[	Current Location	|	Allentown, PA	]
[	mood	|	hopeful	]
[	music	|	Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned	]

The only handicap many of you face when purchasing a practical piece is your ego. That's why most go for the big guns, with large penis-shaped ammo. Why go for bulk, where each shot rips more and more ligaments in your wrist, when you can find easy-to-control firearms that are a cinch to conceal?
Virgin buyers are usually steered away from smaller caliber weapons with smirks and jokes, over to hand-canons, like the S & W Magnum, .500 Linebaugh or Desert Eagle Action Express. The customer often feels as if the clerk has pinned them as a fag, pussy or common street thug if they even look at the .22 and .25 display case.
"If you shoot an attacker with those, you're probably just gonna make 'em mad," I've heard gun-pushers jest, making the embarrassed, rose-cheeked novice peer at bigger (read: more expensive) show pieces. Guns that inflate the price of your protection, as well as the dealers wallet. Guns with "stopping power" and noises that'll wake the neighborhood.
"You're better off hitting a fucker in the face with that palm-sized ditty, than you are firing it at 'em," they'll assure the newbie. Sometimes even calling smaller weapons "nigger guns", "girl gadgets" or "pea shooters".
It makes you wonder why they even carry the smaller pistols at all.
I've heard salesman after salesman make the remark that .22 and .25 caliber ammo is pretty harmless, and almost always off target.
Sure, just ask James Brady who was the Whitehouse Press Secretary and Assistant to President Reagan before the assassination attempt in 1981 by John Hinckley Jr. Wait, he has problems talking since that .22 bullet shredded his gray matter like Swiss cheese. Or maybe we should ask one-time Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy? I guess we can't since he's been forever silenced by Sirhan B. Sirhan with a .22 in the lobby of L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel back in 1968.
Way too much accentuation is placed behind ammunition that's supposed to rip people in half, or turn their opponents into ash, but this is all yeehaw talk. It's bravado unaware that velocity, aim, distance, caliber and ft/lbs of energy altogether have more to do with it that just caliber alone.
Serious studies of entry-exit wounds can prove that once a bullet enters the body, the most damage is done when it stays in the body. Large ammo usually cuts clean through a person, often leaving a charging assailant to keep on charging. Many victims of these types of projectiles claim that except for a burning feeling, not much pain was felt. On the other hand, a smaller caliber will lose momentum and begin to ricochet off bones and even muscle, traveling throughout the body turning vital organs into bleeding sacks of tissue.
If you ponder a bit, you will realize that people sometimes become incapacitated at the mere sight of a gun, as sudden death holds intense, deep and dear psychological (terror, anxiety), or even physiological (fainting) effects. Many a police blotter is filled with reposts of handguns firing blanks, only to have the would-be victim immediately fall to the ground clutching their chest or abdomen.
Accuracy isn't really important. If it is, then pick out a rifle, as most gun battles take place between ten to fifteen feet. If your gun cannot hit a target at that range, you have either bought a busted pistol, or you need serious target practice - but don't blame the caliber. In this type of situation, you can also use a one-handed shooting method, over the two-handed martial arts stance needed for recoil nightmares.
Another plus to smaller weapons is the fact that they are way easier to conceal than bomb blasters. Wrap-around elastic bandages around your stomach can hide a piece while you wear a t-shirt and have no one the wiser.
Lastly, like I mentioned before, the price is pretty good. The gun and the ammo are cheap. At the cost of one Dirty Harry, you can buy a half-dozen 22s. You can take them and hide them everywhere (bedroom, office, bathroom, car), which increases the chances of being armed without breaking Concealed Weapon Laws, or even filing for the proper permits. For the dirtier folks out there, you can also just dispose of each one after use, so as not to be caught with a gun that holds distinguishing ballistic evidence against you.
Let it be known, gun dealers are sales people. They often don't care about your protection; they only care about the protection of their cash registers. So if any of them are telling you, "You'll just sting 'em with that thing," ask them if they don't mind being "stung" a bit just to be sure.
Now, don't bother me with any of the particulars of the larger weapons. I don't take well to arguments.
Plus, I'm armed.

- Adel

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