Beretta Blog

There’s a great deal of debate when it comes to creating and training for a home defense plan. The decisions you make and the tools you select will come down to what you personally believe you’re trying to accomplish.

Do you believe the best plan is to silently “retreat, retreat, retreat” and hide in hopes either the authorities will arrive or the bad guys will leave on their own before they find your hiding spot? Or are you of the mind to aggressively confront and repel the intruders … shooting if necessary in the process? Or is it your goal to more passively repel them – scare them off – hopefully, without a shot being fired?

Heriberto Aceves is dead. The store owner was robbed back in his Bakersfield, CA store in late 2016 and the armed assailants brutally assaulted Aceves and his son. Aceves, though, put up a fight. He had a pistol behind the counter. Though the gun was loaded, the chamber was empty - in other words, "Israeli Carry." As Aceves struggled to rack the slide, his assailant shot him.

Earlier this year, Arkansas became one of the first states in the country to issue what the state calls an “enhanced” concealed carry permit. The new regulations allow those with an enhanced endorsement to carry a concealed firearm many places that are off limits to those with the standard CHCL: public college campuses, churches, even bars. Are these new permits a step in the right direction for those of us who carry concealed?

The instructor of the course I attended to acquire my first Minnesota Permit to Carry was a goofball. The six-plus hours of classroom instruction were heavy on his tales of bounty hunting adventure and his personal political and religious views. They were vapidly light on meaningful content. Though this was nearly a decade ago, and I have attended much better “thinking man’s” carry training since, one piece of good advice from “GI Joe” still rings loud in my head:

“There is nothing worth killing for that isn’t worth dying for.”

Gun ownership continues to grow at record levels in the United States, and concealed carry permits are increasing right alongside gun sales, reaching record levels last year with no end in sight. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of people who go to the trouble and expense of getting a concealed carry permit don’t carry a pistol on a regular basis. When I went through my CCW class in Arizona many years ago, our instructor said that only a third of us would commit to carrying our guns on a regular basis. Based on my experience since then, I think he was optimistic.

Every time summer rolls around, I find myself justifying the .380 as a practical concealed carry round. It is a story I tell myself, really. When the temperature hits triple digits, I tend to shed layers of clothing—layers that I rely on to conceal my preferred double-stack 9mm.

What do I have against the .380? Nothing really. In my years in the firearm industry, I’ve plugged away at numerous gel blocks. I’ve studied the terminal ballistics of the 9mm Kurz, and I like what I see.

Suppose you’re planning a road trip and intend to transport a firearm in your vehicle. You’re a law-abiding citizen, and of course, there’s this thing called the Second Amendment that should cover you, right? Well, not exactly.

In part, because the Founders of the United States believed that most laws should be made locally, states carry a lot of power when it comes to regulations of firearms ownership and transportation. As a lawful gun owner, it’s up to you to know the laws of your home state, but also each and every state you visit while in possession of a firearm. Let’s plan a hypothetical road trip to outline some of the things you need to know.

Not too long ago, iron sights were the king of sighting systems for pistols and rifles. Rightfully so, as the fundamental designs of iron sights have remained largely unchanged for 300 years. Iron sights are thus a very mature technology that had been proven to be reliable and rugged. But slowly things began to change.

It’s 8:20 on a summer’s evening as I type this, and twilight is starting to settle in over the small town in Florida where I live. My wife and I will go for a walk after I’m finished with this article. I’ll have a concealed carry pistol with me as I usually do, along with a mobile phone, some other stuff, and a powerful handheld “tactical” flashlight. I consider a small, powerful light to be an absolutely essential part of my everyday carry, and I’ve come to see the benefits of having a light on my firearm as well. Both are useful, and both have their roles for self-defense.

The sport of practical shooting requires you to make fast, accurate shots under the pressure of a shot clock, giving your body a taste of what it might be like to deal with the stress of a real-world encounter.