Do choose your defensive guns based on caliber or platform?

[ChristopherG]

Magnus--It's not a prescription; it's simply a guess that it could happen. Don't fret, I don't plan on a freak-out ; but I've never seen things go funky--really funky--and don't know, therefore, exactly how I'd respond (I'm persuaded that I'm in the same boat with most armed people in this uncertainty, whether we/they acknowledge it or not). Precisely this uncertainty is one of the things that makes me appreciate a sixgun's (or fivegun's) operational simplicity in a pinch.

 

[Chuck Jennings]

Please explain why coolheadedness should EVER go out the window, for the armed man?

People train everyday to respond to any number of different threats, and practice with varying levels of stess added so that they can keep a cool head when the SHTF. But, when the rubber meets the road, we don't know how we will react to the stess of down and dirty, fighting-for-your-life scenario. Coolheadedness is really tough to keep in a situation where you are threatened, under fire, or injured. That must be why the guns that operate more simply are so popular for carry.