A Gun You Can Afford In Your Holster Is Better Than One You Cannot In The Display Case

If you spend much time on “gun-right” sites, you are going to run into a lot of the “experts”. Some are just caliber snobs, something I have written about before. Many claim impressive military or law enforcement backgrounds, which are of course impossible to verify. But then there are the invariably anonymous accounts who claim to be the world’s foremost authority on literally anything to do with firearms. These are the people who sneer at anything under $1000. Lots of them are Glock purists, which always cracks me up as I have never liked Glock all that much and most people touting their Glock are also telling you about all the parts they took off their Glock and replaced with aftermarket components. If your gun is so awesome you have to replace everything, is it really that awesome? Glocks are great but they aren’t the only decent gun on the market. These guys have their favorite platform and accessories and mock anyone that isn’t on their level.

In the real world, there are certainly some crap guns (Hi-Point for example) but there are lots and lots and lots of decent, reliable firearms for normal people. A Glock G43X will run you almost $500 online, as will the very popular Sig Sauer P365. On the other hand you can get a Taurus G2C for right around $200 (or less with the rebate). A Smith & Wesson M&P Shield is around $350. The Ruger Security 9 is about $300. Sure there are differences and I am just picking common handguns but for 99% of people any of these listed guns will do about the same thing. Ruger’s very popular LCP II in .380 is $250 and very concealable and perfectly adequate for most people. You can get a Beretta Pico for under $250. The same is true for long guns. A Ruger AR556 AR-15 is just shy of $500 as is the Smith & Wesson M&P 15. Ruger and S&W have been making quality firearms for a long time. Sure you can get a Daniel Defense V7 for almost two grand but you can also can get a Palmetto State PA-15 for $469 or you can build your own for even less. There are options that are less expensive but perfectly useful for the vast majority of us.

If I had an unlimited budget, well I would have only the best of the best, but in truth it wouldn’t make a significant difference. A Benelli M4 for around $1800 is cool but really for home defense I prefer a pump-action and a Mossberg 590 is more than adequate. At around $500 it also holds 8+1 versus 5+1 for the Benelli. So the Benelli is cool and all but I can get the Mossberg for less than a third of the price and spend the savings on ammo.

It is very important for new people to learn from more experienced shooters but stay away from anonymous know-it-alls online (or people who are obviously paid shills) and don’t sink yourself in debt so you can have bragging rights at the range. The best way to show off is to outshoot the guy with the expensive rig. A lot of these guys have some pretty wild fantasies about what a SHTF scenario is going to look like and what they will be doing but the fat guy with the $3000 AR rig probably isn’t going to be leading commando raids.

For the average person, I would recommend a reliable firearm from a reputable manufacturer and sufficient ammo for practice right now and stocking up for the long-term. Use the savings on more ammo, food and water, first aid, whatever. If you are starving to death because you don’t have enough food, you can’t eat your Daniel Defense AR.