Stirring the Pot

 Shall we stir the pot a little?  You all have probably read most of the .45 Auto vs 9mm Parabellum articles, shouting matches and so forth. I have tried to stay out of these debates because I look at them as follows: each person must evaluate their own risks and then decide what to do about it.  My wife carries a .380 Auto, while my daughter carries a .32 Auto.  But I know that most don't carry anything at all. And most die of accident or disease or old age, not gunshot wounds.

So, it was interesting that the American Rifleman had a piece in it today by Bryce M. Towsley entitled The Infinite Argument: 9mm vs. .45 ACP. I recommend that gentle readers take the time to read it, because unlike a lot of the debate, this one is fairly sober.

If you watch TV shows, the good guys always place either one or two rounds such that they stop the bad guy from continuing his attack. But real life is far different. You want your attacker to bleed a little faster to stop his attack, and the .45 Auto has a proven track record of stopping an attack when paired with a M1911 style pistol. The reason the .45 pairs well with the m1911 is because the M1911 is a heavy steel pistol which absorbs much of the recoil.

The pistol and its cartridge resulted from a U.S. Army request for a new pistol:

This is a battle that has been fought before and probably will be again. For example, after the gruesome failures during the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines graphically illustrated the folly of using a smaller cartridge, the Army paid attention. That lead to the Thompson-LaGarde Tests, which proved what most of our salted Soldiers already knew: the Army made a mistake abandoning the .45 Colt in favor of the .38 Long Colt, a cartridge equivalent in power to the .380 ACP.

With that newfangled smokeless powder having been recently invented, ammunition makers were able to more or less duplicate the proven performance of the old .45 Colt in the newer, shorter .45 ACP. They put the cartridge in a semi-automatic handgun, the M1911, which went on to make its bones winning two world wars and in countless lesser conflicts. Yeah, I know. “OK, boomer.”

Well, yes, I am a "boomer, and an old fart one at that. And I shoot and carry an M1911 style pistol. Yes it's a relatively heavy pistol, but with a proper belt and holster it disappears under your cover garment. You see, physics has not changed, nor have bad guys changed. If someone pulls gun on you, it means he thinks whatever you have, that he wants, is more valuable than your life. Such people do not recognize you or anyone else as a fellow image of God. Now, I don't expect to have to use my handgun, most people do not. But it is like a fire extinguisher. You hope not to need it, but you wnat one if you do.