REVIEWS
A Handier Hammer
Hold the mousegun wisecracks! A .32 ACP--when you need it--is nothing to sneeze at.
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And all the big handguns have drawbacks as well. Sometimes only a small gun will do. And sometimes the "small" in question is not bulk, but caliber.
Yes, when a fire breaks out in your kitchen you want a fire extinguisher big enough to handle the fire. But if the FD-surplus monster smogger you bought for your grandmother is too big for her to haul out of the closet, does it really do her any good?
Not all of us are large, young, strong and highly accomplished shooters. And yet many of us still need protection. Sweeney's Rule No. 7: There is no such thing as "one gun that does it all." If there were, there would be only one gun, and gun magazines would be sooo boring. To tell a retiree that "real calibers start with the number four" and other such "advice" is to miss the point: They need something, and anything is better than nothing. My wife is an example. A career in the printing industry has left her with less than full hand strength. She simply can't use a double-action revolver. Many bigbore pistols require too much hand strength for her to get the slide back. If she can't load it by herself, it really isn't much use now, is it? In her case, having someone who can supply dozens of samples until we find the right one, the one that works for her, is great. Not everyone has that option.
So, smaller guns, in smaller calibers, but with easy-to-use features and light recoil, quickly become the only option for a whole lot of people.
Enter the Taurus PT132, a 10-shot, double-action-only .32 ACP. Yes, yes, yes, we've all heard the declarative advice "The [fill in the blank] is the minimum caliber for serious self-defense." And regardless of the writer or expert, .32 Auto isn't on that list. Tell that to the little old lady who simply cannot work the .38 Special revolver that tops your list. She can't handle it. Or tell it to the big-city cop I know who packed a Femaru P-37 as his backup gun. He'd shot enough people over the course of his career, with various calibers, that he was quite happy to have his .32 at hand.
The advantages of the Taurus are simple: It is big enough to get a good hold on without being so large as to be a handful. The recoil is mild, so there is not an issue with blast or punch causing the shooter problems in practice. The mild caliber does not require a Buick-like recoil spring. And the capacity is 10+1. Now, I readily admit that the .32 Auto is not exactly a Major caliber, but it beats sharp words or a stick, and by a big margin. My experience has been that bad guys on the wrong end of a gun are more concerned about the temperament of the person holding it ther than the size of the hole at the muzzle. With even just a bit of practice, someone shooting a .32 can have a lot more confidence in being able to hit things than someone with the same small amount of practice with a bigbore. And more practice makes the shooter with the smaller gun better, faster than the big gun.
Faced with a determined "victim" who is holding a firearm, a lot of two-legged predators will move on. Nothing builds confidence like putting holes in paper or cardboard, in close proximity to the intended location, without a lot of blast and recoil.
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