Gentlemen,
Yes it is true, that the "newfangled smokeless guns" have advanced greatly in recent years. However, gentlemen, in an actual street gun battle involving you, and one or more thugs, it isn't your gun or their gun, that is going to determine the outcome, it is the mindset, training, and skill of the persons involved. The gun is nothing but a tool, it is the person holding the gun, that makes all the differance.
For example, lets say I am out at about 10:00 PM, walking my dog late at night, down at the local city park about 2 blocks from where I live. Out of the shadows of the trees, I see a person comming towards me at a brisk pace. Being older, and having been mugged before, I immeadiately reach under my coat, pull my 44 Remington half out of the shoulder harness and cock it, keeping it under my coat, but ready. I also, know from experiance, that the smarter thugs out there, never work alone, I take a quick look around, and sure enough, comming up on my behind is a second guy. I now, back off rapidly, perhaps even behind a tree, so that I am no longer exposed from front and back at the same time. Now, it has been my experiance, and I am an older guy with more than a little experiance in situations of this nature, that these career criminal thug types, who actually attempt to prey upon persons in situations of this nature, are not the brightest boys on the block, generally, they are rather stupid, they have a set plan in place, and do things the same way, every time. They aren't very good at thinking on their feet, adapting to changing situations that surprise them by confronting them with responses they did not anticipate....
Do you see what I am getting at? It's more of a game of guts, willpower, and skill, than it is a simple matter of who has the newest prettiest gun. The man holding the gun is worth ten of them if he is skilled, no matter how he is armed.
This is MY POINT, the gun, actual model of gun, as long as it is large enough and powerful enough to take down and stop a man in one shot, is actually, rather irrelevant, especially when you are dealing with criminal types of mentality, who rarely spend the time, or the effort, to perfect their skills, as dedicated sportsmen, such as ourselves do.
My mom had a saying, she liked to quote to me, especially at times like Christmas and my birthdays, when I wanted some expensive, overpriced present, and what she got me, was something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, but modestly priced, something she could afford to give to me... What she often said to me was this... "David, a concert pianist can play an old beat up out of tune honky-tonk piano, and make it sound like a brand new concert Grand !!!
It's not about the shiney expensive piano guys, it's about the skill of the pianist !!!
As far as the comments regaurding small calibers not being able to have any significant knock down power at all... When you guys have time the next time your out pliknking, or at the range, try this little trick....
Take your small caliber conical, say, a 31 or 22 conical, and with your handy-dandy large size exacto knife, score the conical with the razor, about 1/4 of the the way through the conical, in 4 sections, leaving some lead, in the center of the conical, so that the conical will not disentigrate in the barrel. When the scored conical hits it's target, it will fragment into many, many pieces, much more than just 4, it nearly EXPLODES on impact. To prove this to yourself, bring a few oranges with you, nice firm solid ones, fire a few unscored solids at the oranges... It will make a mess of the oranges, but, mostly they hold together rather well... Now, set up some fresh oranges, and fire at them with the scored bullets... You will be AMAZED at the differance... The oranges will be entirely pulverized, they will litterally EXPLODE from the fragmentation of the conicals. All you will find of them is orange pulp, and small fragments of orange peel scattered everywhere.
Like I said gentleman, it's all about knowledge and skill.
In closing, allow me to relay to you another example, of skill, versus, fancy-schmancy hardware. When I was about 15, my Dad, who was a fishing enthusiast, and always spent way too much money on way overpriced rigs, took me out river fishing on the Chagrin River, which is a tributary to the Ohio River, in Ohio. Great fishing on that river, if you KNOW how to fish. We were there nearly a half day, with only a few nibbles to our name, and a handful of rather pathetic smaller fish, despite the fact that my Dad had just spent nearly a thousand bucks on all kinds of fancy fishing crapola. Along comes this family of a father, and 3 boys, they were wearing nothing more than gym shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers with no sox, they each had a fishing basket hangind down from around their necks, and almost no fishing tackel at all... They were fishing, with bare line and hooks, and live worm bait, no reels, no rod, no fancy lures or scents or anything fancy at all, just line, held in their bare hands... They were wading, in the river, waist deep, all of them, feeding out their lines... About 10 yards down stream of where we were, commisserating on our lousy "luck", they began to pull out large, flapping fish, ALL OF THEM, one, after the other, after the other... It was the most AMAZING demonstration of fishing skill I have ever seen in my life... In less than 10 minutes, this father, and his three young sons, aged about 8 to 12, pulled out about 15 fish, all of them two to three times as large as what me and my dad had caught, the entire morning !!!
Think about that one guys... THINK !!!
Sincerely,
ElvinWarrior... aka... David, "EW"
I'll keep my 1911 around, over the years I've come to trust it for self defense. I don't know anyone that would rule out these autos for the next fifty years. If I didn't have it, I would fill safe with black powder revolver's, round ball, or bullet. Like you all know most shootings in homes, or anywhere else, most often happen in feet, not yards. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Like others have said, pick out the ONE you want, and shoot it often, You'll be just fine. Hope to never have to find out. 
