It’s Your Life

Friends don’t let friends buy Hi Points – or Lorcins or Cobras or whatevers.

-Caleb

He has a point. Guns are expensive, All guns, even the cheap ones. My buddy who has the hi-point I think paid $100 for his used. That’s a super-duper low-price for a working firearm, its also an amount of money I wouldn’t throw away. Yeah I spent like $1.25 on a bag of Pork Rinds Just because I was hungry, and I knew it would kinda G33k Jay out. Plus I was South of the Mason Dixon, I needed something fried, and something made of pig, and something spicy, and that met all three challenges right out of the bag! But spending $1.25 on some pig product or $10 on a knife (BTW they’re worth twice that in quality if you ask me. Great knives!) is money you might not be too concerned about if the product goes bust. Hell when I was shopping for a Cell phone battery for my cell, I found the AT&T store rate was like $30+ But a little searching I found one for a lot less When I saw the price difference I kinda freaked out. But then I realized, what if I was wrong? What if this super-cheap battery was totally junk? If it was junk, fuck it, I’d toss it in the trash and buy the more expensive battery, and I’d have answered that “what if” question.

But now fast-forward to a $90 Hi-point, or a $150 Cobra. Or you can even go up to a $300 Filipino 1911 clone. What will you do if you’re wrong and the gun is totally junk? Even more, if this is a defensive arm, what will you do if your gun proves to be junk when your life is on the line?

As I mentioned here and others pointed out in the comments, there are SCADS of good deals for adequate and quality carry guns for relatively short money. No you won’t be able to buy a working Glock, or Sig, or even a CZ-82 for $100, but if you’re going to use the gun to defend your life, can’t you find some extra money lying around?

Do you have a cellphone? We should all have a cellphone for safety reasons, and I never leave home without mine, but why don’t you buy a pre-paid cell, and just keep it for emergencies, and wait to get home, or bum friend’s phones to make personal calls.

Do you have Cable? Dump it for a year and pocket the proceeds.

Do you eat out? Buy a damn cook book, and make some simple meals for considerably less money.

Hell I used Caleb’s quote in the beginning of the post, but I have to razz him. He has Racked up some impressive competition scores using various competition guns….but for a good while he was carrying .25 Beretta Hardly a “Junk Gun”, but all the money on guns and ammo, he couldn’t pick up something of similar size and weight in a better-performing caliber?

So if you are making the step into carrying a personal defense arm, don’t go cheap. You don’t have to break the bank, but if all you can afford are the cheapest guns and the cheapest holsters, maybe you should do some budgeting to save up a little and get something that will not only last, but serve you better.

Now comes the 2nd part. All those nifty inexpensive, but reputable guns I was talking about? I Can’t buy most of them! No used Glocks, no Police Trade-in Sigs, no Rock Island 1911s, Nothing from Kel-Tec. Hell I can’t even buy the Cobra guns I reviewed, nor a Raven, a Lorcin, or a Hi-point. This state wants to ban ALL GUNS and will take whatever it can to get closer to that goal.
I own a Jennings pistol

Yep thats it between a very nice Colt 1908 .25, and a Very nice S&W1911Sc. Both guns are probably worth 3x the value of the Jennings. Why do I have it? Big #1, because Massachusetts says I shouldn’t have something like that, and its too “Dangerous”. How do I have it? Well it happened to be in this state before the “Junk Gun” laws took effect, so its grandfathered in.

Also Its similar in size and weight to the .25, but eats CONSIDERABLY cheaper .22 ammo, and actually its kinda fun to shoot.

So here I’ll toss in a saving grace for gun rights and the gun industry. If you see a cheap gun and it amuses you, BUY IT. If you have a Dremel and some metal files and think it might be fun to figure out gunsmiths, a Cobra Patriot might be a good “Project Gun”, buy one, take it apart and see if you can un-fuck the trigger. If you screw up, and ruin the gun you just learned a lesson a lot cheaper than if you’d fucked up a Colt 1911. And maybe you can get your money back on the ruined gun!

If you just want to collect cheap guns because they’re cheap and collecting things is fun, Go ahead! There are all sorts of reasons to love cheap guns.

Just don’t trust your life with one, PLEASE!

Arrrrr

-Weer’d Beard

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0 Responses to It’s Your Life

  1. Bob S. says:

    Weer’d,

    Do you have Cable? Dump it for a year and pocket the proceeds.
    Many of us don’t want to wait a year to ‘save’ up the money; many can’t wait a year to start protecting themselves or their families.

    Is a “junk” gun the best for that task — nope but it is better then a can of mace or a sharp stick. Given the situation for most self defense use, I could and do make the case for ‘cheap’ guns.

    For that price of my relatively inexpensive Taurus PT-145, I could buy 2 Hi-Points. Heck, I’ll train with with, practice regularly until the sucker breaks then still have a functional firearm that I can carry. One with a low round count but proven functionality.

    Is that the best way of going about it? Oh heck no.

    But some of us have to make a choice — do we buy 1 $1,000 firearm or do we buy 3 $300 firearms? I have a wife and daughter I’m trying to get to carry for their protection. The budget just doesn’t stretch to $3,000 plus for firearms.

    And the “plus” really adds up — as one who just recently started carrying can testify to! Holsters, Permit/Licenses, practice ammo — heck even the range cost is added to the burden.

    Imagine how the single parent feels when (s)he considers the selection of firearms available- does the family pay car insurance and get the $1,2000 Springfield or does she hope for the best and buy the $200 Hi-Point, ammunition and still make the insurance payment?

    Another aspect of the “junk” guns to consider is they keep the other manufacturers producing firearms at the lower price points….often reducing the price points.

    Do you really think that Ruger or Smith and Wesson would be marketing firearms sub $300 if it wasn’t for Patriot, Kel-Tec, or Lorcins?

    Until the time we can convince all the criminals to stop being violent, I’ll tell people to buy the most gun they can afford to shoot and shoot often.

  2. I dunno. For most people, saving up a few hundred bucks for a decent used gun isn’t such a big deal, and for them cheaping out isn’t worth it (it wasn’t for me, and I didn’t; my first gun was a Springfield 1911–solidly economical, but not “cheap”).

    But I have plenty of friends who have seriously restricted incomes and simply wouldn’t prioritize a handgun highly enough to save up for a “decent” one. This is especially an issue in NJ, where our restrictive laws add cost to the process and kill the used gun market.

    We generally accept that there’s a bare minimum of 108,000 defensive gun uses per year in the US, and real the number’s probably above 2.5 million. And the total number of deaths by firearms assault (defensive and criminal) is around 13,000. This tells me that the overwhelming majority of DGUs are settled not when you put enough rounds in the bad guy, but when you show him you’re serious and he remembers he has an urgent appointment elsewhere.

    I figure any gun trumps no gun. Would I encourage a friend to save up for a few more months to buy a used “name” handgun? Absolutely. Would I discourage a friend from buying a cheapo gun if that’s all he was prepared to spend? Hell no. Better a gun in hand with one shot before it jams up than relying on a baseball bat.

  3. Bob reminds me of another good point: even if you have the advantage of $300 Glock trade-ins, that three hundred bucks doesn’t cover ammo and range time to actually learn how to use the thing. At our local prices, I’d say my hypothetical poor friend is much better off with a Hi-Point, a stack of ammo, and some range time than with a Glock, one box of 9mm, and an empty budget.

  4. Thomas says:

    NJ et al: It’s all about disarming poor people, always has been.

    42 years of abuse over a problem that didn’t exist when you could buy REAL Thompsons in the mail.
    We only have more “gun crime” because we have more gun laws.

    “Government is the cause of black markets

    Whether guns are restricted due to regulations, excessive litigation, or law enforcement intervention, or all of the above, it matters not. The price will rise. Government has driven the price up far beyond the cost of production or inflation. It has become quite lucrative to get into the business of selling guns illegally. Government has created a black market. In response, the government increases spending on law enforcement resources that didn’t exist prior to the restrictions to try and stop crimes that didn’t previously exist. But, the fact that prices have shot up dramatically doesn’t deter criminals. That’s why there is a black market.

    We know there has been a concerted effort to price guns out of the reach of the common man in the belief that if they are too expensive, poor people will not have access to them. And, as everyone knows, at least politicians believe this, poor people are the cause of crime. Ergo, high priced guns, equals reduced crime. The only problem with that theory is it also spawns another form of crime and that is the theft of firearms from homes and gun stores.

    There was a time when most gun owners didn’t have a safe in their home. They kept guns in the closet or in a glass cabinet to show them off. Why not? The theft of guns prior to all the laws and restrictions over the last 40 years were quite rare. You could get them at a reasonable price almost anywhere. Why would criminals want to be burdened down carrying around a bunch of guns when there were a lot of other items in a house that had more value? It’s a different story today. We now have criminals who specifically target the homes of known gun owners. Theft of firearms feeds the need for low cost firearms in the criminal underworld. Prior to all the restrictions, criminals just purchased them legally.

    The end result is that nothing has changed prior to or after all the regulations and laws, other than more gun crimes. If criminals want a gun, they get one. It’s that simple. You have to be a complete buffoon to not be able to buy a gun in the black market today. The only difference is we keep several thousand government employees on the payroll at $800,000,000 a year to chase down newly created “gun” crimes. And, we’ve created a whole new field of criminal expertise which revolves around the theft and trade of guns.”–Ralph Weller

    http://www.gunnewsdaily.com/index.php/contributor-commentaries/111-get-the-qfq-out-of-batfe if you feel like reading the rest.

    Boot the BATmen and the Gun Laws and nobody would have to skimp on self defense.

  5. My brother has a hipoint carbine. It shoots. I have an RIA Government 1911. It shoots. The Armscor guns have acquired a pretty good reputation, enough so that the prices are all going up.

  6. Bob S. says:

    Weer’d,

    Just had a thought regarding what Jeff said about the Hi-Point Carbine.

    Would you suggest people purchase a $600 to $1,000 handgun or would you suggest that people purchase a Hi-Point Handgun ($250), a Hi-Point Carbine ($300) and a Maverick by Mossberg Security 88 ($200)?

    My personal philosophy has — and is – to purchase adequate firearms to provide for the security of my home and family, then move on to move expensive/well made firearms. (Still need a carbine for that purpose)

    • Weerd Beard says:

      How’s about a $300 Police trade-in Glock/Sig/S&W/Beretta or a $250 used Ruger Security 6 or S&W .38/.357, a $150 Used Mossberg 500, and a $90 Mosin Nagant m91/30 : ]

      As far as pistol carbines go, I’ve actually never read anything bad about the hi-points. I’d prefer somebody save a few more bucks for a Kel-Tec Su2000, but the Hi-Point carbine isn’t a bad choice. Of course the pistol carbine fills kind of an odd niche in my book. I think they can replace a shotgun as an HD gun and perform BETTER in the hands of somebody smaller or recoil adverse, but if all hands on deck can run a 12 gauge I don’t see much advantage a pistol carbine offers to a 20″ scatter-gun.

      Of course I 100% agree with your point, ANY gun is better than ZERO gun, but in a world where mid-shelf guns like the old Ruger and S&W Double-actions, or the plethora of modern semi-autos and built to essentially last forever unless somebody is using it as a competition gun and puts 10,000 rounds through it a year, the smart thing is to buy a reputable mid-shelf gun used.

      Now as I said, Massachusetts dumbshit laws throw all of that to the wind. Its difficult to get a Police-Trade-in gun, there is a decent used wheel-gun market here where VERY nice guns can be had for short money, and many of the cheaper models are verboten.

      Needless to say I’m just pointing out there are options before one turns to a NIB hi-Point or Cobra. That being said if in the next few months all you’ll be able to afford is a hi-point pistol (and still have enough to run 200 rounds of practice ammo down range, I’d advice you to get a damn gun, but see if you can save for something that’s a little better in the future.

      • Jeff/Zeeke42 says:

        Glockmeister lists : Third Generation, Massachusettes compliant GLOCK 17s are $379
        Tack on $25 for the transfer and you’re in business for $404.

        FourSeasons has a couple of 3rd gen Smiths for $350-400.

  7. Ian Argent says:

    One warning about those cheap batteries for cell phones. Don’t do it before looking at the FULL replacement cost of the cell phone (not the on-contract cost, the full cost). This advice really goes for anything that takes Lithium-type batteries, such as laptops and cameras. And then consider where you keep your phone. Cheap batteries can be that way because the manufacturer skimped – this can lead to spontaneous combustion. If this happens with the OEM battery, the OEM is on the hook for it (at least within the warranty period). The cheap chinese knock-off. Solly Chollie.

    Lithium-type batteries have a somewhat scary energy density, and are a tad tricky to put energy into and take it out of.

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