Min-maxing Myths

To "min-max" comes mainly from role playing games. It's the notion of trying to make your points go as far as possible without regard to anything that might make the game more fun.This same thing gets applied to real life too. I think all of us are guilty of it.A friend of mine got a gun recently to fill a home protection need that he suddenly had after a break-in. He got together with a buddy, shot some guns and decided on one.Of course, when you're getting a gun, the first thing you want is the most "stopping power" you can have. You look online to see what has the best "one-shot stop," whatever the hell that means. You want big and fast. You assume that you're as good as what you've seen in the movies. You want to spend as little as possible.It's playing the numbers game.My recommendation was (and still is) a full-size .40 S&W with a double-action pull. Is it the fastest bullet? No. Biggest? No. Most powerful? No. Most ammunition capacity? No. Smallest? Concealable? Hell no. Cheapest? No.It's a compromise. A good Glock, Smith & Wesson, Sig, or Springfield would serve you well. They all hold somewhere around 15-16 rounds. None of them have any "safeties" other than a long heavy-ish trigger pull. All of them are used by law enforcement all over the place.He got himself a .357 Magnum revolver. It's not a bad gun by any stretch of the imagination. Personally, I rather like wheel guns. But I like them for fun.You have six shots. You better know where you're shooting. If you don't hit none of the "one shot stop" will do you much good. Reloading will also take longer. And, as an added bonus you don't have the option of night sights either. (Remember, home defense here. It'll likely be dark)People have a similar opinion of a shotgun. You point it in a direction and that side of the room gets taken out. Nope. At 20-30 feet you have a pattern of a few inches. The min-maxing fails again.In the movies when you shoot someone they go flying across the room. In real life they might just get more pissed off at you. If you miss they might even hold the upper hand.Then he looks at the 1911 in .45 ACP and sees a big honking bullet. Awesome, right? Well, it's a good gun, but you only have seven or eight rounds. And it has a far more complex manual of arms than a simple double-action pull. If you don't practice, you won't use it correctly. Then you fail.Life is full of compromises.A lot of them aren't sexy.But sexy doesn't (necessarily) win the game. (Ok, in some games it does... but those don't involve guns for the most part)