Sure, full-sized “fighting pistols” are the bread and butter of the defensive handgunning world. But where do truly miniature guns like these fit into the equation?

I have often said that the best thing about small guns is that they’re small and that the worst thing about small guns is that they’re small. Their size is both their greatest blessing and their deepest curse.

Without their diminutive dimensions, they’d never be able to fulfill the needs of those who require them for truly deep concealment. But that concealability comes at a steep cost: For most shooters — especially new shooters — these are borderline experts’ guns. Between the very minimalistic sights; a short sight radius; how they sit in most shooters’ hands; what are often very long, heavy trigger pulls; and the work that goes into pairing the most accurate load to a sub-3-inch barrel, landing “minute-of-bad-guy” shots much beyond 7 yards requires a level of work that a lot of gun owners just aren’t willing to invest.

Complicating matters further, some of the more recent entries to the market have blurred the lines between a “belt gun” and a “pocket gun” — specifically 9mm pistols such as the Springfield Hellcat, the SIG P365, the Mossberg MC2sc and the rest of the double-stack “micro-9” offerings. They’re certainly jacket-pocket guns, but unless you wear the same style of trousers as the film-noir detectives Humphrey Bogart played, they’re a bit much for a pants pocket.

Nope, to a lot of folks, a “pocket gun” is a single-stack semi-auto, narrower than an inch and small and light enough that — let’s all be honest here — you won’t look forward to running even a full box of ammo through it.

But where does that leave revolvers? Isn’t a snub-nosed .38 vSpecial a pocket gun?

Well, this again brings us back to the Bogart question: Just how big a pocket are we talking about here? The quintessential American snubnose, the Smith & Wesson Model 36, is over an inch and a half wide and sports a hammer spur that pretty much guarantees snags unless it is fitted with something like the shrouds from LEOCombat.com.

Even when you bump over to something like a Smith & Wesson 442, with an internal hammer, you’re still dealing with a far larger, thicker footprint than you are with something like a KelTec P3AT — and you’re launching rounds that aren’t going to hit all that much harder without bumping up to +P stuff (which most people hate shooting out of a small gun). This war’s raged for over a century, whether a small revolver or a small auto is “better” for concealed carry, but there is no denying that a small centerfire revolver is just plain more difficult to conceal in a standard 2022 pocket than is a small centerfire semi-auto.

Certain rimfire revolvers, however, are another matter entirely.

Since their (re)popularization in the 1970s and ‘80s, tiny little .22-cal single-actions have occupied one of the oddest niches in the handgunning market: the revolver that appears to exist simply as proof of concept. Like Magnum Research’s BFR (“Biggest, Finest Revolver”) chambered in straight-walled rifle rounds like .45-70, these wheelies seem to be an exercise in merely proving that something is possible: Sure, you could build a revolver that takes long-action rifle rounds; and sure, you could make a single-action chambered in .22 Short that could be fitted into a custom belt buckle.

But what would the point be?

Well, there might be an even better argument for the tiny little revolver than for the great big revolver.

Enormous revolvers exist primarily for big-game hunting. This is a popular (or at least semi-popular) activity because it’s basically always easier to hunt big game with a rifle than with a handgun, and hunting with a handgun increases the challenge. But as with every activity that is “all about the challenge,” the next step after adopting it as a hobby is to purchase every last advantage to make the “challenge” as meetable as possible.

This is how we end up with 10-inch-barreled revolvers chambered in rifle cartridges sporting Picatinny rails from which hunters can mount and hang optics, sling swivels and bipods.

Tiny revolvers, however, meet a different set of needs, and they’re nothing new. Smith & Wesson was manufacturing a palm-sized unit back before the Civil War, and the idea of a small, concealable revolver, even in a cartridge that would normally be considered too diminutive for defensive use, is one of addition rather than replacement. As a North American Arms marketing representative once told me at one of our expos, “USCCA Members understand our guns better than any other group of people. They understand that you’re carrying one of these revolvers not instead of your normal gun, but in addition to your normal gun.”

To be terribly frank, I would bet that a lot of NAA owners do not follow that ethos. I would be willing to bet that many of them carry those little revolvers and nothing else: no other firearm, no reloads, and not even a holster in which to secure those NAAs. Those little single-actions are their insurance policies against disaster; their aces in the hole if they’re confronted by anyone who would violently victimize them. They’re counting on the threat of getting shot and, if necessary, the reality of getting shot (even if just with a little tiny gun) to get them out of a tight scrape.

And to be honest, it’s a lot better plan than not carrying a pistol at all. Lest we forget, it’s not like no one’s ever been shot and killed with a .22 rimfire handgun. That little punk John Hinckley Jr. just about murdered President Reagan with a pot metal Rohm .22, and I’ve personally interviewed a man in Mississippi who was unfortunate enough to have to shoot (and subsequently kill) his own son to save his and his wife’s lives. And to stop that attack, he used a .22 LR revolver very similar to Hinckley’s. (The entire tragic incident is detailed in our January 2017 issue, available online through your Member Dashboard.)

So let us all dispense with the talk that a .22 isn’t enough to “do the job.” It is certainly not ideal for self-defense, but I would shoot any aggressor who pointed a .22 revolver at me. It is certainly deadly force, and it is certainly nothing with which to fiddle around.

The biggest area in which the “a .22 is better than nothing BUT” crowd dings the mini revolvers on is the reloads. The original North American Arms model was defined by a single-action mechanism that required the cylinder pin and cylinder to be removed to eject empty brass and reload the gun. This was the case for many years until the introduction of the NAA Ranger series in 2017. This revolver incorporates a top-break design that makes for much easier reloading because the cylinder doesn’t have to be removed from the frame. Bear in mind, in order to eject the empties from a traditional NAA, you need one hand to hold the cylinder, one hand to run the cylinder pin through the chambers and … another hand (or pocket) to hold the barreled frame. This leads to a distinct hand shortage for a lot of shooters whose paws are not large enough to hold all of the components as the cylinder’s chambers are cleared and recharged.

If there is one aspect of the Ranger II that might trip up the shooter, it is the proximity of the action release to the hammer. In order to release the cylinder for loading and unloading, the shooter raises a lock that keeps the action closed during cycling. While this is no different from some of the other topbreak designs, the micro nature of the arm can lead some shooters to fear they may activate the release when they intend to cock the hammer back. If this feels like the kind of thing you think you should be worried about, I will steer you toward the NAA Sidewinder, pictured on Page 34, which has a swing-out cylinder that is actuated through the cylinder rod.

Though I personally find target shooting with mini revolvers to be great sport, these are as much about self-defense as the biggies are about hunting. Basically no one heads off to the range for a leisurely afternoon of sending a few boxes of $5-per-cartridge big-game loads through his or her .460 S&W Magnum, and basically no one wants to scoop up the NAAs and go shoot bullseye with me. They’re both just too far outside of what I call the “Model 10 sweet spot,” or the K-frame Smith & Wesson Model 10 that was so popular for almost all of the 20th century because it was so easy for the average man or woman to use. Both the great big revolver and the little tiny revolver are terribly no-nonsense firearms, and that can come with a price.

On the one end of the scale, the price is a revolver that weighs as much as some rifles do. And on the other end of that scale is a revolver so small that it can be difficult for some shooters to even visualize how they would properly hold it.

Mini revolvers aren’t perfect for everyone, but neither is anything else. Like a scandium-frame .44 Magnum snubbie that is so light, discharging it will make you feel as if you just landed a punch wrong, the minis are permutations of the revolver that are misunderstood, maligned and all too often bought without really understanding what’s at stake. But unless you’re some weirdo like me who fancies an impossible challenge at the range, they’re fighting guns through and through.

Not much fighting gun, but certainly — without question — better than nothing.

Eugene O. Jamison had a degree in dairy science. He knew everything that should be in milk, what should not be in milk, and how milk should be processed, stored and served. He never milked a cow in his life. This was much to the amusement of his father-in-law, who milked cows every day. Each was a milk expert in his own way. Each could testify about milk … depending on what sort of evidence was wanted.

Juries are selected for their complete ignorance of the technical evidence in the cases before them, so experts are required to educate them. Renowned defense attorney F. Lee Bailey once argued a poisoning case and desperately tried to keep a chemistry professor on the jury in hopes that the man would understand the evidence and educate the rest of the jury. Bailey, unfortunately but predictably, failed, but the case underscores the importance of expert testimony in open court and at least helps explain why expert witnesses are increasingly necessary in the judicial system. Prosecutors worry about the “CSI effect.” After de- cades of TV shows about forensic science, juries are reluctant to convict without it, and the converse is also true.

Jurors in a mock trial saw a prosecution fingerprint expert testify, and most were ready to convict on his testimony alone. When a defense expert was added to explain how fingerprints were gathered and examined, there was a significant reluctance to convict.¹ When the only expert testifying is a cheerleader for the prosecution, conviction will be the result. Thus, any self-defense “insurance” policies that do not provide funds for experts are inadequate. Experts can be from many fields. I have employed private investigators to search for bullets with metal detectors.

These investigators could be introduced in court as "fact witnesses," which are easier to introduce than expert witnesses. In one case, an unhappy (and very possibly insane) ex-wife tried to steal her ex-husband’s ATV, and the ex-husband fired a warning shot from a shotgun. Warning shots are almost never advisable.² In this case, the lady fled to the sheriff’s office and gave an imaginative account of buckshot whistling past her head and kicking up dirt on her and a companion.³ I hired an investigator, who took a metal detector to the spot my client pointed out and found a load of buckshot. I knew what the prosecutor would argue and sent the investigator back to scan the entire yard and place every bit of metal in a clear plastic bag. He testified to finding these objects. When the prosecutor claimed that my client planted the buckshot, I jingled the bag of scrap metal and demonstrated that buckshot was found in only one spot.

In another case, an architect was employed to diagram a room. A ballistics expert then testified as to the track of the defensive bullet. This demonstrated where my client was and where the intruder was at the time of the shooting. This supported my client’s testimony.

I have used a gunsmith to tell me if a gun was working properly. In one case, it was working properly ... and that was not what I wanted to hear. In any field, there are those who will testify convincingly to whatever is desired. On one occasion, Jackson County, Missouri, judges declared they would no longer take evidence from a workmen’s compensation insurance company doctor who declared that every injury was "psychosomatic." Using such “experts” who can be bought gives an attorney a certain reputation that makes his or her legitimate claims questionable.

A judge has broad authority to admit experts in fields he or she knows nothing about. Attorneys must convince the judge to exercise his or her “gatekeeper” function to allow an expert to testify. The first obstacle is to convince the judge that such a field of study exists. Outside of routine medical and forensic testimony, this can be quite a struggle. In one case, a defendant emptied nearly the entire magazine from an SKS into a threat. The prosecution argued that this was overkill and evidence of murder.⁴ The defense named a retired police trainer to testify as to the human dynamics of a gunfight — specifically that “rapid-fire syndrome” results in emptying a weapon into a threat.

The prosecution denied that there was any such field of study and then named a retired highway patrolman as its expert in the same field. This caused some amusement in the defense expert, who knew that the highway patrolman, early in his career, had emptied his .357 Magnum into a threat who was later found to have been armed with a toy.⁵ The judge demanded to see an appellate opinion from his state ruling such evidence admissible. The acts of other courts would not do. No judge likes to be first in such a field.

The basis for an expert to take the stand was laid out in the 1993 case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc.:

• The testimony must be scientifically valid and reliable.

• The testimony must be based on more than subjective belief or unsupported speculation.

• The methodology should include conclusions that can be and have been tested.

• The methodology should be subject to peer review and publication.

• The methodology should have some known or potential error rate.

• There should be standards maintained in the discipline.

• The methodology should be generally accepted in the scientific community.⁶

This was a U.S. Supreme Court decision, and state court standards may vary. These standards presume a science in which degrees are granted; experts in practical matters, such as milking a cow, will be more difficult to introduce.

The expert’s resume should be requested along with any articles or books he or she has written and other cases in which he or she has testified. During such a vetting process, it may be found that an "expert" has changed his or her opinions from case to case in order to fit his or her paychecks.

The expert’s training must be examined. Many forensic labs have experts whose preparation consisted of little more than on-the-job training. Some labs do not periodically requalify their experts, and some others do not double-check an expert’s work; in some, the double-check is perfunctory. Mistakes happen. An FBI agent was charged with drunk driving following an accident.

Upon investigation, it was determined that his blood test was confused at the hospital with another party’s test.⁷

There is even the occasional report of an expert who invented test results to match the desired result.

Then there are genuine differences of opinion. The excellent movie The Trial of Bernard Goetz is taken directly from the trial transcripts. An expert for the prosecution testified that something is absolutely positively and to a reasonable scientific certainty true. An expert for the defense said that it is absolutely positively and to a reasonable scientific certainty not true. The jury was supposed to decide between them. Such a decision will probably go to the expert who explains technical matters in a manner the average person can understand.

Then there are junk sciences. For decades, people were put in prison based on hair comparisons. People shed hair like dogs shed fur. Hair found at a crime scene was compared to a suspect and the suspect went to prison. Ironically, hair-evidence textbooks were emphatic that all hairs on a person were different from every other hair. The texts were clear that it is not possible to scientifically state a suspect’s hair matches the crime-scene hair. Hair experts got around this by saying the hairs were “consistent.” This means that they are both the same color, fine or coarse, curly or straight. Prosecutors presented the term “consistent” as if it meant “match.”⁸

Innocent people went to prison. Fortunately, DNA demonstrated that some of these convictions were wrong. Someone finally read the hair-comparison textbooks and got his or her own expert.

The art-appreciation means to conviction finally went the way of phrenology.⁹

Photographs and videos are common items of evidence, but cellphones and security cameras often give indistinct representations of events. Self-defense frequently happens at night, further blurring these events. This leaves such videos open to interpretation.

One nighttime video was the basis for a charge of brandishing a firearm. An expert heightened the contrast in the video to show that the defendant did not have a gun. Prosecutors still claimed to see a gun. They did, however, offer an exceptionally good plea bargain.

There are experts in the reconstruction of shooting incidents. 10This field requires expertise in blood-spatter analysis, ballistics, wounds, firearms and human reactions under stress. As such, a single expert may not be enough. In the copyright page of Shooting Incident Reconstruction, it warns: “Knowledge and best practices in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research method, professional practices or medical treatment may become necessary.”

This is a nice way of saying that some things experts absolutely, positively and to a reasonable scientific certainty know are true … are not. So be certain to check whether an "expert" has continued his or her education.

Please send questions to Kevin L. Jamison 2614 NE 56th Ter Gladstone Missouri 64119-2311 KLJamisonLaw@ earthlink.net. Individual answers are not usually possible but may be addressed in future columns.

(1) Garrett, Brandon L., Autopsy of a Crime Lab (University of California Press, Oakland, CA, 2021), 114. (2) See Jamison, K. L., “Warning Shots,” Concealed Carry Magazine, August/September 2011, at 60 et seq. (3) Ballistically impossible. (4) The prosecution later argued that the defendant’s wood-frame garage apartment was the equivalent of a “World War II bunker.” (5) The trooper retired after a long career with a contract to testify to any matter useful to the state. (6) Garrett, Autopsy of a Crime Lab, at 124. (7) Wittman, Robert K., Priceless (Broadway Paperbacks, NY, 2010), at 45 et seq. (8) Matching fingerprints to those left at crime scenes has proven to have its own problems. For mistakes, see Garrett, Autopsy of a Crime Lab, a critical text for lawyers dealing with crime labs. (9) An old junk science that predicted criminal inclinations by examining the bumps on a suspect’s head. (10) See Hueske, Edward E., Practical Analysis and Reconstruction of Shooting Incidents (CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2006), and Haag and Haag, Shooting Incident Reconstruction (Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 2011).