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puma guy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:46 am

Abraham wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:41 am cmgee67,

Wow!

I thought I was grumpy...just please remember: No one is forced to read what others post.

To all: Thanks, I cheerfully thank you all for your responses.

Abraham,
Some may not have had their coffee. I do find it interesting and telling that so many new pistols in .380 have come out in recent years. Markets react to demands.

There is a strong demand for rap “music” in the entertainment industry too. Doesn’t mean it’s any damn good.

Although I have settled on carrying 9mm, I actually agree that .45 is probably more effective.....if you hit your target. I’m reasonably confident that I can hit a target most of the time with either caliber. And like many, I find the .45 reasonably easy to shoot......certainly no more difficult than shooting 9mm. The only reason I carry 9mm is because that’s what my wife carries. The main reason I carry Glocks is because that’s what my wife carries. I can adapt myself to just about anything. She either can’t or won’t be that adaptable; but it doesn’t matter which. I’ve never been able to make her do anything she didn’t want to do since the day I met her. It is important to me that she be able to handle my carry weapon if something should happen to me, even though she always carries one herself.

I have my personal range of calibers which I view to be “sufficient”. What does “sufficient” mean to me? It means that I have complete confidence that it will be enough caliber, if I do my part. Calibers less powerful than 9mm may be “sufficient” in other people’s hands, and those people may have complete confidence in them....and that is fine for them. But in a pinch, I’d rather have even a .25 than no gun at all - Jeff Cooper’s wisdom notwithstanding. I’d take a .22LR over a .25. I’d take a .32 over a .25. I’d take a .380 over either a .25 or a .32. I’d take a .38 +P over a .380, a .25, or a .32. Notice that I did not eliminate the .22LR? What that means is that I regard the .22LR as a legitimate self-defense caliber, even if it isn’t an immediate fight-stopper. I can carry 38 +P in my .357 magnum revolver, but I don’t, I carry .357. Why? Because in the unlikely event that I actually have to shoot it, I’m not going to give much of a hoot about recoil, but I WILL give a hoot about effectiveness - and a .357 magnum has a higher probability of being effective than a .38 +P.

And that is what this all boils down to for me. I don’t mock the less powerful calibers, but they’re not my primary choice for carry. If it were less socially awkward to openly carry a loaded long gun everywhere I went, I’d probably give less thought to what pistol caliber I carry.

mrvmax wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:41 am This has been and will continue to be addressed ad nauseum, it’s just the nature of the topic. Some info on documented SD round use is great, some is too biased to rely upon. Think about it logically, you need to stop a deadly threat that is trying to take your life or someone around you. The piece of metal you fire needs to disrupt a vital component of the attackers body to stop it from functioning enough to stop the attack and anything that accomplishes that will work. The question is what will give you a greater chance of hitting a vital area to stop the attack? Certainly a larger projectile increases the odds. Higher velocity and accuracy will also increase the odds. Decide how you will stack those odds in your favor and pray that you never live to see the day when you need to prove it out.

Exactly. The only way to be reasonably sure is to carry a centerfire long gun not in a pistol caliber ..... but even that is not fail safe.

Puma guy, your stories about selling .25 auto pistols reminds me of that famous quote by the late Col. Jeff Cooper, who said:

[C]arry a 25 if it makes you feel good, but do not ever load it. If you load it you may shoot it. If you shoot it you may hit somebody, and if you hit somebody – and he finds out about it – he may be very angry with you.

Cooper also said that a .25 wasn’t sufficient to clear one’s sinuses, let along anything else.

If I had to choose between a .25 and a .22 LR, I’d take the .22 for sure.

Perhaps another consideration might be the Keltec PMR-30 in .22 Magnum. Go to http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=467321, and scroll down until you see the post from “opiodergics-ga” beginning with

“My name is Jesse (online name Danny Bishop). I myself was shot--in the chest--on November 27th, 1994, at point-blank range with a .22" magnum revolver”

The poster describes in some detail the injuries he suffered, what it felt like to be shot by that round, and permanent impact it had on his life..... which is not good.

And that was a “mere” .22 magnum.

No pun intended, but it really is a hit or miss thing. Like I said above, I’ve seen people killed by .22s, and I’ve held a conversation with someone who had been shot through the right ventricle with a 9mm and was still alert, oriented, and talking.

Abraham wrote: ↑Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:06 pm What's your experience with a 9 in a SD situation versus a 45?

When I first got my CHL, I carried .45 and .40 caliber weapons primarily.....and sometimes a .38 revolver. I eventually gave them all up for 9mm Glocks - because that’s what my wife carried - and a sometimes carried .357 revolver. I don’t feel particularly under-armed by carrying 9mm as opposed to .40 S&W or .45 ACP. The old saw is true......shot placement is king.

I have probably had more experience dealing with the treatment of gunshot patients than the average bear, unless one has been to war, or worked in an ER like I did. I saw probably hundreds of gunshot patients over the course of 5-6 years. The single most devastating pistol caliber gunshot wounds I ever saw were inflicted by a homeowner using a .41 magnum revolver on a couple of home invaders. One was DOA, the other died a hard death in our ICU about a week later. I saw more people killed with a .22 LR than any other caliber, by a good margin, but only one of them died instantly - having been shot through his descending aorta. Even those I saw who had been shot in the brain didn’t die instantaneously....although they may have been instantaneously incapacitated. But as a rule, far more of the gunshot patients I saw survived their being gunshot than died of their injuries - regardless of caliber used.

Handguns are not nearly as efficient for killing as are long guns....if killing is your goal. If stopping an attack in self-defense or in defense of another is your goal, a handgun is an appropriate tool....up to a point. You can stop someone pretty nearly instantaneously with a .22 .... if you hit them in the aorta or brain, but are you that good? I don’t think I am, so I’d rather use a heavier caliber than that.

I suspect that psychological incapacitation due to pain from GSW stops more attacks than actually physical incapacitation. In other words, the bad guy gets shot, it hurts a lot, he realizes that getting shot again will hurt a lot more, and he gives up. I also suspect that getting hit my a 9mm or .45 hurts a lot more than getting hit by a .22 or .25.

An old girlfriend of mine in high school was shot in the arm with a .22 while walking down the street with her brother. A kid living on that block was “playing sniper” in the attic of his house, and sighting on people through a dormer window as they walked down the sidewalk across the street from his house. He sighted on her and, not realizing that the rifle was loaded, pull the trigger and hit her in the side of her arm, about midway between shoulder and elbow. At first, she didn’t realize that she’d been shot. It was summertime, and she and her brother had been walking home from a municipal swimming pool. Her brother had been “popping” her with a towel as they walked along, and she had repeatedly told him to stop it. She felt a sudden stinging and burn in her arm and she turned and yelled at them ‘I told you to stop that!’ He said he didn’t do it, and that’s when she looked at her arm and saw the little round hole trickling a little bit of blood out of it.......and that was with a .22 rifle.

For whatever my advice is worth, I’d say get a Glock 43 - since you’re already familiar with the platform and caliber - and be done with it. Even though .380 is better than it used to be, i still regard it as a marginal caliber, and would choose a .38 Special over a .380 myself....but that’s just me. But I would not choose to carry a .22 unless I was pretty confident that I could instantly incapacitate someone with it. But pain alone from a .22 may not be enough to do the job.