"The man at the store said this would be a good choice for me because it's powerful enough to stop any man. The only problem is, I can't get it to open up. I don't think I'm strong enough."
She was about forty or so I figured, and with her small frame it probably was a struggle to rack the slide on the 9mm semi-auto. I knew the make and model. It was a Kahr PM-9. It was a great pistol, and loaded with the right ammunition, would have stopped any attacker in his tracks with one shot. It was a pistol specifically designed to do just that while being small enough to easily conceal and light enough not to be a problem carrying it in her purse.
The engineering it took to make it do both meant the recoil spring was pretty strong, a lot stronger than the full size 9mm Sig I carry on duty. It didn't surprise me that she was having trouble. She tried again, this time forgetting to keep the muzzle down range, and I quickly stopped her.
"Ma'am, you have to keep the muzzle down-range, always. That's the only safe way to do it, and the only way I'll allow on this range."
She looked sad.
"I guess I spent all that money for nothing then."
}|{
I'm Ted Samuels, a thirty-year veteran street cop and a part time firearms instructor at one of the local pistol ranges. I took the instructor's job as a volunteer because of people like Sandy, the woman standing in front of me right then. While I don't think most people really need to go around armed, there are a lot who want to.
Then there are the few people who really do need to be armed. As the saying goes, "when a crime takes place, the police are only ten minutes away", and that's usually true. Many times though, that ten minutes is about nine minutes and fifty seconds too long. I've investigated a multitude of crime scenes where the victim could have probably defended themselves if they'd been armed and knew what they were doing. By being a firearms instructor, I could at least teach the people who were interested how to safely and effectively use firearms.
I looked at Sandy and smiled.
"I'm sure they'll give you your money back. If they don't want to, just give me a call, OK? I can probably straighten things out."
I wrote my personal cell phone number on the back of one of the cards with my badge number and office phone.
"Just call this number, any time. It's my cell, and I'll get the call."
Sandy took my card, but her face looked troubled.
"But if I take it back, I won't have anything, and I need something. I really do."
Sandy seemed sincere, so I offered her another suggestion.
"Maybe, to start at least, you'd be better off with a revolver. They're pretty simple to use, and they can have just as much stopping power."
"The man at the store said I'd need all the shots I could get. How many does a revolver have?"
"Usually five, sometimes six depending on the caliber."
"Is five enough? I mean, the man said I should always shoot three times. Five would only leave me two in case I miss."
For the umpteenth time, I silently cursed most of the sales clerks in the big box sporting goods stores. Their information comes from manufacturer's blurbs, or worse, from the Internet forums that deal with self-defense. Most have never been in a situation where they had to put that knowledge to use. Some have never fired a firearm in their lives. To people like Sandy, they're all experts.
"Sandy, I can tell you this much from my personal experience. Almost any bullet hitting almost anywhere will make anybody stop what they're doing long enough for you to run away. It hurts like hell, even something as small as a.22. You don't need a big caliber with special self-defense rounds and a lot of capacity. What you need is something you can be accurate with on that first shot."
Sandy smiled.
"I wish you'd been at the store with me. You could have told the clerk that. I take it you've been shot before?"
"Yes, once, by a young punk with a little.25 pistol. It hit me in the shoulder, just outside my vest. It stopped me cold for a few seconds, and I didn't feel much like chasing him down once I could stand up again."
"So, he got away?"
"No, my partner put him down before he could shoot both of us."
Sandy smiled at me again. I was starting to like that smile a lot.
"So, what would you recommend I get instead of this thing?"
The range has a few firearms for rent. I walked over to the safe, unlocked it, and picked up a.38 revolver with an enclosed hammer.
"Something like this is what I'd have you start out with."
"Can I shoot it?"
"Sure, after I show you how."
We spent half an hour during which I showed Sandy safe handling procedures and how to aim. Then, I got a box of cartridges from the safe and showed her how to load and close the cylinder.
Her first shot went wide of the target even though the target was only nine feet away, but I saw why. The revolver was a double-action, so she had to pull the trigger hard enough to cock the hammer as well as fire. We'd been over that when we dry-fired, but now she was jerking, and the jerking had pulled her point of aim down and to the left just as the hammer fell.
"Sandy, you're jerking the trigger and that's pulling your shots to the left. Just squeeze evenly, like we practiced."
Her next shot hit the target. Sandy turned to me and grinned.
"Like that?"
"Yes, like that. Now, let me see the other three rounds hit the target too."
After a box of fifty rounds, Sandy was doing very well. She wasn't putting every round in the center of the target, but she was still hitting it every time. After the last round, Sandy opened the cylinder and ejected the empties onto the shooting bench, then turned and handed me the revolver.
