handguns are terribly easy for potential attackers to turn against us. Because, you see, they often have greater upper body strength.

Unless, of course, they're suffering from a sucking chest wound.

Body strength is negated if they can't reach you. The gun isn't the deterrent:The bullets are. Delivered.

The idea behind a gun is to be able to shoot them at a distance. If you let them get close enough to take it away you are doing it wrong. Less talk, more bullets.

Well, you are all making the same great point, but oversimplifying just slightly.

The whole point to a gun is its stopping power--and, preferably, its value as a deterrent, which keeps the perp from even GETTING that close.

What none of the gun control advocates want to admit is that (1) a sidearm will be harder for an attacker to turn against me than a long gun, and (2) If this perp is so good that he can wrest my gun away from me, motion-picture-style, before I can even give him a significant owie, I'm fucked anyway--probably in both senses of the word. Raped, killed, and with my organs in his freezer waiting for the right side-dish. (Now, what would happen to this guy [should I die by his hand] once my husband, my readers, my uncle, my brother, my little sister, and--especially--my mother--found him does not bear contemplating. At that point, I would have gotten the best of the situation. There are worse things than having one's organs eaten with fava beans and a nice chianti.)

Of course we talk around each other! That's what the Net is for.

I wanted to stress getting in the proper frame of mind to actually use the weapon, not just wave it around. That's a big step and one you have to be prepared for.