StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Back in July I posted this thread where I mentioned the household was considering gun ownership. I considered necro'ing it for an update, then decided to start a whole new thread as this will have some slightly differing topics.

A few things have changed in the meanwhile - like a couple police raids on the Bad Ass Bar next door that cleaned up some of the worst of the problem children and a raccoon invasion. We're having fewer jackasses on our property and no more burglary attempts, but the spouse was only able to take out one of the four raccoons with the crossbow. The remaining raccoons have also figured out how to remove the bait from the live capture trap without being trapped. We're not sure how we're doing that but the fact is the stupid raccoons were killed off long ago.

So we now have two raccoon killing traps and a .177 caliber CO2 powered pellet gun to dispatch any raccoon not immediately killed by the traps. When we're done with the current raccoons the landlord has expressed interest in using the traps on his property so he's paying for them. We're keeping the pellet gun.

The trap:


The gun:


The thing that amazes me is the lack of regulation on the pellet gun. Yes, it's "just" a pellet gun but it looks like a gun, it feels like a gun, and while it's not as powerful as a gunpowder driven firearm you could still seriously maim or kill someone at close quarters with this thing. It's semi-automatic with an eight shot clip. Has a bit of a kick to it.

Why choose it? Because when you put the barrel to an animal's head for a mercy kill it will kill the animal but it won't blow the skull apart, making an unholy mess (which can also be a serious biohazard if the beast has rabies). It also won't go clear through interior walls like the crossbow will (and has).

It can double for close-quarters home defense, just as the crossbow can - which isn't particularly powerful, either. Not that it's ideal - it doesn't have the stopping power of .22 gunpowder so be careful you don't just piss off an intruder. The point is that while it's primarily for vermin control in a pinch it can serve other purposes. Also fun for target practice, except my aim with a pistol sucks. Which is sort of normal for beginner handgun use.

Well, if you're going to have a gun in the house you need to learn to use it. I've done a little target practice already. You also need to learn to maintain it, and the spouse, who used to own a half dozen guns in his younger years, is walking me through that. This afternoon we went out to Cabelas, which sells just about any sort of hunting equipment imaginable, as well as what you need to skin, butcher, cook, preserve, and probably taxidermy whatever you catch. Also stuff for training your dog for hunting. On site shooting range and a separate on site archery range, classes in hunting, safety, cooking, etc. Oh, and camping equipment, too. And clothing.

Guns, bows, rods, reels, nets, traps, hunting sling-shots...

Really, there's a lot of stuff in there. Here's an image of a Cabelas "gun library", which is just a small part of their gun department. Not my Cabelas, just a photo I found on the internet:


Archery:


Seriously, if we ever have a Zombie Apocalypse this place is on my shopping list.

Since we were in there already we spent some time looking at rifles, too. I picked one up and my spouse starts off with "why are you holding it like that?"

"Holding it like what?"

"Like a left handed shooter."

"You didn't know I'm a left handed shooter?"

No, he didn't. 25 years of marriage and you can still learn something new. Although, really, I can shoot righthanded, and even still hit the target, it just feels unnatural and awkward as hell. Which, I suppose, is why I'm a lefty with firearms.

Fair enough for finishing off vermin in a trap. But frankly, don't even pull it out against a person.

You can kill someone with a child's BB gun given the right hit placement. You can also shoot someone ten times with a pellet gun and still have the murder you and not die really easily. I'd take the crossbow for self defense every time. I mean honestly, I've use a break barrel pellet gun that was powerful enough that the action began to smoke up its lube oil after a half dozen shots, but it also wouldn't pierce a half inch thick pine board at about 20 feet and did not splinter or crack the wood around the penetration it did accomplish. Such devices are just not capable of delivering a tactically useful wound. Its only a liability to your own safety to think they can and waste time and agility attempting to employ them.

The crossbow only gets one shot in an emergency situation because it takes too damn long to re-draw the bow. Better have good aim. Also, it WILL got through the internal walls around here, overpenetration is no joke. My second choice weapon after the bow is the machete, because it's a Big Scary Knife Thing. The downside there, of course, is that an intruder might wrestle it away from me and cut me to pieces with it. Since the pellet gun CAN be used as a weapon it should be considered. I mean, hell, we fought off a would-be intruder with a goddamned garden shovel.

My preference is to not be in a situation where self-defense is called for, but having been in such situations I do consider how objects can be used as improvised weaponry.

Still can have fun with the target shooting. And for its intended purposes, raccoons and any other similar sized vermin we have to deal with, it's a good choice. Let me be very clear THAT is why we bought it, not for taking on human beings.

I also still think it would be a mistake to underestimate the damage this thing can do. It may not penetrate a half inch board, but human flesh isn't as tough as wood. At close range pellet guns can put a pellet deep into internal organs or breach the human skull. These aren't toys, and it's more powerful than the BB guns I used as a kid. That's why I'm amazed at how little regulation there is on these things. It's a fucking gun, even if not tremendously powerful.

From my brief research the US has about a half dozen pellet gun fatalities each year and the UK one or two (CDC and NIH as source). I was rather impressed by the power. Sure, it's about 1/10 the energy/force of a .22 bullet but it's sufficient to be a hazard. Muzzle velocities over 350 fps definitely have the potential to be lethal and this pistol has one around 450 fps. Hell, people have been killed by blanks. Within the house you can't get very far away from a person without being up against a wall, everything inside the house is short-range.

Broomstick wrote:A few things have changed in the meanwhile - like a couple police raids on the Bad Ass Bar next door that cleaned up some of the worst of the problem children and a raccoon invasion. We're having fewer jackasses on our property and no more burglary attempts, but the spouse was only able to take out one of the four raccoons with the crossbow. The remaining raccoons have also figured out how to remove the bait from the live capture trap without being trapped. We're not sure how we're doing that but the fact is the stupid raccoons were killed off long ago.

Raccoon #1 to Raccoon #2, [i]The Great Outdoors[/i] wrote:What'd you think we have these amazingly articulate little hands for, scratching our asses?

I've got an under-lever action air rifle that uses I believe .22 pellets. AFAIK, it fires pellets at speeds between 675 and 725fps. It shreds pop cans and is able (depending where) to penetrate tin cans. This rifle would be a pain for anyone except I get only one shot before reloading.

It's important to take into consideration the difference between penetration and stopping power here. A tiny pellet that penetrates deeply into a man's blood vessels or internal organs and makes him bleed out within minutes is better than nothing, but can also utterly fail in stopping him from killing the shit out of the person with the pellet gun first.

Yes, which is why I am in no way advocating a pellet gun as a first choice for home defense.

Even if I did pick up a weapon, my primary aim in confronting an intruder is NOT to kill him, it's to make him leave me alone. A lot of the time you only have to discourage him by demonstrating you'll fight back - shovelboy from July being a prime example of that. He wasn't seriously injured (just seriously drunk) in the encounter, but he was discouraged.

There are a LOT of weapons in any household, from knives in the kitchen to sporting equipment like bats and gold clubs, to various other random objects. The FBI and CDC both make lists of deaths/murders every year and include a category of weapon called "other" that shows quite a lot of creative re-purposing.

Broomstick wrote:Yes, which is why I am in no way advocating a pellet gun as a first choice for home defense.

Wasn't trying to suggest that you did. <3

My point is know what you're using and why you're using it. If you tag somebody a couple of times with a pellet gun, it is probably more deadly than punching him in the long-term, but possibly not as good as a couple of solid punches and/or elbows and/or knees or a fire poker to the knee (or pistol-whipping him with the pellet gun) or whatever in the short-term, so the ability to rapidly calculate those things is key if all options are equally available.

Honestly, if I saw a guy threaten me with a pellet gun, and knew it was a pellet gun... I might actually be more intimidated by the guy threatening me with the shovel.

So the real value of a pellet gun for self-defense is that it looks enough like a real pistol that it can intimidate someone.

All the self-defence stuff aside, pellet guns are fantastic for fun shooting practice since pellets and CO2 are a fuckload quieter and cheaper than even some small like a .22

I use a CO2 powered .22 pellet rifle at the max legal UK power. It fires pellets at just under 750 per second and will instakill vermin (squirrels, pidgeons, the odd crow) out to 30 yards, which is plenty for my garden.

Pistols, well, in my case they're just for fun. Unless I'm much mistaken I have the exact same pistol as Broomstick just bought. It's a good little gun.

UK limits pellet guns to 750 fps? We saw some rifles here rated at 1400 fps.

Actually they limit it to muzzle energy not velocity. Rifles can be up to 12 foot-pounds, pistols can be up to 6. Well, when I say "limit," those are the maximum powers you own guns in without needing a license. All you need is ID to prove you're 18 and you can buy one over the counter (as I've done on occasion).

Anyway, that is the Beretta PX$ made by Umarex isn't it?

It's called a Blowback PT-85 by GAMA.

Ah, not quote the same as mine then. Still, I've heard good things about that gun.

I remember the first (and only) time I tried pistols the instructor noticed I pulled the trigger with not my finger, but my hand which resulted in my aim going to the right. So maybe something like that is happening with your aim?

I've been shot with a pellet gun, back when I was a teenager. Make no mistake, a pellet gun like that may not be very lethal, but it is fucking painful. I don't think the average lowlife is going to want to stick around for more than a couple of hits.

You are no doubt correct.

That said, the pellet gun will work most effectively to deter someone who isn't on adrenaline, doesn't have a pain response dulled by alcohol or drugs, and so on.

The same might be said of the shovel.

Simon_Jester wrote:You are no doubt correct.

That said, the pellet gun will work most effectively to deter someone who isn't on adrenaline, doesn't have a pain response dulled by alcohol or drugs, and so on.

The same might be said of the shovel.

The same could be said for almost any weapon, there's not that many that guarantee an instant death. The shovel would probably do as much damage as most bullets, although in a different form.

Well, what I'm mainly getting at is this.

I would think that a weapon that is effective for self-defense (as opposed to, say, cold-blooded murder) has to have some kind of 'stopping power.'

Stopping power is of course a nebulously defined term, but what it usually amounts to is that the weapon causes:
1) Absolutely overwhelming nerve response that makes any other action possible (tazer)
2) Enough momentum transfer that it can physically knock someone down and stop them from attacking you (e.g. a bulky hafted tool like a shovel)
3) Enough physical damage that the target is unlikely to be physically capable of further aggression (e.g. a shotgun blast at close range)

Only (3) involves 'instant death.' The others just physically stop someone, to the point where it's not a problem that they're still alive because they are no longer a threat.

On the other hand, ANY personal weapon can be used as a deterrent against an unarmed or risk-averse attacker, and even those which "lack stopping power" have a very credible chance of stopping an attacker except under extreme conditions. So this is not to say they are useless, only that one might reasonably be concerned about whether an attacker threatened or hit with them will actually stop.

Also, note that I spoke specifically of deterrence- I should have said 'stop.'

One of the important principles to keep in mind when discussing self-defense is that every situation is different, with different variables. Some attackers will be deterred if you yell or just act like you might put up a defense. Others require unconsciousness or death to stop.

You won't know until you're in the thick of it.

Speculating on the use of something as a weapon is a bit like thinking about how to survive an apocalypse. You'll probably never need the knowledge, and almost certainly will never experience anything apocalyptic, but if something happens you're better prepared than if you hadn't thought about the matter.

My father actually took his own life with one of those. They scare me more than regular firearms do because of how blase people treat their use.

That's a... very compelling point. Definitely there's no excuse for not using proper fire discipline, care, and attention to safety with an air rifle.

You wouldn't even be legally allowed to finish of vermin in Finland with that, law says .22lr and up.

His Divine Shadow wrote:You wouldn't even be legally allowed to finish of vermin in Finland with that, law says .22lr and up.

Can't use a .17HMR/HM2?

I think it's allowed, it has similar energy levels. The law is based on energy classification rather than specific calibers, class 4, the lowest class for hunting vermin and small game has a 150 joule limit (measured at muzzle). This mostly means 22lr or similar calibers.