Why not carry the .22 and .25acp as a primary defense gun?

[threegun]

The following incident took place here in Hillsborough County Saturday. A man named Jorge Bello went to the home of his estranged wife and shot her to death along with her new boyfriend and a female friend. He then fled in his truck before being stopped by three HCSO deputies. The following describes the shootout.

Three deputies ordered Bello out of his truck, but he opened a sliding rear window and fired at a deputy's cruiser, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said.

The deputies fired back, and Bello opened his passenger door and continued firing. Deputy Arturo "Art" Lence, 53, was hit in the lower torso. The bullet exited through his back, and he fell to the ground.

Deputy Raymond Wilson, 56, was hit in the left forearm and crawled to a ditch on the west side of the road for safety. Bello walked over to Wilson and tried to wrestle the deputy's firearm from him, Callaway said.

That's when Deputy Malachi McCoy ran up and shot the gunman in the head, killing him, Callaway said.

When the bullets were counted, investigators said deputies had fired more than 50 rounds. They think Bello was hit multiple times before McCoy fired the fatal shot.

Deputies believe Bello fired at least 13 shots, Callaway said.

Bello was hit multiple times with a larger caliber and still was able to fight. Now imagine the same determination from a bad guy who has chosen you as his victim. Imagine trying to stop them with the puniest of handgun calibers.

[alistaire]

Eight rounds of 22lr are better than a sharp stick, but not as good as 9 16" rounds from an Iowa class battleship.

Your point?

[ConfuseUs]

Yeah, a .22 in hand beats a .45 at home in the safe. You can't always conceal/open carry the firepower you'd like to have with you.

Bello was hit multiple times with a larger caliber and still was able to fight. Now imagine the same determination from a bad guy who has chosen you as his victim. Imagine trying to stop them with the puniest of handgun calibers.

Shot placement is king. If you can't hit with a .45 or .40 or even 9mm, but can with a small caliber like .22, what is the value of the larger caliber?

[MrClean]

Not sure what the 'debate' really is here....
But after going through some training with the ATF & FBI recently I was even shocked as to how much someone can do after being 'hit'. Even with big calibers, full of adrenaline and any other 'artificial adrenaline', it's not like TV. They don't drop all the time after two to the chest or elsewhere.

With that being said.... a .22 in that special 2" zone around the head will drop them every time. Would I carry one? Nah... not unless it was all I had at the time or I HAD to have something that small.

Side note: Placement Placement Placement. One round accurately fired a second or two slower is MUCH more effective than 10 fired at MachII speed. You are responsible for every shot. If you don't know where they are going, who is to say civilians/innocents aren't in danger from your fire.

<stepping off soap box>

[Hard Ball]

I would be willing to carry a .22lr (and have) but not a .25ACP.

[LeadFistExpress]

They think Bello was hit multiple times before McCoy fired the fatal shot.

It does say that the BG was hit multiple times, but it does not state that they were all well placed shots, or even that any of them were well places shots. This, in my mind, does not point to the ineffectiveness of larger calibers, but to the ineffectiveness of the officers' marksmanship. Granted, they were being shot at and that cannot be anything like aiming at a target at a range and firing well placed shots. I do not know if I could hit anything either if I am being shot at, but I sincerely hope I can.

I have seen multiple posts on this forum that most law enforcement officers are not gun people and most are not good shots. I can say from my experience that this is true. When I was a correctional officer, most of those that I went to the range with to qualify were not good shots. They shot well enough to qualify, but I would not want to see them in action. I assume that police shoot more often than COs, but I do not know.

[Keltyke]

First rule of a gunfight - Bring A Gun!

A .22 in your pocket in the alley is better than that .44 mag. on the table at home.

Given proper shot placement, a .22 or .25 can be as deadly as a .45. Practice!

If all you can handle or conceal is a small gun of this type - go for it.

If it's the size more than the recoil, look at the palm-size .32s and .380s on the market.

I'd rather carry a .22 than the .25. I believe the ballistics are better.

[threegun]

Of course any gun is better than no gun and hits with a 22lr are better than misses with a 50bmg. The problem is almost any larger caliber is better than the 22 and hits with bigger are usually better than hits with a 22.

Most folks are capable of concealing larger. Still many who feel a need to carry voluntarily carry the puniest. A cartridge that limps by vs one capable of stopping a serious attacker under the dynamics of a real life and death struggle. The example I posted was just to help expose the lack of stopping power with the bigger calibers in an effort to show how inadequate the micro calibers would be.

Side note: Placement Placement Placement. One round accurately fired a second or two slower is MUCH more effective than 10 fired at MachII speed. You are responsible for every shot. If you don't know where they are going, who is to say civilians/innocents aren't in danger from your fire.

Hits to rounds fired ratios suggest that precision accuracy is virtually non existent in a shoot out. This means that good hits are hard to get. It makes more sense IMO to maximize each hit in terms of penetration and bone smashing ability given this phenomenon.

This is not a pure bigger is better thing because stats show that there is very little difference between the bigger handgun calibers. However all of the bigger calibers are capable of consistently penetrating a torso and smashing bones when encountered.

It does say that the BG was hit multiple times, but it does not state that they were all well placed shots, or even that any of them were well places shots. This, in my mind, does not point to the ineffectiveness of larger calibers, but to the ineffectiveness of the officers' marksmanship. Granted, they were being shot at and that cannot be anything like aiming at a target at a range and firing well placed shots. I do not know if I could hit anything either if I am being shot at, but I sincerely hope I can.

His wounds could have come after the bullets had passed through the vehicles outer shell as the shoot out began with Bello in the cab. All reports say he exited the vehicle and wrestled for deputy Wilson's gun. Bello must have fired all of his 14 shots from the cab and thus taken the larger volume of officer fire from it as well.

[threegun]

First rule of a gunfight - Bring A Gun!

A .22 in your pocket in the alley is better than that .44 mag. on the table at home.

Given proper shot placement, a .22 or .25 can be as deadly as a .45. Practice!

If all you can handle or conceal is a small gun of this type - go for it.

If it's the size more than the recoil, look at the palm-size .32s and .380s on the market.

I'd rather carry a .22 than the .25. I believe the ballistics are better.

Is the .22 better than the 38 special in the alley?

Is proper shot placement harder to get when being attacked?

[Keltyke]

The example I posted was just to help expose the lack of stopping
power with the bigger calibers in an effort to show how inadequate the micro
calibers would be.

And of course, there's the story of a wife who was killed by a bullet fired from her husband's .22 while he was using it to drill a hole (that's right!) for mounting a TV dish to the wall. Went through the inside wall and outside siding - killed her dead. One shot.

And we've all heard the stories of a BG shot with a .40 or ,.45 and living to kill the cop who shot him.

[Keltyke]

Is the .22 better than the 38 special in the alley?

Is proper shot placement harder to get when being attacked?

What asinine questions. Let me clarify what I said:

A .22 is better than nothing.

Proper shot placement can be good or bad with ANY caliber, especially in a tactical situation. Practice, practice, practice!

[threegun]

Keltyke, Those are extremes. We all have heard of these.

In the event of one of those extremes (getting a bad guy who refuses to stop) what is the tactic taught by the big schools for stopping someone?

Are the 22's and 25's capable of significantly damaging the pelvic girdle? Would equal hits from bigger cause more damage?

Everyone has the right to carry what they want. I'm just pointing our the negatives in carrying the smallest.

[Keltyke]

Everyone has the right to carry what they want. I'm just pointing our the negatives in carrying the smallest.

GIVEN THE CHOICE: I'd rather not carry anything smaller than a 9mm. I'm just pointing out the negatives in carrying NOTHING vs carrying SOMETHING, even if it's a mouse gun.

[LanceOregon]

It is too bad that some people feel a need to lash out at others, when their life falls apart. This guy Jorge Orlando Bello Garcia was real sick from diabetes, and was no longer able to work at his job as a truck driver. His house then got foreclosed on. And then his wife decided to divorce him.

So he lashed out at the only thing that was easy to attack, his estranged wife. I think that these sort of scenarios must be among the most dangerous that police face. It took a bullet to the brain to finally stop Bello Garcia. He did not care about living, he just wanted to lash out at others.

It is too bad officers were not able to deploy shotguns or M4 carbines in this shootout. Bello Garcia's pickup was described as being peppered with bullet holes. More accurate gunfire would have been much easier to obtain with a long gun.

.

[threegun]

What asinine questions. Let me clarify what I said:

A .22 is better than nothing.

I understood what you said. Only the severely mental individual would argue that the smallest of calibers isn't better than nothing.

"Better than nothing" is just not acceptable when my life is on the line. It is used to justify inadequacies of all sorts.

IMO the only use a 22 or 25 has is as a backup or when nothing bigger is possible.

[threegun]

Lance, I saw the truckhttp://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jun...ampa-shooting/ it was riddled pretty good. The officers especially wilson, who lost a good chunk of his forearm, kept it together enough to survive. Mccoy was able to get a head shot under this stress which is commendable.

Bello was able to get two hits on separate targets in 14 shots despite over 50 rounds being launched at him. This goes to show just how the pressure of life and death struggles change shooting ability. Bello seemed to be asking to die meaning no pressure. The officers wanted to live and accuracy suffered.

[Deaf Smith]

Why is it better to get something other than a .22?

My wife used to work in the OR room at a major hospital that was in, uh, a crappy place.

She as been in CVICU, CVOR, OR, Truma I, and even director of CV nursing.

Well she told me long time ago that people shot with low powered rounds like .22, .25, .32 most of the time walked in talking! As the round's power increased, more were carried in (like 9mm, .38, .357, .45s)

The ONLY ones that just about always were carried in were shotgun wounds.

Unless you have a physical problem that makes the .22, or .25, the only real firearm choice, I'd get something bigger.

[FLA2760]

It is a shame that this POS did not just eat his gun before engaging the deputies; like so many of these criminal losers do after they do crap like this. Rant over

[LanceOregon]

Why is it better to get something other than a .22?

Well, in the case of this shooting in Florida that threegun mentioned, I see in the link that he just posted that the criminal was armed with a .45

I sure would hate to find myself up against someone with a .45, and then realize that I only had a .22 in my hand. I would feel pretty stupid at that point.

.

[Bill DeShivs]

You mean, the guy with the biggest gun wins?

[Keltyke]

"IMO the only use a 22 or 25 has is as a backup or when nothing bigger is possible."

Now we're on the same page. I've already stated that, if possible, I personally don't carry anything smaller than a .38 spcl. or (preferably) a 9mm. I have a compact .40 on order.

A lot of mouseguns are being made in .380 and 9mm, so there is less reason to carry anything smaller. My wife has trouble handling the recoil of a mousegun in .380 or 9mm, so she carries a .32 auto. She's good with it. Ya do that ya gotta do.

[Erik]

"Why not carry the .22 and .25acp as a primary defense gun?"

The standard answer is "because there are better options." The standard outlier arguments are brought up but this, but that... fine. If they represent a given person's situation that should be taken into account. But for most there are better options.

[LanceOregon]

You mean, the guy with the biggest gun wins?

I'm saying that a man with a .45 would have an edge over someone armed with a .22

Just how big of an edge it would be, is debatable. But I think that most would agree that the person with the .22 would be disadvantaged by their gun selection.

Of course, there are many, many factors that play into any confrontation. If the gun used was the sole factor in a gun battle, then the lady ( Jeanne Assam ) that stopped the shooter at the New Life Church in Colorado should have lost that fight. For that shooter had a Bushmaster AR-15, a .40 S&W Beretta 96, and a Springfield XD 9mm. He also had an AK-47, but he left that gun in his car, and did not take it into the church.

But she was pretty well armed too, with a 9mm Beretta 92 FS. While she scored no truly fatal hits, she hit him twice in the same thigh, causing him to bleed severely. And then she shot him in the wrist, disabling one of his hands. At that point, he decided to end it all, and used his other hand to shoot himself in the head.

One would normally have expected him to come out on top in the gunfight, as he had been using the Bushmaster. But he didn't.

But what if Jeanne Assam had instead been carrying only a little pocket Beretta .25 Auto? Would the outcome have likely been the same??


.

[Hard Ball]

There is some extensive actual test data.

During World War Two the British Special Operation Executive (the SOE) conducted an extensive series of tests of all currently (1942) available handguns to decide what they should arm their agents sent on missions to the occupied countries to kill key German officials and collaborators.
The SOE concluded that a .22 Long Rifle automatic piatol was the best weapon. Their firing technique was to fire 10 rounds into the intended victims upper chest cavity. Agents who did this in the field reported that their victims almost always died very rapidly and were seldom able to cry out or shoot back. That translates into stopping power as well as lethality.ys died very rapidly and were seldom able to cry out or shoot back.

Note that " Agents who did this in the field reported that their victims almost always died very rapidly and were seldom able to cry out or shoot back."

That was stopping power as well as lethality.

[JollyRoger]

agents sent on missions to the occupied countries to kill key German officials and collaborators.

Not to dispute the lethality of a .22, but these were assassinations, not self defense situations. Imagine you are walking along and somebody zips you with 10 .22 rounds in the chest. You probably don't have a lot of time to get worked up before the panic sets in, or shock. Different situation entirely when the adrenaline and endorphins are already flowing.

Remember, the reason .25's and pocket .22's got popular in the first place (pre-1960's or so) is because the metallurgy was not advanced enough to handle high-pressure cartridges in small packages. Hence the rise of the .25, .32's and .380's. Now you can stuff more power into smaller packages, so why not take advantage of it.