lamebums
300 yards into the woods.
- Jul 4, 2007
- 646
- 4
Concealed Carry passed, much to the dismay of rapists, muggers, robbers, and liberals all over the state.
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Although I currently carry a Ruger LCP in .380, if I had to choose between what you've listed, I would go with a .45. I chose it on sheer conceability more than anything else - although a poorly placed .380 would likely just piss the mugger off, it's certainly better than nothing.
I'm probably in danger of stirring up a hornet's nest here by down-talking the .40 and 9mm (and I own several of the latter category), but the U.S. Army for over a hundred years chose John Moses Browning's 1911 for a reason.
In the late Indian Wars of the 19th Century, many U.S. Army units tested out Luger's design (the .38 caliber, which later became the 9mm) as well as several smaller ones (the .32, etc). and one complaint came back: the round was simply too small.
Same thing with the Phillippine War of 1898-1902. There's stories of Moro tribesmen hacking American soldiers to death despite being filled with .38 caliber bullets fired from their new double-action revolvers. Eventually the US Government had to re-issue the old single action revolvers in .45 Colt, and that solved the issue.
The superior stopping power of the Thompson submachine gun versus comparables such as the MP-40 are well documented in World War II (the 9mm of the MP-40 was also inferior to Soviet submachine guns, which fired a significantly more powerful pistol round, the 7.62x25).
Even today, Special Forces units prefer the .45 for a reason.
From talking to a few friends who have done tours in Iraq, they've all heard horror stories of insurgents being shot full of 5.56mm and 9mm rounds and still living to tell the tale.
In war, it may be preferable to injury an enemy soldier and this tie up four times as many guys in the rear echelon with the resulting wounds and treatment. But this isn't war, this is self-defense. You don't want to injure the guy - you want him to stop mugging/burgling you.
And in that case (and for home/vehicle defense situations), I go - and would recommend you do it, too - with the tried and true 45. I don't believe any of this stuff about 'wonder nines', as cool as they may sound.