Creates a bigger hole in the tissue it hits, and causes more damage and trauma to the tissue it hits, and transfers more energy to the tissue it hits, and no doubt increases the odds of systemic shock to the target.
9mm is still just a small bullet (they're all small) that carries a small amount of energy. Certainly there must be a difference between it and .22 LR, and I've always rejected arguments that all calibers are exactly the same myself, but based on everything I've seen (the results of actual shooting incidents) the difference isn't great when it comes to the mythical notion of "stopping power." At best, 9mm slightly increases the odds of damaging something important per round, as well as speeds up the bleeding-out process, but unless the CNS is hit or unpredictable psychological factors come into play, it has no stopping power to speak of (multiple rounds will sometimes do the job, but not always).
Will a 9mm Para round quickly stop a human aggressor?
Not always.
But it has a much much much better chance of doing so than a .22LR round from a handgun.
If the right loads are matched to the right handguns, as described earlier, then I think that the difference in the maximum potentials of these calibers against human targets is highly exaggerated here (at some point we might want to agree to disagree on that). Certainly .22 LR is easier to render ineffective through poor load selection, and I'm sure that many people still do that without even realizing it.
Please, name them for us.
I'm curious as to which police forces relied upon the .32ACP as their primary handgun caliber, and for how long.
It's what I've always read with regard to some unnamed European police forces, historically. But whether or not that was the case, what police forces choose to use does not necessarily validate the effectiveness of a particular caliber anyway (which was the essence of one of your points, not mine). Over time, they tend to move up in handgun caliber searching for the elusive "stopping power" that their current caliber lacks, only to find that the new one is also lacking. They generally won't go back, no, but that doesn't mean that they have ever found or will ever find what they're looking for--it's all just small, incremental improvements at the cost of greater recoil, which is starting to catch up with them, by the way.
Penetration is not the end all be all of the equation.
It sure isn't, as it needs to go hand-in-hand with shot placement. In my view, everything else is not simply ignored, but it is tertiary.
The round must not only penetrate but also destroy tissue and cause enough traumatic injury to the target so that the target stops its actions.
The .22LR from a handgun just doesn't reliably cause enough damage to the human body to quickly stop an attacker.
The vast majority of the additional tissue that would be damaged by a larger bullet has little effect, overall, and the total amount of tissue damaged is very small in comparison to the target as a whole in all cases. At the same time, the smaller vital structures that need to be hit in order to stop an attacker would be pretty devastated by any bullet hitting them. This describes and emphasizes the importance of shot placement (given sufficient penetration). While a larger bullet does, as I've said many times, improve the odds of effective shot placement, the difference is far from night-and-day because all bullets are still small projectiles.
Sure one might get lucky and stop the attacker with a .22LR round from a handgun, but if one is serious about stacking the deck in his favor of surviving a violent encounter, the .22 is a terrible choice of caliber for self defense (as is the .32ACP).
.22 LR and .32 ACP are not the best choices if the shooter can handle a larger caliber just as well, but if he/she cannot, then they may be better choices than a larger caliber because more holes, accurately placed, trumps a fraction of an inch difference in bullet size.
As for these small calibers being terrible, again I think that's an exaggeration...that is, unless a poor choice in ammunition is made, such as JHP loads for .32 ACP and an incompatible combination of load and barrel length for .22 LR (described earlier), which can severely compromise the depth of penetration that is necessary to enable effective shot placement (for all calibers).
It means that the 9mm is LESS effective than certain other calibers.
OK, then the .22 LR is also less effective than certain other calibers (I've never claimed otherwise on a per-round basis). This renders your original point moot because it says nothing about .22 LR that it doesn't also say about 9mm, and I'm not trying to prove that .22 LR is the best, only that it can be far more effective (with the right loads in the right guns) than some people give it credit for.
This is news to me.
When did this happen.
I happen to have a family member who is a Fed and she hates the .40, but she told me that she cannot use a 9mm.
According to her, her only options are the Glock 22 or the Glock 23.
I got this from a press release from Winchester last year that was quoted on their website at the time (it has since been removed, but so has a lot of stuff when they revamped) and by a number of news websites and forums (some of which are still valid, including those on THR). Use the following link to search for references to it on Google:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...l+Bureau+of+Investigation"&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
If this story was some kind of elaborate hoax, or if the FBI brass have changed their minds on the matter and canceled the contract, then forget I mentioned it. In either of those cases, my point about newer ammunition making previously less effective calibers more effective than before would have to stand on its own, and I think it makes enough sense to do so.
When compared to rifles, handguns are not that effective, but to claim that no handgun is that effective is simply not true.
By "that effective" I suppose I had stopping power in mind, and I stand by that statement on that basis (note that I'm not counting monster handguns like S&W's .500 Magnum, though).
And it ignores the fact that some handgun calibers are MUCH more effective than other calibers at quickly stopping humans.
I don't think you've done much in the way of supporting such assertions, making them as if they were self-evident when the truth is often non-obvious. Handguns can only stop humans quickly with the right shot placement and sufficient penetration. Some calibers are better than others at penetration, depending on the loads being used, but .22 LR can give you penetration that equals what most people look for anyway (and even more depending on the load). Larger calibers will help shot placement simply by being larger and often expanding on top of that, but the difference in probability is far from tremendous and can be overcome--and then some--if a person happens to shoot .22 LR significantly better, which I happen to think a lot of people do (as hard as that might be to admit).
Again, no, the .22 would be a terrible choice for cops to carry.
As would the choice of a .32ACP.
As long as they're just as proficient in a larger caliber, then I suppose you're right. That said, I've seen how many LEOs and military personnel are required to qualify, and frankly it tells nobody much about how proficient each individual is at combat shooting with handguns.
Choosing such weak calibers would only get more cops killed.
As if some of them wouldn't be killed by the decision to force every officer to use a certain caliber regardless of whether they could shoot better with a smaller one. The point is to be as effective as possible, and that takes a balance between effectiveness per round and shootability, which will be different for different people.
I honestly cannot image why anyone would entrust their life to such a weak and ineffective caliber.
I disagree that .22 LR is a weak (it's strong enough for humans) and ineffective caliber in comparison to other handgun calibers. Granted, it's weaker and less effective per round than most loads in other calibers, but not by that much because the law of diminishing returns kicks in as soon as you can get sufficient penetration, which .22 LR can (in humans if not bears
).
