Mass wrote more than the selected paragraph, I posted the link last night. here is what he wrote in it's entirety.Posted: 20 Jan 2014 08:00 AM PST
Looking through the relatively thin pickings of meaningful new gun designs in this year’s crop, I noticed that one I mentioned here, the Glock 42, a seven-shot .380 pistol, got a ton of comment on the internet. Much of that commentary was on the theme of “if I’m going to carry a gun that size, I’d want it in full power 9mm Parabellum, not a wussy .380 a/k/a 9mm Short.”
Let me make it clear: I’m not a .380 fan. In 40-plus years of studying gunfights – not just reading books, but personally debriefing survivors and going over autopsy reports – I’ve come to consider the .380 marginal if not sub-marginal as a defensive weapon. I’ve just seen too many cases of the bad guy sucking up bullet after .380 bullet in vital zones and still coming. But, I’ve also seen cases like the recent controversial Tampa shooting, in which a senior citizen dropped the man he shot with a single .380 to the chest. (I’ve seen one-shot stops with well-placed .22 bullets, too, but I don’t recommend a .22 for self-defense, either.)
If you go on the gun forums, you’ll find that a recurrent theme is “how much is enough to use for self-defense, and how much is too much?” And you’ll discover that there’s some ego investment in those discussions.
The meme seems to be, “If you carry more (more powerful ammo, more cartridges, even more guns) than I do, you’re paranoid. And if you carry less than I do, you’re a pathetic sheeple.”
Oh, good Lord…
First, if you’re carrying a seven-shot .380, you are better prepared to defend yourself against a homicidal armed criminal than a high 90th percentile of the population, who are carrying nothing at all which could realistically stop such an attack.
But, second, if that attack actually comes, you might wish you had something a little more than than a .380. The saying is: “You’ll never meet a gunfight survivor who says he wishes he’d had fewer, less powerful rounds.”
Having shot the new Glock 42 with more .380 rounds than most folks outside the Glock factory, I was impressed with its ease of operation, extremely mild “kick,” and accurate delivery of rapid fire. There are a helluva lot of people – petite females, the elderly, the disabled – who will shoot faster and straighter with this gun than with something more powerful. There, I think, is its market niche…wait a year or two, and see, but I expect it to become a best-seller.
Will I carry one? Probably not. Whenever a gun magazine asks me to test a .380, I feel like Ralph Nader test-driving a Corvair for Motor Trend. But as someone who trains others to shoot, I am going to see about buying my test sample to keep it on hand so students who don’t think or function as I do, can try it.
As I write this, I’m wearing a different Glock pistol. It’s much more powerful than a .380, and holds far more cartridges than the slim little G42, and I have a spare “high capacity” magazine on the opposite hip. That works for me, but I have to accept that some other people need something different to fit their abilities, their lifestyles, their dress codes.
God save us from BS memes. A center hit with a .380 beats a miss or even a peripheral hit with a .44 Magnum.
Something is better than nothing.