I just HAD to vent a little...
It never ceases to amaze me how, in our society, ownership=identity.
The debate of 1911 v. Everything Else (usually Glock) has raged since the Wonder Nine's first appeared in the 1980s. Since the advent of online shooting forums, the debate has reached new levels of retard.
The entire premise of the debate is stupid! And here's why, starting with a brief synopsis of both guns.
Browning's 1911 was designed to provide the US Army a reliable automatic pistol. At that time, there were only two reliable auto pistols in the world: the Mauser C96 and the P-08 Luger. The 1911 was the army's first gun to utilize smokeless powder and easily outmatched the Colt 1899 revolver, whose poor performance during the Moro Rebellion drove the army to field a new pistol in the first place.
The 1911 is often criticized for its features, such as the manual safety lever or the grip safety (put there because ignorant GIs in WWI carried theirs, hot, in a loose bag which led to discharges and injuries). People don't like single-stack magazines (the most reliable at the time, it wouldn't change until the Hi-Power in 1935). They don't like the 7-round capacity. These are all valid reasons, but they can be explained by the training methodology of the era. In 1911, America was one of few armies who issued pistols to their enlisted men. In Europe, pistols were reserved for officers, whose main job was keeping order in the ranks, even if it meant shooting mutineers. Also, a pistol was seen as a back-up weapon. You were expected to use the rifle first, then the handgun.
Then Glock came along in the 1980s and threw both anti-gunners and hardline traditionalists into a frenzy. Gaston Glock's no-frills pistol became the shooting industry's biggest guilty pleasure....until someone proved that they worked and weren't made of plastic. Glock embodies a methodology usually applied to revolvers: "All you have to do is pull the trigger."
The debate between the two is stupid. Both designs are almost 100 years apart, and many things have changed. Military, police and especially civilians are training for scenarios where a pistol is their only weapon. The price of ammunition alone is causing people, even professionals, to train less.
The 1911 by itself is a fabulous gun, but it wasn't until the end of WWII that it became the legendary relic of Superman that it is now. Initially, the US Army is the only group of people who carried it. During Prohibition, only rich mobsters and federal agents had them. Nobody else could afford them! Revolvers dominated the law enforcement and civilian markets until the 1990s. The 1911 is indeed a great gun. However, the learning curve is much higher than the Glock, which is the reason Glocks became so popular in the first place. Most gun schools have separate classes for 1911 owners because the manual of arms is alien to most shooters. If you're not willing to consistently master the manual safety as part of your draw-shoot-scan-reholster routine, then the 1911 isn't the gun for you. This gets people killed. When under the stress of a life-threatening encounter, they don't hit the safety switch before pulling the trigger on the bad guy. But the Marine Corps and Special Forces units still carry Browing's masterpiece for a reason: they know how to use it.
Any trained soldier will tell you that it's the human who is the real weapon, not the tool. They don't gloat about their guns, they gloat about the ability to use a wide variety of guns to accomplish the mission.
Don't miss my rant on my M16 v. AK47 debate.
