QUOTE (Fix-it @ Oct 26 2009, 01:36 PM)
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bayonets, like swords, are pretty much ceremonial at this point. if you find yourself that close, with a nonfunctioning rifle, you draw your sidearm and put a few 9mm rounds someplace it will hurt.
My post from another forum (http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=87647&highlight=bayonet+home+defense)
QUOTE
So, there are lots of people who like to talk about home defense.
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But I've never heard/seen anyone talk about mounting a bayonet on their shotgun. Which I think is pretty surprising. I mean, why consider a reflex sight before you consider a bayonet on a shotgun or carbine at that kind of close range?
The way I see it, most people who are in the middle of being home invaded are probably going to be terrified and/or enraged, their hands will be shaking, they'll have adrenaline, and their families will be at risk for death, rape, robbery, etc. In a physically aroused state something like a bayonet would probably be very instinctive to use, very terrifying for the home invaders, and a very easy "solution" for what to do if you have a jam, misfeed, or an empty magazine. Some people counsel firearms n00bs to use a revolver instead of a semi-auto because it's supposedly too hard to tap, rack, and boom under stress, but what about a carbine with at 10-30 rounds in the magazine and a bayonet as well? That's even easier. Under extreme stress it would be a lot easier to charge with a bayonet than to do a speed reload if you don't have a lot of training. People also talk about all the training you need to turn a corner with a longarm so you can retain the weapon and so on, and again having a bayonet on your carbine or shotgun would make it considerably easier for you to carve up someone who happens to be close enough to attempt to grab your weapon. You also don't need to worry about blinding yourself with muzzle flash or stunning yourself by hearing a gunshot indoors with unprotected ears.
Besides, with all the rage and terror, on some emotional level, you'd think someone would want to rip open a body cavity with a bayonet and would do that better with little training than squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, control those shots, don't endanger the neighborhood with stray rounds. What I mean is, unless someone is a real dedicated marksman who has trained so much for rifle combat that their rifle skills are an innate part of them, I believe that they would have more of an emotional desire and instinctive proclivity to rip someone apart with a bayonet because that would be closer to the flight or fight survival reaction that is hardwired into all of us from birth.
The more I think about it, the more a bayonet sounds like a very sensible home-defense accessory. Why don't people ever discuss/market home defense bayonets?
Besides for that, even for someone who trains a lot, I think that bayonets are deadly, easy to use, very instinctive, and probably a great and versatile tool for any combat taking place indoors. People always talk about hypothetical scenarios where you shoot a knife-wielder who is 10 feet away with your handgun but he still jumps forward and guts you like a rainbow trout because you can. But what if you were shooting him repeatedly while ramming a rifle with a bayonet hard into his diaphram? You might actually be able to fling him back.
You'd be able to create some distance if you had a rifle with a rifle with a bayonet at the end. If a guy with a knife came at you and you didn't have a melee weapon you'd be at a very serious dis-advantage. But if you had a rifle with a bayonet, even if for some reason you couldn't shoot, it would be relatively easy to pivot to the right or left, check the knife hand, and counter cut somewhere, or just pivot out and attempt to cut the tendons on the knife hand. It would be much much easier and more likely to succeed if you had a spear type weapon than if you just had a weirdly shaped club or a firearm you weren't using as a club.
Similarly if someone wanted to try and tackle you and disarm you or something in close quarters it would be much harder to do if you could shoot him and carve him open like a Thanksgiving roast at the same time than if you could only shoot him and sort of attempt to poke him with the barrel.
I always felt personally that training in firearms was incomplete without lots of training in hand to hand combat. Having your rifle also be an edged melee weapon would just aid the smooth transition from one mode of combat to the other as needed.