Customer Reviews

The Handgun in Personal Defense

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I checked this book out from my local public library. The information contained within is generally good. There are nuggets of valuable information that helped me come up to speed on the domain of using a handgun for personal defense.

This book will fit the bill for newcomers to handguns and existing pistol owners who want to learn how to prepare themselves for personal defense. Novices to firearms of all kinds may start out a little confused. This is not a Handguns for Dummies type book.

The wound potential, cartridge info and the drills were especially of interest to me.

The writing leaves a lot to be desired. This book would have been better if the author had hired a polished editor. I often had to read sentences multiple times in order to understand them because of the way they were worded. There were several typos, which eventually lead you to think the book was rushed to market without any editor at all.

Another problem is that the photos inserted are rarely mentioned in the text. Normally, photos are added to books to aid in the understanding of the text. Those in this book are supplemental, but not referenced, so they feel like afterthoughts, pasted in after the text was all written.

The chapter on cartridges (i.e. calibers) would have been much better if each caliber that was described had a nice close-up photo next to a coin for size reference. The stance photos are too small and not close up enough to identify the important elements that distinguish one from another (Weaver vs horse vs Isosceles).

Yet another problem is the use of jargon without including some kind of glossary or footnotes to explain them. If you don't already hang out with others at the shooting range, some of the jargon will go right past you. Cliches like "...will carry the day" are overused, tiresome and pretentious.

Lastly, I was disappointed with the lack of attention paid to concealed carry. With the title "The Handgun in Personal Defense", you'd think there would be a whole chapter on gun sizes (frame height, grip width, barrel length), holster locations and even the laws for CC. But there was very little information provided.

The top 50 fighting handguns was a good chapter, but the author doesn't explain the order in which they are presented. He also admits that if he couldn't get his hands on it, he didn't include it. Admirable, but a list of good reputable albeit personally untested guns would not have gone amiss. I'm sure there are dozens of experienced folks who read this and wonder "What about the Blarg D40? I've had that gun for years and it's my favorite!"

If you can ignore the very average writing and look for the nuggets of information contained within, you'll get something out of this book. It's worth one read through. For me, I'm glad I checked it out for free and didn't plunk down the $15 MSRP. If I ever find it used for under $7, I'll probably go ahead and buy it.