Tbh, it’s a little exaggerated though.
Yeah, taurus has a habit of poor quality control, and hipoint is essentially a gamble on whether or not any given trigger pull will do more than exercise your finger, but it’s still better than nothing at all. Not better than other more reliable options, but still.
The 22lr bit refers to a very common caliber round. It is, however, a fairly low powered round, and isn’t a big bullet at all. Despite that, if you are using a firearm that shoots it reliably, I would argue that it has a place as a defensive round (it definitely has a place in hunting and target shooting).
A lot of what matters if you’re shooting under pressure is your ability to hit your target reliably. A 22 isn’t going to be a one-hit drop unless you either get lucky or are calm enough to be very precise in your aim (unlikely even if you’ve trained under pressure, even at the distances that would matter for the statement in the post). But it is still better than many other options that aren’t firearms, and it’s still better in specific cases where the person may not be able to handle anything with more power.
Firearms are like cameras. The best one is the one you have with you. Should you pick a more capable brand, or caliber? Yeah. But if you’re unable to afford or reliably hit a target with other firearm options, and you need a potentially lethal weapon, then you use what you can, and just practice enough with it to maximize its potential.
If anyone passing by has one of those brands, and it’s giving you trouble, try different ammo until you hit on one that’s reliable in it. Even hipoint cycles some ammo reliably, so you go for what will feed correctly for a full mag.
If you’re shopping still, and one of those brands is your only affordable option, try a revolver from taurus. Revolvers are pretty much dummy proof as far as brands go, so the usual issues aren’t going to apply.
Don’t expect either brand to last for decades of regular shooting, but they’ll get the job done short term.
Well, there’s no single, best way. Communities like this are good for crowd sourcing info, but you have to take it with a grain of salt since everyone has some degree of difference of opinion.
A local shooting club is usually going to work well because you can see the options in use, and have the possibility of someone letting you try a specific firearm.
There’s a ton of websites offering product reviews, but you run into bias and the possibility of reviews being paid.
YouTube is decent enough since there’s so many people doing demonstrations along with explanations for their opinions. As an example, if you don’t mind long winded explanations, there’s a channel called hickok45 that’s this old dude shooting guns and talking about them in a realistic way. The problem with YouTube is that it’s YouTube, and that means you don’t know who you’re monetizing. That isn’t a big deal overall, good info is good info, but there’s a good degree of overlap between the right wing and firearm information, so if that’s an issue, it takes a lot of work to avoid individual channels that are jerks.
Ideally, a gun shop would be able to guide your purchase as well, and some do a great job of it. But they’re selling a product, so they have an incentive to lean to profit over good info to a degree, so that grain of salt is needed.
I personally prefer a mix when I’m thinking about buying something new/different. I have a range I go to that “rents” guns, and the three shooting clubs I’m in are great for in person discussion. But online resources like this community are also great, and you’ll have access to more opinions, and might get niche bits of advice that you won’t find unless you have hundreds of people involved.
Thank you. I’ll check out the gentleman you mentioned in YouTube. I thought about going to a local shooting range. Didn’t think about shooting club. Shopping for anything is such a process now, huh?
A friend showed me a Cz sp01 9mm. I remember liking the feel of it. But it’s @ 1,500. That’s a fair chunk of change for me. Not sure what the budget is for a good piece? And elsewhere in this thread it sounded like a 9mm might not be the way to go, anyhow
If you purchase a firearm for self defense or other practical purposes, you’ll want to practice on a regular basis. Unless you have a way to practice without going to a range (like if you live in an area where it’d be legal to just go set up cans in the back yard) I recommend asking around for range recommendations so you can find one that has a culture that will welcome you.
I know people don’t like reddit, but that’s a pretty niche question for a platform this small. Asking the liberal gunowners subreddit, or the subreddit for your local community if there are any ranges they’d reccomend as a place for a queer or progressive person to go safely practice on a regular basis could be really helpful. There’s likely also a queer gunowners community, but I don’t know without looking what that’d be called.
If you know any folks in your actual area that shoot, chatting with them is a great way to get local advice, and they might be willing to go to ranges with you and help you find a place that’s welcoming. Its a lot easier to step into an unfamiliar place with someone next to you, especially if they’re already used to going to ranges and know how to navigate that space.
For me, I could probably ask the kink community in my area as I know there are some veterans in that crowd who could take me with if I were looking for a place to go shooting as a queer person.
Thank you, and noted. I’m going to make a point of visiting a few ranges in the area - and maybe while visiting family for the holidays (they live in more gun country) - before purchasing. I.do intend to make a regular practice.of it; I haven’t done it in ages, but I’ve done some shooting before and found it meditative
Hey, I was sorting through some videos that I’ve had in a playlist and ran across this one with Lena Miculek, one of the best shooters out there, and she learned from of of the best shooters that there ever was.
The tips in that video are gold standard for a new shooter of handguns. She’s also really great in how she presents things. If you end up deciding to get a handgun, and do some shooting, I can’t think of anyone better to look to online. She’s got other videos on YouTube as well, for all levels of shooting experience (I’ve learned stuff from her and I’ve been shooting for about forty years now).
