expensive .380's

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Lot of LEO folks here, and I'm sure that they have seen their fair share of shootings. I am on the other end of the spectrum....I have worked in the medical field, doing stints in the E.R., I.C.U., and the O.R. since I was 19.
After seeing the after effects of a number of shootings over the years, these are the conclusions I've come to from person experience & observation, both at work and from shooting, handloading, ect.
1.) I don't want to be shot with anything, but I particularly don't want to be shot with anything .38 caliber or larger, and I'm talking bullet diameter here, folks, not cartridge. HP ammo has come a long way in the past 25-30 years, and it's a lot more reliable than the stuff that was out there in the 70's when I started shooting. .380s to the chest will kill you just as dead as a .45 will....there are no varying degrees of dead.
2.) there are no magic calibers....some will fail (yes, even the .45 with a chest hit) to incapacitate immediately. The "one shot stop" myth needs to go, and I don't know of anyone who carries a single shot sidearm for CCW.
3.) Placement is everything. We had a shooting here several years back where a drug dealer was cornered by police and hospital security. The pulled a small automatic and they immediately opened fire on him....4 officers with 6 shot revolvers of .38 and .357 mag caliber. The guy lived. Why? Not ONE bullet hit a vital organ! They hit him in the arms, legs,...even his penis! But he lived to tell the tail. In the same vein, I took care of a teenage kid that was immediately incapacitated by ONE shot from a .25 ACP....he lived on life support for the next month in the ICU while his brain matter slowly oozed out the 1/4 inch hole in the side of his skull.
3.) A lot of the bad guys that we've taken care off had bullet holes IN THEIR BACK! I would assume this to mean that they were running away from their intended victims AFTER they found out that they were armed.....and it probably didn't matter with what! Most criminals are cowards (which is why they are criminals), and don't want to 'shoot it out' with anyone, no matter how big or small the firearm the opposition is carrying. Just like most of us, they don't want to be shot by anyone, either.
4.) Confidence in anything will more likely meet with success.....that means when applying to professional school, taking on a difficult case, or honing your shooting skills. Bad guys don't go to the range and practice by putting holes in paper....if they did, they wouldn't hold their guns sideways, or load the bullets in backwards (yes, we had a bad guy shot here in the city by the cops, and when they checked out his gun, he put the bullets in the clip...BACKWARDS!).
5.) comparing black powder firearms to modern day firearms is like comparing apples and oranges.
6.). Bullet testing on pine boards, water soaked surgical sponges, milk jugs filled with water, ballistics gelitan, ect. will only tell you how likely a bullet will perform if you are attacked by pine boards, water soaked surgical sponges, milk jugs filled with water, ballistics gelitan, ect. The human body is too complicated, not only in it's physical make up (bone, flesh, tendon, fluid, ect), but it its psycological make up (fear & resulting flight or fight response, drug induced reactions and state of mind, reaction to pain & pain tolerance, ect). to be reduced to the axiom "This is how this bullet will react when it meets flesh". Even real life street shooting statistics have to many variables to narrow down to "this caliber is best" or "this bullet is only so-so".

Sometimes, I carry a .380. Sometimes, I carry a more "powerful" cartridge. A lot depends on time of year, concealment factors, ect. But, in my mind, I have every confidence that if I have to pull that .380, the guy on the other end is gonna be dead....no question.

Just some ramblings from my side of the fence.