Why the 2024 Election will start a Civil War

Wolseley said:

Well, the only plus side I can see is that it's non-lethal, if that's your goal. It is definitely not what I would choose to carry, for a number of reasons:

1. I'm not a big fan of knocking a thug down to give me time to run away. If I'm going to stop a thug, then I'm going to stop him. I want something that will put him down, and keep him down. This idea of "incapacitating" a thug so you can "get away" is fine in the movies, but all that really happens is, if you leave the thug alive, he can always come after you again once he's recovered. If a thug is coming after you to harm you or kill you, it's better to stop him permanently than it is to let him live to thug another day. Now, that might sound cold-hearted---but I didn't ask him to attack me.

2. The thing fires a combination of pepper spray and tear gas. That's fine, if you're using it on the average citizen, maybe; but if the thug coming after you is hopped to the eyeballs on PCP or crack cocaine or heaven knows what, pepper spray and tear gas might be completely ineffective on him. (Pepper, BTW, is almost worthless for stopping attacking dogs; spray it right in their faces, and they'll still leap and tear your throat out.) Somebody who is tripping might not even feel the effects of a chem round.....and he'll keep right on coming after you. If your main defense doesn't work, then you're in a world of trouble. A .40-caliber hollow-nosed lead slug does a much more effective job at stopping a thug than a chem round. Now, granted: the lead slug will probably kill him; but we've already covered that.

3. At $400.00 for the standard hand model, you could get a 9mm Glock for an extra $200.00, that would chamber ammunition that's a whole lot cheaper; CO2 ammo for a Byna runs about $17.00 for a seven-round tube. 140-grain ammo for a Glock 23 runs about $320.00 for 1,000 rounds. In order to get 1,000 rounds for a Byna, you're going to lay out $2,420.00. Now, I dunno about you, but that's just a bit more than I want to spend for ammunition.

4. Apparently a Byna carries a 7-round tube of chem projectiles. That's nice, I guess, but a Glock 23 carries a 13-round magazine, meaning that if you need extra stopping power on the fly, you're not going to have to re-load so often. If a thug is shooting at you with a semi-automatic pistol carrying anywhere from 13 to 15 rounds, and you're carrying a Byna with seven rounds, that's approximately like him shooting at you with a Colt 1911 automatic, and you're shooting back with an old 1875 Army revolver with six shots. Not good odds, frankly. It's better to have more firepower and not need it than it is to need more firepower and not have it....and besides that, the only "unfair" gunfight is the one you lose. When it comes to your life, then cheat, take unfair advantage, do whatever you have to in order for you to stay alive and he ends up dead.

Click to expand...

Thanks bunches ... you've given me lots to think about!

I definitely believe in being prepared, whenever possible, but I also do believe that God takes care of His people in remarkable ways in turbulent times. We don't seem to hear the stories much, but I do believe God is still 'working' ... and working to protect His people. So, He will. And for others, it will be time to go 'home'.

Father Spitzer has a saying: "Fear is useless. What is needed is faith."

... good saying.

Wolseley said:

You're welcome. Just for the record, I don't advocate having to use violence or deadly force, unless there is absolutely no 's other way out of it. But when it comes to street attacks or home invasions, there may be no other option.

Click to expand...

Yes, we're on the same page. It's the home invasion situation that I'm concerned about.

Many will be vulnerable, in a variety of ways, should any kind of civil unrest breakout. I'm just hoping it won't.

Wolseley said:

Well, just a word about that: in a home-invasion scenario, a handgun may be just as detrimental to your protection as a Byna would be. The reason is:

1. In a home invasion situation, it is more likely to take place at night; the thug does not want to be seen in broad daylight, so he makes his entrance under cover of darkness. The problem is, even if you know somebody's in the house, they're hard to see, because it's dark. Turning on lights is detrimental, for two reasons: A, if you can see him, he can see you. Light makes it easier for him to target you when he has clear vision. B, lights flashing on might startle the intruder, causing him to start busting caps out of panic. So keeping it dark actually works to your advantage; an extra word of caution on that below.

2. Because the intrusion is taking place at night, it's not only hard to see, but you have the added aspect that you may be fuzzy from sleep, not at the top of your game. And there are a lot of nooks and crannies inside a home for a thug to hide, so you might fire a few rounds from a handgun and completely miss your target. Which brings us to:

3. The best weapon for interior home defense is a shotgun, not a handgun. For all of the reasons I just outlined above, a shotgun is much better choice, because it does not fire a small chunk of lead that makes a pencil-sized hole in whatever it hits---it literally sprays an area with lead or steel pellets in a wide pattern. Ergo, if you know where the thug is, even if he's hiding behind a cabinet or something, when you fire a shotgun in his direction, even if you miss, you're likely to get some of him; when he reacts to getting hit, it gives you the chance to administer the coup de gras.

4. The extra caution I mentioned: since you never fire a weapon at anything that you do not intend to harm or kill, when you hear an intruder inside your house, the first thing you do after retrieving your weapon is to check the location of everyone who's supposed to be in the house. When you have determined that your kids are in their rooms and your spouse is in bed, then you know that whoever is down there in the living room is an intruder. This means that you have fewer qualms about shooting in the dark. As I said, a shotgun sprays pellets over a wide area, so it's reasonable that you can simply aim in the general direction of the noise or the shadow and discharge the gun. I would recommend a pump shotgun, so after you discharge one shell, you can quickly rack another one into the chamber if you have to. Something like a single-shot squirrel gun is not what you want; if you have to break open the breech and fumble for another shell, load it, snap the breech closed, and re-aim to fire, you're wasting precious seconds which might allow the thug or his accomplice to overpower you. With a pump, it's "bang!---pump---bang!---pump---bang!" as many times as you need until your target is neutralized.

The shotgun I would recommend is a 20-gauge, loaded with .00 (double-aught) buckshot. Anything smaller, like a .410, won't have enough stopping power, and anything bigger, like a 12-gauge, is usually too much gun for the average-sized woman to handle easily. And buckshot ensures you have enough power in the shot to take the attacker down; something like birdshot or a skeet load does not have the power you need. A shorter barrel is better, since it means your spread will be wider; but check your local laws, because a shotgun barrel that's too short will probably be illegal.

And finally, bear in mind that when you do take the intruder out, you're going to have one really nasty mess to clean up afterwards. Buckshot pellets shred whatever they hit: furniture, drywall, wooden floors, it will all be splintered and pulverized once your shot hits. And, sad but true, that also includes the thug. He will be shredded as well, and you're going to have a bone-blood-gristle-eviscera spray that will go all over the place in a big splash, and once he goes down, he will bleed out all over your floor. A human male usually contains about 4.5 to 6 pints of blood, so you're talking about anywhere from half to three-quarters of a gallon of blood that you'll have to have cleaned up afterwards. This is a nasty, unpleasant aspect of the whole business, but on the plus side, you and your family will be alive and safe. You can replace furniture, flooring, and drywall; you can't replace a murdered child, and you can't un-rape yourself if the thug gets the chance to commit either atrocity.

So: for street use, probably a 9mm automatic pistol with at least a 12-round magazine (preferably loaded with law enforcement-grade hollow points), and for home protection, a 20-gauge pump shotgun loaded with buckshot.

Click to expand...

This is awesome information!


I've thought about a handgun, on and off, for several years now. Since moving into this neighborhood. But I don't 'see' well without my glasses, and I suspect I don't have great aim. My concern has been that I'd decide to shoot, miss the guy, and have a real mad guy coming after me! (Yikes!)

I've copied what you've shared and am going to look into a shotgun. It really makes sense, in my situation. We already have street wanderers and petty theft around here (usually at nite), and the occasional drive-by shooter on some kind of 'joy ride' in the middle of the nite. So, the dark element is around, just usually not in plain sight. If civil unrest breaks out, I don't expect things will be 'civil' here for long.

The pump shotgun option sounds good! So, regarding this part:

Wolseley said:

With a pump, it's "bang!---pump---bang!---pump---bang!" as many times as you need until your target is neutralized.

Click to expand...

Wolseley said:

There are no dumb questions, "girl" or otherwise, when it comes to firearms. The more you know, the better off you are. The best thing you can do is, after you buy the weapon and familiarize yourself with it, how to load it, aim it, unload it, clean it, etc., is to take it to a range or to a safe spot in the boondocks somewhere, and practice shooting it. Buy a couple boxes of shells in the same format as you'd use for home protection, and just practice putting the thing up to your shoulder and firing it, to get the "feel" of it.

One thing you will notice right off the bat is that a shotgun has one heck of a recoil, so don't be surprised if you get home with a sore shoulder at the end of your outing. Make sure you have the proper stance so you don't take an involuntary step backwards and end up on your keester, LOL. A shotgun is much more of a "close range" weapon than a pistol or a rifle (another reason why they're better for home defense in close quarters like inside the house), so you won't need a 500-yard shooting lane for your practice fire. Try setting up some targets at different distances---10 feet, 25 feet, 40 feet---and practice aiming at them and firing until you get the hang of it and can get to where you're actually able to hit them.

Again, a shotgun doesn't require an eagle eye insofar as marksmanship goes; if you set off a blast in the general direction, you'll hit some of what you're gunning for, even if you don't hit it dead-on. Once you get the feel of the gun's capabilities and how it fires, etc., then you can work on getting a little better with your aim. So, yes, you *do* go target practicing with a pump shotgun, LOL. When you get to the point where you're confident at aiming at your target and firing, pumping, and firing again, and hitting your target consistently, then you're good to go.

Always, always, always be aware of where the muzzle of the gun is pointing; always keep it pointed down-range, and never let it stray to either side of you or point it at any spot of your own body. I've seen people who didn't know what they were doing, resting the muzzle of the gun on the tip of their boot while they "rested", which is a dandy way to blow a foot off. Basically, just establish it in your mind that whatever that gun is pointing at, has the capability of being wounded or killed by the gun, should it happen to go off for some reason. It won't; guns just don't "go off" for no reason, but there is always the aspect of human error. If you're pointing the gun in a safe direction (i.e., where it isn't going to fire at anything that you don't want to fire at), then you'll be fine. Learning to use a gun is just like learning to drive a car, or run a sewing machine, or a drill press, or a power saw, or any other machine: you have to become familiar with what the machine will do, how to handle it properly and safely, and then just practice with it until you're comfortable with using it.

Click to expand...

Wolseley said:

Click to expand...