials and treatments, but at the end of the day, they're  pretty much the same.  One of the important considerations in choosing a handgun is the physical size of the piece.  Size matters for a couple of reasons:  1) if you intend to conceal the gun somewhere on your body, you'll not be successful if that gun is a cannon.  On the other hand, a tiny cricket of a gun may conceal well, but not be very good at persuading a bad guy from causing you bodily harm.  2) generally speaking, the larger the gun, the larger the caliber and the heavier the gun. Forgetting about concealment, if you have a hard time holding the gun because it's heavy, then it probably doesn't matter what the gun can do because you're not going to be able to control it.

   When you start looking at guns, you're going to hear a lot of terms that will initially mean absolutely nothing to you.  You'll hear that a particular gun is a blow-back style, or that it has a tip-up barrel, etc.  Don't worry about that at this point. What is more important, is what type trigger action is best for you. 

   There are two basic trigger actions in a handgun: 1) single action, and double action.  Some handguns have both, and some have exclusively one or the other.  What does this mean in handgun selection?  It's pretty much up to the individual, but here are some considerations.

Double Action: 

   When you pull the trigger on a double action handgun, the motion accomplishes two things. In the first part of the motion, you "cock" the hammer (or the actual piece that strikes the bullet).  The second part of the same trigger pull then "releases" the hammer, and the gun fires.  Typically speaking, a double action trigger has a harder "pull" because the gun is actually performing two tasks in that single motion. 

Single Action:

   When you pull the trigger on a single action handgun, some other action has "cocked" the gun, and the trigger then releases the hammer to strike the bullet.  Because the motion only has to do one task (the release), single action triggers are typically much "lighter" than double action.

   A double action/single action gun is typically set up so the first shot requires a double action pull on the trigger, and subsequent shots are single action.

  What does this mean in terms of handgun selection?  Let's revisit the discussion about controlling the direction of the bullet when firing the gun.  Generally speaking, the less force required to "squeeze" the trigger and thus avoid inadvertent movement of the gun in the process, the better you'll be at actually hitting the target you intended to hit.

So now, you've got size/weight considerations and what type of trigger action you prefer.

The next consideration is the caliber - or to put it in other words, how much bang do you get for those bucks?

Most people familiar with guns say that you shouldn't even consider anything less than a 9mm.  Anything less will not provide you the "knock-down" power you need to stop a bad guy.  On the other hand, unless you actually shoot a cannon (or a 12 gauge shotgun), bad guys don't go flying when you shoot them with a handgun like they do in the movies. What you want to do in any defensive situation, is slow the bad guy down, so you can get away.