22 Kills More People a Year Than Any Other Caliber

[Nom de Forum]

Guilty as charged on this. I was told by local LEO's I was crazy NOT to carry a gun with me a long time before the CCW laws became popular. I bought my Raven .25 in the mid to late 1970's. It fits in your back pocket and prints like it's a billfold. That was a big reason they were popular along with the ridicuously low price. I was a college student at the time with zero spending money but I had just sat through my first armed robbery (as a victim of course) and I decided it was better to be in jail than dead. I rarely carried it but in certain situations I would. I never had reason to use it at least not when I had it. I learned after my second armed robbery experience that guns don't do you much good if you don't have them with you.

The Raven and some others like it WAS the Saturday night special. The term was invented to describe that class of guns. Cheap and available were the things that scared politicians to death. I guess they cared more about their rears than they did ours. They certainly had protection but people without money - no protection for you. A lot of it was no doubt racial (and I'm not one to cry "racism" at the drop of a hat). Those were the guns poor people had so naturally they were unfit for use by anyone especially black people who were using them too often even back then.

CeeZee is definitely right about the Raven .25ACP being “the” Saturday Night Special back in the 1970s. The thing about the Raven is it was renowned for cycling reliably; unlike the Targa, Sterling, Baur, RG, and FIE, .22LR and .25ACP Saturday Night Specials. The Raven’s greatest fame probably occurred when Phil Engeldrum featured it in an article in his 1979 magazine “Handgun Tests- No Manufactures Ads” The article was titled “Why the $49 Raven .25 is better than a $220 S-W 9mm Model 59”. Both pistols were purchased, not provide by the manufacture, and the text and photos praised the Raven’s reliability and damned the M59s failures to cycle.

 

[Tactical Lever]

While working as a LEO in the Compton/Watts area in the 1980's I handled about 15-20 homicides where .22's were used. It was a common caliber gang members and family to kill a relative. Most were close up several shots to the body. Not that other calibers were not used but the .22 was common, and did the job. Murders in that area were very common with one occuring at least weekly if not more often. I often carry a .22 in my pocket with cci stingers. I also will carry a 9mm or 45acp depending where I go. So I can say for a fact the little .22 with a good placed shot(s) can and will kill a human. This isn't stat's but facts.

Not to knock your choice, but .22 Stingers enjoy something like an 18% "one shot stop" among recorded stops, and a .380 Auto with one of the best 90 gr. loads is 71%.

Probably not a lot of data on different .22 loads and stopping power, but I found the Stingers pretty anemic out of a pistol bbl. when ran across a chronograph. They were considerably bettered by some Winchester Experts; however the Experts did not feed as well.

Sorry for the derail; but I believe if this statistic is to be believed, it would probably have to include recreational shooting or hunting accidents. Or more likely completely exclude intentional shootings as far too many people view the .22 LR as "toy-like".

 

[JTHunter]

DT Guy - remember the North American Arms little .22LR and esp. the "Black Widow .22 Mag pistols?
Nice little pocket pieces!
Or, how about those .32 ACPs (Tomcat?) that were holstered in something that looked like a wallet? A notch in the spine for the barrel tip and a hole over the trigger for your finger and the mugger got a nasty surprise!

 

[DT Guy]

JTHunter,

I do remember them, but they weren't that common in the municipality I was working in. An NAA would have been quite 'highbrow' in that neighborhood!

Larry

 

[Potatohead]

Ive seen that chart, or a chart, with the higher % of deaths belonging to 22.

To many variables involved..

I have been toting my little sr22 around lately. Nice not having to battle with something tugging my pants down all day.

 

[Tactical Lever]

Anyone know where to find that chart?

 

[Archie]

Tales from the past...

The time honored story of "More people are killed by .22s than any other..." is a very old tradition. I've been told that by many men who were older than me and I'm now in my middle 60s.

What is not heard so much these days is the back story. Sit down around the campfire whilst I enlighten you all...

According to legend, coroner's began the tradition. They explained the statistic in the following fashion: A person who is shot with a major caliber, or a rifle or shotgun round as happened, usually were in no condition to carry themselves off. So if they were not killed outright - and many were merely wounded to some degree - the authorities found them, dragged them off to some medical facility where they were cared for or expired at the hands of medical personnel.

On the other hand, those wounded by gunshot with minor calibers like .22s, .25s or perhaps some minor bird shot damage were more likely to be able to abscond. Fearing to present themselves for medical treatment (and be arrested) and not thinking too much of their wounds, they avoided medical treatment. And died of infection a few days later.

This does not address the suicide issue. Traditionally, one commits such an act in private, not on the town square at noon. One presumes a suicide attempts to do the deed as efficiently as possible. Therefore, the authorities do not find a wounded attempted suicide, but a corpse.

Even now, when Law Enforcement engage in shooting a malefactor; medical people are summoned promptly - in most cases - and the shootees are more likely to survive. In murders or attempted murders, the shooter usually picks a spot of relative privacy and leaves the victim where they will NOT be noticed for some period of time.

And I would agree with the theory of availability. Except for the last couple years, a .22 pistol is one of the easiest to conceal and have available for a crime of opportunity. Criminals do consider 'overhead', so a cheap pistol that will intimidate a robbery victim is just as good as an expensive one.

No, I haven't done a long search on the internet to demonstrate numbers of this and that. I do however read up on local crimes and the 'ordinary' crime that doesn't see much publicity. Most of it is business as usual to my mind.

 

[rdhood]

I could see where 22lr might have been a predominant killing caliber decades and decades ago. I think probably that what once was truth is now folklore.

 

[Cee Zee]

The thing about the Raven is it was renowned for cycling reliably

Yeah they had that reputation by mine never cycled right. It didn't matter what I fed it either. There weren't that many choices anyway. It worked well for about 2 months I guess. I think the big problem was I couldn't figure out how to break the thing down to clean it. But once I did figure that out I still had problems with ejection. The thing shot amazingly accurate though at least until I got it broke down. After that it wouldn't hit anything. Go figure. At first it would hit a gallon jug at 50 yards all day which is crazy accurate for a gun like that. All the Beretta .25's of the era were totally bad as far as accuracy. That's how my Raven shot after I cleaned it good.