I have an aversion to guns, although I admire the engineering which goes into them. In the seventies I did an audit at a very ordinary house near Chesterfield. The Sole Trader was into guns in a big way, and insisted on showing me his Dirty Harry Magnum .44.
It's a big handgun with a long barrel, and was beautifully made with an oiled metal finish. He insisted that I held it and it was at that point that I felt really uncomfortable, holding this weapon of death. What was really interesting about it though was the weight. It took two hands to hold it in the raised position, and I would think that at a distance it would be hard to hit a small object. Goodness knows what the recoil felt like.
I don't fear guns anymore than I fear a circular saw. Both are dangerous, but the bigger danger is the untrained emotional idiot behind a gun.
A gun is a lump of engineered metal that is incapable of independent action.
Shooting pistols at targets is like golf, pointless, but a personal challenge. I enjoy it when I'm in the USA. I learned to shoot with the Air Training Corps and I'm quite good at perforating paper targets.
I've fired a .38 Magnum, on a range. At 10 yards I got one out of 6 shots on a 12" square paper target. The recoil is fearsome. It is a useless toy.
So I expect a 44 Magnum is even more useless lump and would really hurt if dropped on your foot.
I also fired a Browning 9mm semi automatic pistol, I got all 12 shots on the target and a good group.
Overall pistols are decoration, in my view they have no real hunting, combat or any other sensible use, other than target shooting.
My friends in the USA say the best personal home defence weapon is a sawn off semi automatic shotgun, not a pistol.
