Do you carry enough rounds???

Carry Enough Rounds?

I’m not here to tell you how many rounds you should be carrying and there is no magic number of rounds that will end a gunfight.

I am here to possibly alter your thinking on what you leave the house with. There are many articles out there reviewing the latest and greatest tiny carry gun. I myself carry a Glock 43 or a Glock 36 as an EDC gun. Most of you will note that both of these are single stack guns and carry 7 rounds topped off apiece. I do not leave the house without 2 extra magazines, which gives me a total round count of 19 rounds loaded ready to go. This practice was instilled in me during law enforcement training. We were allowed to drop down to one extra magazine for light duty carry, however I did not endorse or utilize this practice. In fact I present to you the idea that there is no such thing as light duty carry even for a CWP holder.

All to often CWP holders, including myself in the past, get complacent. Whether it is out of a belief that just having a gun will end a confrontation or that 2, 6, or 10 rounds will end a gun fight, I don’t know. What I do know is that being over prepared is better than under prepared. We sometimes hear, albeit miss attributed, that the average gunfight takes place from 0 to 3 feet. This is a misquoted statistic, wrongfully arrived at by misinterpreted officer shooting data. This statistic is derived from FBI reports where the officer was killed in the line of duty due to a gun, not necessarily a gunfight. In 24 of 44 cases the distance was less than 5 feet but also in most of those cases the officer didn’t fire his gun. These aren’t gunfights, these are shootings.  The statistics show that if you are shot within 5 feet the chance for death is high but nothing more. What we can gather is that gunfights happen at varying distances. What we already know is that your aim will probably suffer in high stress situations, evidenced by multiple officer gunfights where the criminal is hit by the majority of rounds but there are quite a few misses.

Let’s add in another statistic.  Based on the Uniform Crime Report from the FBI, 35% of criminals admitted to being under the influence of marijuana or cocaine at the time of the offense.  Based on medical information we understand that drugs alter the human body’s perception of pain.  There are plenty of police related articles about offenders being fatally shot and still injuring the officer to the point of hospitalization.  So there is a better than 1/3 chance that if you have to utilize your gun in the defense of yourself, family or others that the attacker will be on drugs.

I’m not saying that you need to carry more than you currently carry or less than you currently carry (please don’t carry less).  My suggestion is this; consider why you carry in the first place, consider how you would feel when the ammo runs out and there is still a dangerous situation.  In a perfect world none of us would feel the need to carry.  However, in our current world where the ability to defend yourself is an indispensable skill, would you really want to have the best tool for the job run out of ammo?

http://beyondthesights.us/carry-enough-rounds/