Catching Up Before REALLY Catching Up!

Or something like that...the trip to Israel to spend some quality time at IWI left me pretty far behind the eight-ball, but principal filming for SHOOTING GALLERY, THE BEST DEFENSE and SHOOTOUT LANE is all finished. Or, as we say in Colorado (or 1968, which is probably redundant), we're down to stems and seeds...just in time to start planning GUN STORIES WITH JOE MANTEGNA and my and Marshal's new Internet series AMERICA'S RIFLE. Cool!

I thought I'd weigh in on the new Taurus Curve .380, except that I haven't shot it. I handled the first "printed" piece and a prototype version a couple of years back, but neither I nor Marshal have shot the production version. I thought it was an intriguing idea...I think we're all still feeling our way toward dealing with the huge new market.

I will say that our "doctrine," if you will, at THE BEST DEFENSE is that pocket pistols need pocket holsters, because the pocket is the equivalent of your crazy Aunt Mavis' hall closet that hasn't been unopened in like 50 years...there's a lot of icky gunk in there, and you'd rather not transfer that gunk from the pocket to the pistol. All of us Mikes and the one Marty on TBD occasionally use pocket pistols -- we strongly recommend them as a way to have a firearm readily available when you're at home -- and they're hard enough to access without risking rendering the gun unfireable to boot.

Holster science isn't mysterious ju-ju...yes, you're going to spend some money on holsters you'll ultimately reject, but hey, we're in a golden age of holsters as well as handguns.

Secondly, with a pocket gun pointing at my femoral artery or, worse yet, Mr. Weasel, I'd sorta like the trigger guard covered so the trigger doesn't figure out a way to fire itself. That's why I don't use pocket clips on my small framed revolvers. Again, I like holsters. They've worked well since we moved beyond horse pistols hung off saddles.

Thirdly, I like sights...you know, those bumps on the top of the pistol. I have over the years repeatedly told mini gun manufacturers who sought to eliminate sights on sneeze-distance pistols that I thought it was a bad idea. After years of doing TBD, I insist on sights that give me a fighting chance at a longer shot. Yes, the Taurus does have a sighting system that I'm not familiar with -- and I am inherently conservative about new ideas in a machine I might have to use to save my life -- but I keep reading that the Curve will probably be used within the 3-foot radius do the "hot zone" around your body. Okey-dokey, now if you'll kindly explain how to arrange that guaranteed distance...

As armed civilians, we have limited ability to choose the ground, the time, situation, etc. on which we might have to fight. Given that, I would argue against less, rather than more, specialization in my self-defense tools. Keep in mind that I was just in Israel, a nation fighting an enemy that wages war against women and children, and nobody there was arguing for smaller, lighter, close-in distance-limited weapons. From a purely paranoid viewpoint, which is pretty normal for me, the rise of lone wolf terrorism, increased civil unrest and the virtual certainty of a less-than-certain future points in the other direction. Gabe Suarez presents an articulate opinion that more ammo in a larger gun makes more sense in these times. 

NONE of the above means the Taurus Curve is a bad gun! I haven't shot it, much less carried it. It might be the best carry gun I've ever had. But it would be unfair not to note that, at least IMHO, the Curve starts with strikes against it.

On another note, as I mentioned in my comments, If I could get a civilian IWI X95 tomorrow, I'd happily shell out the money. I found it to be a great little gun, probably why the IDF is fielding it these days. Small, light, handles great. you'll love the SHOOTING GALLERY 2-part special!