Out of boredom I'm going to go over a few things on home and personal defense. For those considering purchasing weapons for personal defense, read on, or perhaps you just want to learn a few things. A few things first off that you need to understand before we continue. 1- Personal defense does NOT mean strictly killing the aggressor. It simply means to neutralize him, either long enough for police to arrive, or long enough for you to escape. 2- Training is key to everything, weapons are a tool, and just like you won't be able to build a house with hand tools without prior experience and training, you won't be able to defend yourself effeciently without experience and training either. 3- Fighting isn't always necessary. Most thieves aren't looking for a fight, they're thieves, they just want to get something and run. You don't lose anything by simply giving them what they want and notifying the authorities, you can lose your life though if you pursue a fight. 4- All is fair in love and war. Throw any thoughts of a moral code out the window. Gouging eyes, kicks to the groin, and blowing out knee caps are all fair game. You can't expect a criminal to be following a moral code, so you shouldn't either. If it comes to a fight, it's life or death, who's life do you value more? 5- On that, life does have value, both to victim's families and to your concience (too lazy to spell check). Consider this heavily. Now that that's out of the way, we'll move on to picking a personal defense weapon. The weapon you chose needs to consider a number of factors. What's it's purpose first of all? If it's for your house, then why your home? Has there been a lot of robberies recently? Murders? Before I get deeper into that, let's take a look at the psychology aspect of a fight. [b]1- The Psychology Aspect[/b] Fear is the biggest thing. Everyone will be scared shitless, both you AND the aggressor. The key part to a fight is fear. Armies fight by routing their enemies, not necessarily by killing them. This is done by fighting the senses. Things that easily scare anyone can be weapons, or witnessing human violence. Weapons are loud, especially in close quarters, and making a loud bang affects the visual and hearing aspect, and it does it well. Ever wonder why you watch a video of troops being shot at and it seems like they're just going death blossom? The answer is fairly simple, because of that fear induced by the gunfire that person wants to one-up the other. This results in them trying to make louder bangs, and more of them in the fastest time possible. In the military this is used in the first moments of taking fire and is refferred to as the "mad 10." This is taught as a reaction, as it's an automatic reaction anyways. Police will often blow through 20 rounds in a matter of seconds without even knowing they have, and this will happen to you as well. This is why shotguns are not the best home defense weapon. When shit goes down, your first reaction will to be shoot as much as possible. It's an instinct to attempt to ward off the predator by showing your superiority, very similar to how dogs will bark at each other. Rather a weapon that has low recoil and more rounds is preffered. Luckily, you're likely not going to be facing an enemy army, which comes to the next bit. The final bit to attack a persons senses is direct human violence, and simple craziness. Yelling before battle is something still done today, and it still works. Why? Again, look at the dogs. It shows who's got the bigger voice, who can make the loudest noise, and who's the alpha. Screaming either before, or during your defense is key. Practice it, it doesn't matter how gay it sounds, just scream and roar as much and as loud as you can. The other part, human violence. Showing that you are willing to commit violence scares the -blam!- out of people, like nothing else possibly can. This works especially well to those who aren't used to people actually willing to kill another. That big guy who talks all that game and gets into fights all the time? It works wonders against those types. This is because they are accustomed to the belief that people do not want to kill each other, just beat them into submission, when they see true violence and a true willingness to kill it stupifies them. The ability to kill willingly is uncommon, extremely uncommon. Burgulars are no different than that big guy, they are used to taking the stuff and going, when you introduce that willingness to do harm to them it scares them. This is something to consider, since showing the willingness and ability to do harm does not necessarily mean you have to. Seeing this will already neutralize them, and the majority of the time the aggressor will simpy flee because of that. [b]2- The PDW[/b] Knowing these things, it should become clearer what makes or breaks a personal defense weapon. The most common weapon for home defense is the shotgun, but after reading that is it truly the best? Although it inflicts damage, it lacks the fully automatic firepower, has high recoil, and has very few rounds. While it will make a nice loud "boom!" it can only do so 2-6 times. What about an AR? The boom isn't as loud, but you're indoors. In fact, it would make for an awesome home defense weapon minus 2 things. Manuevability, as I doubt most of you live in mansions, and it's range. That .223 (or 5.56) will go through the walls and keep going, possibly into an innocent bystander, or your own family. To eliminate that issue, you need a short range weapon, with at least 10 rounds, which is easily manuevable. Got an idea? Yes, the 9mm, good guess. The pistol is manuevable, easy to reload, makes a louder bang than an AR, shoots fast enough, and has enough rounds to fulfill everything you'ld need it to. I won't get into a .45 vs 9mm debate here (hint: there's no difference, minus the recoil and holding more rounds) but the 9mm is quite simply, king. Of course, this may not be true to every situation, so looking at what you've read so far, you'll need to make your own choice. Perhaps a shotgun IS better (long hallways, minimum entry ways). You'll need to consider this on your own. But, you also don't necessarily need a firearm. Remember the last part of your little psychology lesson? The part about the willingness to commit violence? Now, while a pistol held to your face is scary (because of your belief that they now have the ability, and are willing to commit violence but you're unsure if they will) a knife or bat can be just as intimidating. They also don't require extensive training, and are a lot easier to get ahold of. So what's better in that case? Well, then we go into the physiology of it all. You'll also find some more nice information about why certain weapons are more effective down there. [b]3- Physiological Stuff[/b] For starters, fighting and combat are extremely stressful on the body and mind. The first thing you'll notice when experiencing it all is the massive adrenaline rush. How each person experiences this moment differs as much as the person, and your reactions may be completely different. What's certain, is your blood pressure will immediately sky rocket, and your heartrate will sky rocket as well (to over 180 bpm, that's the equivelent for most people sprinting a mile in 4 minutes!). The next thing that will become noticed is the tunnel vision, you will be unable to see anything not directly in front of you. Not only that, but depth perception will go wacky. Further away things will look closer, closer things look further away. The entire body will, quite simply, go haywire. The final important aspect is that your mind takes over everything, particularly the hind brain. As an evolutionary reaction, our minds will cut off our ability to feel. In this moment that adrenaline surges through your body, you can very easily be shot or stabbed multiple times without noticing a thing is wrong until you finally look down and see blood pooling from your gut. This is, for a warrior, the greatest fear. The adrenaline surge is freeing, as it lets your mind take over, but at the same time it's a trade off. This is where all that training comes in. When you train, you train the body, and the mind to adapt to the body, rather than the body to adapt to the mind. This is why the "games teach kids how to do this and that" is completely ignorant. We'll touch on training later, but for now, how does one dispose of an adversary who knows no pain, who can see everything, and who has super-human strength? This question is why armies fight to rout enemies. Routing somebody is typically much easier than killing them, and is the better solution. The only way to due injury to them is by inducing as much trauma possible in the shortest time possible. Something such as a bat across the head induces a load of trauma, and not only that, it lets them know they've been hit. If they aren't moved, physically, by the blow, there's a good chance they'll never know it happened. Knocking them out, or immobalizing limbs are the best options. Think of it like taking out a zombie. You can break his arms and legs, and it'll slow them down and possibly stop them, or a blow to the head and end it. These injuries typically will not kill the adversary, but induce enough trauma to stop them in their place. How to kill someone is a different matter to learn on your own. (cont.)