SwampWolf
Member
Shot placement is the important thing. 3 shots in a 2" circle at 15 yards beats 17 shots scattered over half a block every time.
And 17 shots in a 3" circle @ 15 yards beats an empty gun every time. Just because you have more rounds at your disposal doesn't mean you have to fire them inaccurately. Good training and regular practice will help keep bullets hitting where they're aimed, whether you have five or twenty on board.
I've made this point before but I think it bears repeating here. My thirty years experience in le gave me the opportunity to talk to and/or debrief armed citizens as well as peace officers involved in shootouts and a couple of things became clear to me over time:
(1) No matter how well trained you are in terms of tactics; no matter how good of a shot you are and no matter how cool-headed you think you'll perform in a gunfight, when real bullets are being fired at you, your state of awareness will be diminished and your shots will not be as accurate as they were on the range. Though there is no substitute for good and frequent training and that said training is about the only thing you can count on to increase your survival chances when bullets are being exchanged, it has to be acknowledged that no amount or kind of training will ever replicate a scenario where there's a good chance you might really get killed.
(2) Though I'm not saying that a five-shot revolver is necessarily an inadequate self-defense firearm (so much of what type and size gun we carry is dependent on the circumstance we find ourselves in at the time: Are we in a high-crime area? Does the nature of our assignment require a "deep-cover" gun? Does the weather or social condition dictate the state of our attire-which, of course, goes a long way in determining what size of handgun is practical to carry concealed?,etc.), I am saying that no one I've ever interviewed has ever said that they would have been satisfied with less ammunition than what they had at the time nor that they would not have appreciated having even more rounds available to them at that awful time in their lives when they needed bullets the most.