From: barry@uts.amdahl.com (Barry Needham)
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Carrying spare magazines
Date: 13 Aug 92 23:50:46 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA


pnr0@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (PAUL N. RITTER) writes:

#In article <8mZcPB2w165w@hale.cts.com>, system@hale.cts.com writes:
##alane@microsoft.com (Alan Ezekiel) writes:
##
### I have been told several times by defensive handgun instructors
### that every person who carries a defensive firearm should have an
### extra magazine or speedloader with them.
###
### Here are some of the reasons I have been given:
##	..... [deleted] ......

#      USUALLY for Law Enforcement Officers, as they would need the firepower a
#bit more readily than the average "Joe Citizen" would.

Most of the "experts" I know tend to carry one extra magazine, at least for
casual defensive use.  I've started to do this as well, down from two extra
magazines.

Rational?  At least for me there are several things involved:

  * The key word here is defense.  The handgun is intrinsically a defensive
    instrument.  Given any reasonable opportunity I will retreat (Not
    surrender!) and let the professionals deal with it.

  * One extra magazine gives me thirty rounds totaling over 15,000 ft/lbs of
    kinetic energy.  If that doesn't solve the problem I really should be
    somewhere else.

  * There are some malfunctions that can only be cleared by changing
    magazines.  One extra magazine is enough to cover that possibility as
    successive magazine failures are unlikely.

  * If it does drop in the bucket I view the function of my defensive handgun
    as keeping me alive long enough to reach my Benelli.

Sitting here and considering it, I don't think I would do anything different
If I was involved in a known hostile situation, at least from the handgun
standpoint; at most I would go to two extra magazines.  Of course, if it was a
known hostile situation, I would have the shotgun with about 50 rounds on my
person... and the armor... and the McMillan .50 close at hand.

	[MODERATOR:  Huh. If it was a known-hostile situation, I think
	 I'd be more inclined to show up armed with my Keds.... or, 
	 rather, not to show... ]

On a slightly related note I would like to relate something that happened a
couple of weekends ago.

My wife and I spent a Saturday night with a single friend who lives on six
rural acres not far from Watsonville.  She had been having some problems with
young people partying and being generally obnoxious on her private road and
wanted some company in case things started to escalate.

Well, long about 01:30 (that's as in the morning) things started to get noisy
and she went out to tell them that the parties over.  I kind of went along in
the shadows.  Some words were exchanged, nothing serious, and as common with
young people all three cars left with rapid acceleration, spinning tires and
spitting gravel.

They may have been turned around in the dark, or perhaps they were somewhat
chemically impaired, because they went the wrong way and the first car missed
a curve and went over a cliff.  The car got hung up in some trees and brush
about 30 down and nobody was hurt.  The four kids got out, somewhat shaken,
climbed to the top and left with the other two vehicles.

Now, it's 02:00 (still in the morning) and there is a damaged car hanging over
the cliff on a private road, what do you do?  We called the sheriff who
directed the call to the CHP who said they would send somebody out.

In the meantime the kids came back just after dawn with a 5 ton truck to drag
the car out.  Our friend  said no, she wanted the police report.  They didn't
want that to happen and started to push past her until they saw me.  Then they
decided they could come back later.  Another call to the sheriff, who again
routed it to CHP who said they had somebody responding.

The CHP got there just after 12:00, about 10 hours after the first call and 6
hours after the second call.

When they arrived we had an interesting situation.  I was down looking at the
car to see if we had a fuel leak on anything else that would warrant a third
call; maybe the fire department would respond more rapidly.  I was wearing a
Glock 10mm on my belt, open carry.  My wife was wearing a Colt Delta 10mm in a
fanny pack holster.  The CHP drives up.  I figure this is private property so
I climb up to talk to him...

He looks at me and says something into the radio.  He asks my friend if this
the location of the accident (he can't see the car from his vehicle, just tire
marks over the cliff).  Then he says something else over the radio and gets
out of the car.  Then he proceeds to take the information, call in the car,
get the registered address, etc.

He didn't bat an eye or ask about the pistol.  Just one data point, your
mileage will vary.

To link this back to the magazine question the CHP was carrying a S&W 9mm with
4 (Four!) extra 20 round magazines.  I guess he wanted to be sure.

Regards,
  Barry.

-- 
Barry Needham          barry@uts.amdahl.com          USA (408) 992-2527