I Thought I’d Made A Mistake, But I Was Wrong

I sincerely hope you are never cursed with the desire to collect handguns. Unfortunately, I have been struck with the curse. My first handgun was purchased purely for self-defense. So was the second, as the first proved to be a bit on the heavy side for everyday carry. But from the third firearm on, I have been collecting handguns that strike my fancy. Mind you, every handgun in my collection can be used for self-defense, but that is not really why I bought most of them.

Yes, I can read minds. You are asking a question: how many handguns do you own? The answer is: all that I need, but not all that I want.

Recently I bought a Bond Arms Rough and Rowdy derringer. Those of you who grew up on the westerns of the 1950s have seen the derringer in action, usually in the hands of a slick poker player, who, of course, invariably cheats at cards. The derringer is a very small pistol that typically holds only two shots, one in each of two barrels stacked one on top of the other. If the picture I am painting with words is not sufficiently clear, please refer to the photograph at the top of this article. I took that photo from the Bond Arms website. For reference, the barrel on the derringer is three inches long.

Bond Arms makes derringers in a variety of calibers. For some reason, I decided to buy a 0.45 caliber model. And, since the 0.45 and 0.410 bore shotgun shell have similar base dimensions, this derringer can also be loaded with 0.410 shells. I soon discovered I was much more accurate with a 0.45 load than a 0.410. But at the beginning, I was accurate with neither.

The derringer is a small gun, and the 0.45 is a big round, so this baby kicks like a mule. It took awhile to overcome the kick. At first, I could hit the paper target with a 0.45 round (nowhere near the center), but I completely missed with the 0.410 round. I laid the blame to the fact that I was using a 0.410 designed for self-defense: it contained only three plated discs, and a mere 12 plated BBs. I needed more BBs!

Practice did finally make perfect. (Actually, that should read “perfect practice makes perfect”, but my practice was far from perfect.) After a couple of weeks at the range, I was able to hit the target where I wanted to, with either a 0.45 or a 0.410. But it took concentration, and it occurred to me that if I really needed this gun for self-defense, I would most likely not be in a situation where I would have time to concentrate.

Then a plan slowly crystallized in my brain.

I decided to use the derringer as a defense against carjacking. Instead of loading it with standard or defensive shotgun shells, I went with number 7 ½ shot. Each one of these BBs weighs about ½ ounce. This is not a load you would normally use for self-defense. It is not even a load you would use for hunting. I doubt I could kill much of anything with this load. But the beauty of it is that there are 292 BBs in each shell. Two hundred ninety-two! So, if someone tries to carjack me, and I fire this at the miscreant’s face, with that many pellets, several dozen will find their mark. Because of the spread of the BBs, I will not even have to aim, just point and shoot. The carjacker will be wounded, probably not fatally, but that should be sufficient to put an end to the carjacking.

You may have read that Asheville has a crime problem. It does. Our mayor and most (if not all) of the city council are “progressives”. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, they decided that we were spending way too many tax dollars on the police. They cut police funding, and what you would expect to happen happened. I think the politicians in charge of the city are intellectuals. After all, George Orwell once noted, “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The long and short of it is that I no longer go downtown unarmed.

I thought I had made a big mistake with this purchase, but I was wrong. The derringer has its place, and that place is in the car.