Good for your mother. Encourage her.

If she has issues with the state-required training, I can recommend a retired officer from a local department who specializes in small-group training for more-mature ladies. With the growing demand for CPLs in MI, a lot of the available training has devolved into an impersonal system designed to process large numbers quickly and she may not feel comfortable there.

llater,

llamas

Good for you and for your Mother.

The availability/presence of a gun (your Mother would most likely not be the only person around during an 'event') might be critical to a swift resolution (other than cowering in a closet).

I will be getting a CPL next year to carry the weapon I own. (Too bad knives are frown on as they are lighter than chairs.)

That's great, llamas -- thank you.

I found this one in Southfield (Detroit suburb where my parents' office was until they retired recently).

http://impactrange.com/JustForWomen.aspx

So it looks like the Left is launching yet another attempt to try to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution. We've been down this "peculiar wording" path before. Of course, the problem there is that when leftists hear the word "militia", they automatically think about guys running around in the woods playing soldier. That's historically ignorant. If you know what "militia" means in the historical context, the Second Amendment makes perfect sense.

@ our gracious hostess :

I'm not familiar with Nneka Lawrence, but Action Impact has an excellent reputation around here, top-notch modern facilities and every amenity.

If she fancies a day out in the country, I can highly-recommend this facility in Howell

http://www.peacemakersgunrange.com/content/classes/cpl-class/

Top-quality facility, all modern amenities and it's run by a bunch of younger, committed folks, including women, with a strong libertarian streak. I can't say enough good things about these people, they are the future of the shooting sports - light-years away from the long tradition of old guys in smokey gun clubs, dressed in damp plaid and telling off-color jokes.

Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. I'm in Southfield all the time, my MIL lives off 14 Mile.

llater,

llamas

Amy, good for you and your mom!

But, it is a sad nation that we now live in when a 78-year old considers the need to get a weapon.

I also suggest she take Andrew Branca's Law of Self Defence.

http://lawofselfdefense.com/

Jewish self defense - appropriate for Hanukkah!

I've had a gun for awhile now. I really need to make the CCL happen next.

One of the biggest barriers to older women shooting confidently is hand, arm, and shoulder strength,

A gun with a light trigger is unsafe. Small caliber guns with no kick are ineffective.

Have her do some weights, and also a grip master for hand strength, this is especially important for a semi auto, in order to be able to load the gun easily, rack the slide, get a proper grip, and pull a five pound trigger.

Smith and Wesson hammerless J-frame in 38 Special. Basically, any model number ending in -40 or -42. If she can't deal with mildly-loaded 38 Special (weight/recoil) then she should consider whether she should be carrying at all.

Semi-autos are a bad idea for anybody for a self-defence weapon unless they practice assiduously and service the weapon regularly. And even then they are prone to malfunction. A S&W hammerless revolver may be one of the most reliable mechanical devices ever devised. It will go 'bang', every time, no matter what. Get her one with the built-in laser sight (OEM or aftermarket) and she will fall in love with how easy and effective it/she can be.

My MIL, who also happens to be 78, and is 110# soaking-wet and about 5'3", can shoot a DA S&W revolver in 38 Special all day long. Nothing more is required, it is the optimal solution.

llater,

llamas

I'm w/llamas on this one. Fell last month, broke my dominant hand, badly bruised right side, you stuff hurt. Still can not use hand due to weakness/stiffness/arthur in fingers. Getting better.

No way could I use then or now anything other than a light powered/moderate weight revolver. Was shocked that I never even thought about weak hand use being semi-permanent. Also need to be able to carry the gun (no purse for manly me) and use it one-handed (damn velcro cast).

Considering self-defense will probably moderately close quarters anything she finds "fun" to shoot w/both hands should be fine. Aim for the balls to get their attention.

" Aim for the balls to get their attention."

I always forget - does aiming low 'cause you hit high apply to gunfights or knife stabs.

Sitting at DTW, waiting for a plane . . .

Galco makes some excellent little-old-lady leather purses which are custom-made for carrying. Touches like a steel cable in the strap, so it can't be razored. They are spendy, but mrs llamas tells me that they are built tough and wear like a pig's nose. And they stand behind their product, 100% replacement warranty, no questions asked. And they are deep-cover, you'd never guess . . .

Lock box in the car, so you can secure your weapon to be in accordance with state law (when she goes to meet her girlfriends at Duggan's Irish Pub), but still have it in the vehicle, coming and going.

Amazon sells holsters and all supporting equipment. If she wears pants a lot, the Fobus brand is an absolute revelation - no more bulky hand-tooled leather and similar nonsense. And they're cheap. And they're made in Israel. I have hung all my shiny old leather in the closet and I carry everything in a Fobus now. They are just wicked good.

Aim for the balls is movie-plot stuff. Mamma Alkon is after protecting herself, not making a pseudo-feminist statement or giving him an boo-boo. If she pulls out a piece, she has to be justified to shoot him dead. She should train as LEOs train - the Mozambique drill.

Two in the chest
And one in the head
Keeps you alive
And makes him dead.

Yes, this is nasty stuff. She needs to be ready to think these thoughts. But it's my experience (purely personal opinion) that older folks with Jewish heritage generally have fewer issues with the idea of armed self-defence. The Jewish community centers in the Bloomfields would rattle if you shook them, with all the concealed weapons being hauled around. Don't let the Jewish tendency to support Democrats fool you. The oldest gun shop in northern Oakland county is owned and run by a Jewish family, 3 generations and still going strong.

Practice, practice, practice. She can't just buy a pistol, stick it in her purse, and call it done. She needs to shoot hundreds of rounds to get comfortable and good enough to be carrying. Detroit Bullet Works in Wixom sells top-quality bulk ammunition, all manufactured on the premises, at amazingly-reasonable prices, and if you walk in and tell them what you want they'll custom-roll a batch for you.

Oops, gotta go.

llater,

llamas

llamas,
pure gold.

thanks

My experience as a ranked competitive precision shooter is that revolvers are extremely difficult for a woman to get a consistent grip on.

They also can't be loaded quickly and have no safety. So you either need to keep the hammer down, on the empty chamber, and be able to pull the hammer double action to rotate around to a loaded chamber, or carry it unloaded.

Revolvers are great for home defense where you keep them in the drawer. Not so great for concealed carry.

And lLamas, shooting a pistol all day long is what I do best, however most people can't do it accurately for for than three or four rounds at most.

My mother no longer has the finger strength at 90 to pull the trigger on any gun.

Where I do agree with Llamas is if you are going to carry concealed, you need to put at least as much thought into both the gun, and the practice as you would a car and a driver's license.

In other words, a lot. A gun you don't know well, and haven't practiced with is going to be of very little use in a high pressure situation.

"So you either need to keep the hammer down, on the empty chamber,..."

Nit: transfer-bar construction removes this requirement, as the hammer cannot strike a primer unless the trigger is pulled, regardless of what else is happening. They're not sprung back away to clear the cartridge to allow the cylinder to rotate.

(Note to spectators: the term "single-action" means that in a pistol or any kind, the trigger is used only to release the striker or hammer, which is under spring tension, to strike the cartridge primer and fire a bullet. "Double-action" means that the initial pulling effort of the trigger is used to rotate the cylinder of a revolver, and cock the striker or hammer, then release it to fire the bullet.)

The transition between single- and double-action requires a great deal more training; I have seen people who prefer the calm precision of single-action revolver shooting spend hours at the range and not once practice shooting quickly in double-action.

@ Isab - I must say no to you. And I will give you my reasons . . . .

I stand by what I said - for the 78-year-old Mrs Alkon, and indeed for most other people, the modern hammerless revolver in 38 Special or equivalent is the optimum choice for concealed carry.

- Your years of competitive shooting, which may even match my own, are actually of little benefit in this calculus. You are looking at the issue with years of experience and training, which it is unreasonable to expect Mrs Alkon and most other people to match. It took me a long time to be able to look past this.

- If Mrs Alkon does not have the hand strength to pull a DA revolver trigger, then she also does not have the hand strength or dexterity to rack the slide on any comparable semi-auto pistol, requiring both hands, which is an absolute necessity to be able to do if she is to carry it. Semi-autos jam, and the user must be able to clear the jam, else it is just a finely-finished paperweight.

- I would not consider any pistol with an exposed hammer to be safe or prudent for the untrained user to carry. There's just too much that can go wrong, whether it be a revolver or a semi-auto.

- Semi-auto pistols are much-too-prone to failure in the real world. They are sensitive to dirt, to ammunition choices, to interference from clothing or surroundings, even to the way they are held. And a semi-auto that jams in action requires a lot more skill, coordination, training and strength to recover. I have seen plenty of LEOs and competitive shooters stumble-jacking around with a stove-piped semi-auto to make that a recommendation. If you're honest, so have you.

- Modern semi-autos have tried all sorts of approaches to get a light trigger pull. Some require the manipulation of controls, like de-cockers and safeties. These all require training and continual practice to use safely and effectively. Some have no safety at all, like the Glock and others of similar pattern - which is one reason why they have such an embarrassing rate of accidental discharges, even among LEOs who have supposedly been trained and practice with them regularly. So you either have to deal with something that has multiple controls and therefore multiple outcomes, or something which goes off when you didn't want it to. Bad choices.

- Semi-auto pistols require regular maintenance. They must be kept clean and lubricated if they are to function reliably. Field-strip every few weeks, and a complete tear-down every few months, is about the size of it. The modern revolver, by contrast, is much-more tolerant of dirt and dry, and will work under almost any circumstances.

- The modern hammerless revolver has none of these issues. It works in one mode and one mode only. There are no controls to work or practice. The long DA trigger pull is its own safety. The internal hammer bar means you can drop it or pound it with hammers, and it won't go off. You can let it get dusty, or hold it upside down, or let your sleeve or scarf touch it, or load it with non-name cr*p ammunition from Czechoslovakia, and it will not fire when you don't want it to, and it will fire when you do. It is easy to unload and make 100% safe, and you never have to wonder whether there's still a live one up the spout.

- Is a revolver harder to reload? Maybe. I shot PPC for 20 years with a revolver, and my reloads beat the pants off those young whippersnappers with their semi-autos. And reloading a semi-auto fast and reliably under pressure takes lots of skill and practice, too. You want the world's record for fast reloads? Jerry Miculek - with a revolver. And again - if you're honest - you know you have also seen plenty of LEOs and competitive shooters fumble-juggling around with magazines that don't drop out or won't go in, or they ran it dry and stove-piped it racking a fresh round in. The supposed advantage of faster reloading of a magazine-fed weapon often evaporates in the real world.

- More capacity? This ignores the fact that most real-world self-defense situations involve 3 rounds or less, and a surprising proportion involve no rounds at all. The best possible outcome. Now, at this point, semi-auto fans will say 'well, there was the FBI shootout in Miami' or 'what about the LA bank robbery shootout?". But those are vanishingly-rare cases - all they prove is that you should not bring a pistol to a rifle fight.

No one weapon is perfect for concealed carry. It would have to have unlimited capacity, be small and light, but have adequate killing power, 100% reliable, simple to use for the average user and intrinsically safe. Such an animal there are not. But the closest we have come to that result so far is the modern hammerless revolver in 38 Special. That's why I recommend it for Mrs Alkon, and indeed, for 99% of other people as well.

I have choices. For years, I carried either a Hi-Power or a S&W 39. Many rounds, much capacity! Light trigger pull! But I have 30 years experience shooting semi-auto pistols, thousands of rounds a year. And even with all that, I finally got smart. Carrying one of those things all the time is a pain. They are big and bulky and heavy. Sometimes, you just can't carry them at all. They need constant looking after. And now I carry - guess what? All the time. The only reason I don't have it with me right now is that I'm in another state and the hassle of transporting it by air is just too much. I know it will work. It's enough gun, with enough capacity, to resolve 99.9998% of the cases where a concealed weapon can resolve the issue. I stopped worrying about the one-in-a million situation where it won't help me, and started concentrating on the other 999,999 situations where having it with me, and having it work, are what really matters.

llater,

llamas

I want to thank both llamas and Isab for their comments.

It's good to have 'experts' look at both products and concepts from a beginners and limited-capacity (hand strength/mobility) POV.

W/my dominant hand useless and my weak hand weaker my visit to the gun store was eye-opening when it came to operating and loading both a semi-auto pistol, the small derringers, and both types of revolvers (SA and DA).

The vast majority of guns I tried out were heavy paper weights for me at this time so there is some good stuff to think about from what both of you said.

If semi autos weren't pretty darn reliable, they would not be the gun of choice for 99 percent of the shooters at Camp Perry (where a double alibi will cost you the match)

And no, they don't need to be totally taken apart and cleaned every few months.

I break mine down every year, but that is because I shoot about ten k rounds through a year, and they are light dirty lead target loads.
Jacketed rounds are much cleaner, but they wear the barrel faster, and are double the cost.

I also have very expensive target triggers, that don't perform well when gummed up.

In 99 percent of self defense situations all you need is to have a gun, and know how to use it. Caliber matters very little.

Unfortunately even the strongest 78 year old woman will be a much less strong 85 year old woman in very short order. If all she can handle safely is a 22, that is all she should be carrying,

If she wants to carry competently and safely, she is going to have to train with the gun, at about the same frequency that she drives a car, if she wants to continue driving.

Most elderly woman aren't up for that level of commitment, and should not be carrying at all.

"No one" should just go out, and buy a gun for carry without giving serious thought to their physical limitations, and their personal vulnerabilities.

For most elderly people, their biggest danger and vulnerability might be if their car breaks down.

A better plan, than carrying a gun around in your purse, might be to keep it under the seat, or in the glove box, so you can get to it, if you break down in a bad neighborhood.

Please note that manufacturers have stepped up recently and produced semiauto pistols with low spring tension - and that said tension need only be fought when the gun is first loaded, at home, by anyone, at leisure.