By Dept. mandate I have to carry at least a .38 special for a backup. My backup is a 9mm and my primary is a .45. Just about all of the Police Dept's in this county have the same guidelines.
Would anyone care to know why?
For those that do, I'll explain and then leave it up to your own judgment.
If you do have to shoot someone, chances are they will not be in a proper state of mind. They may be on drugs, they may be drunk, they may be mad at the whole world and suicidal or maybe even all of the above. If they are on drugs, they wont feel much in the way of pain, and they may persist until they bleed out. They might run away after the first shot is fired, but they may not.
In lots of cases, its up to the Police to do the dirty work. Someone calls 911 because a drunk crazy is walking around yelling and screaming and he is carrying a gun. Most people are smart enough to hid and let the cops handle it.
Maybe the guy has just found his girlfriend in the sack with his best friend, gotten himself drunk, killed them both and now he just wants to die and he doesn't care how and he lives in your apartment. You are walking up the stairs while he is walking down. He is a big guy, a biker type and he has tattoos all over him. He's never been the type to back down to anyone and he thinks you are in the way.
As Sixto says, the .380 will "probably" stop him. For me, "probably" ain't good enough.
You have to consider the absolute worst case scenario that you might be involved in and it could happen in seconds. One thing that everyone has in common when being interviewed in guns fights or knife fights or even ball bat or broken bottle fights is that they can not believe how fast things happened.
Its a fact that people are for the most part lazy. They want to carry itty bitty guns and they want to believe that they are as protected as anyone else. No one really want to shoots someone, so they sooth their conscience by carrying a gun that is so easy to carry that it is hardly noticeable. Most people choose a gun, not for its effectiveness in a fight, but for ease of carry.
To my way of thinking that is completely wrong. We should carry a gun that should be as effective as possible because that fact that you may have to shoot a person means that he probably isn't in the proper state of mind, because if he was, you wouldn't have to shoot him would you?
Since a handgun is a compromise anyway, why pick a small caliber?
So this guy is drunk and has a big Bowie knife and he's already cut two people. He's coming toward you, and doing the brave thing, you grab your wife, step in front of her and pull your .380.
Sure it might work.
But it might not. And if it fails to stop, then what?
Whats next?
Since a .45 has been known not to stop immediately why would we think a.380 might?
You owe it to yourself and to your loved ones to carry an effective caliber. Nowadays there is not really a reason to carry a .380 because in the last few years they have made 9MMs that are about the same size...
and thats all I've got to say about that.