[hga]

Thanks, although it's not data I seek.

Handguns have a lot of advantages in home defense, such as maneuverability and much better retention if things get up close and personal (the lever arm of a long gun is necessarily much longer, an adversary can grab it outside of your grasp and twist it out of your hands, as I demonstrated to my stronger and fitter nephew before he went to college, a bit to his surprise).

[eaandkw]

A handgun is surprisingly difficult to shoot accurately past 7 meters in a life or death situation. Look at all of the stories of police shooting up to one hundred rounds at a suspect and still missing them.

[hga]

Police aren't a good example for talking about civilian handgun marksmanship:

They are under an obligation to use their guns in many situations a civilian wouldn't, or could trivially avoid (either by not being in that sort of place, or safely retreating).

Few get much training or practice, and this is particular true for ant-gun Blue cities, with NYC being the extreme case of having extinguished its gun culture and the force being run by hoplophobes at critical times (details on request, but that includes police who care about marksmanship having a difficult time practicing on their own).

They simply don't pay any serious penalty beyond maybe their city paying a civil settlement for such examples, usually of contagious fire, which also simply can't be a problem in the usual civilian self-defense case where only one good guy has a gun. If we civilians were to pull those sort of stunts, we'd rightfully end up in prison.

They seem to be more prone to completely lose their shit like with Chris Dorner, which caused one of those cases against two total innocents in a pickup truck that bore little resemblance to Dorner's, except it being a pickup truck. And, again in a Blue part of the country.

7 meters is way too long as a general metric for this domain, as of ... the '70s or '80s the average distance for police use of handguns was 7 feet. 7 meters is 23 feet, which is close to the Tueller Drill 21 feet metric, and is a distance you'll find in home defense, but it still generally works out for civilians defending themselves in their homes. And weapons retention doesn't become an issue until an adversary closes the distance, which per the Tueller drill gives you an opportunity to fire a shot or three if you've already got your gun out and pointed.

[eaandkw]

I agree with you about the example of police. I was just pointing out that under stress it is difficult to shoot accurately. I won't talk trash about the police because I don't know enough police to talk it. However, in the military I have seen how hard it is to move, shoot, and hit your target. And we get tons of training.

I can't really tell from your reply if your are arguing for pistols or rifles being better. I think it comes down to using whatever you are good at. If you train with a rifle then use a rifle if you use a pistol use a pistol. I actually think retaining a rifle is easier then a pistol. Maybe because I train that way. For the pistol I mostly just keep the pistol away from the bad guy. If the bad guy can get his hands on the pistol he would have more leverage then if he got his hands on my rifle.

Back to the original argument. For the militia type individuals that like to play like they are in the military. It is all fun and games until you get shot at.