Janq

Agreed.

As with any other round/caliber shot placement is key.
One well aimed shot of .22LR into the eye socket, nasal cavity, or back of the mouth beats two 9mm, .40, or .45s to the arm and leg toward stopping a hyena.
Also .22LR is available in high velocity JHP too as well as if you spend the coin high quality match grade that has a consistency and reliability to fire rating matching that of centerfire ammo.

If the best one has or can afford or manage is a .22 then as long as their pistol is kept in good repair, excellent condition of cleanliness toward reliability, and they run _high quality_ and preferably high velocity match grade ammo and TRAIN with it then under most conditions 25' and closer one should feel secure...as long as they aim _and_ hit the aforementioned unarmored spots of the eye sockets, nasal cavity, and back of the mouth. Anywhere else and with a .22 it's a crap shoot at best.

BTW .22 works fine with good shot placement on four legged animals as well such as dogs in specific which in the US is very much more of a real world danger and area of concern than are humans.

- Janq

__________________
"Killers who are not deterred by laws against murder are not going to be deterred by laws against guns. " - Robert A. Levy
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Freedomofchoice

I have a buddy who was shot with a .25 cal handgun, and he was fully functional for about 1/2 hr. He Called 911, and waited for EMS workers to arrive; was transported from a remote area, by helicopter, to a hospital. By the time he got to the hospital, all his vital signs were failing and he was unconsious. He's now ok, but my point is those little guns do not stop a person. Their potency is insidious and will not really end a fight effectively.

Redneck Repairs

Your choice to carry it or not . For myself ill take a large spyderco folder over the .22 as in my experience ( not speculation but actual cases ) the knife will put them down faster and harder . IMHO a .22 is a fair killer , but totally lacks in any kind of realistic stopping power . The other side of the coin is no one wants shot with anything and likely a bb pistol would suffice . For myself i wont nowadays carry anything smaller than .380 in a firearm .

Resurgam

Look, I'm a huge fan of .22LR for lots of applications. We've all heard that a .22 to the skull is one of the deadliest things on the planet due to the absence of an exit wound, etc.

But let me tell you something I saw about 15 years ago.

When I was a kid I saw one of my friends shoot a guy twice his size 7 times in the torso with a .22 out of fear of taking a beating. It was a "bang bang bang bang bang bang bang click click click click" situation - the guy just emptied the gun into him at less than 12 feet. Maybe it was just divine providence, but none of those bullets hit anything even close to a major organ or something that would actually kill the guy. It didn't even put the kid in intensive care. He was out of the hospital in a few days, and we all expected our buddy be on the receiving end of a revenge killing at any given moment.

The rest of that story isn't germane to the post, so just let me say that I carry a 1911 with two spare magazines.

Overkill? Maybe, but is there really such a thing as "overkill" when you're attempting to neutralize a threat to yourself or your loved ones? I know from experience that there is such a thing as "under-kill."

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MR D

lots of assassins would disagree

I think you would have to almost exclusively do head shots and be aware that some heads are harder and may deflect the bullet without incapacitation

my last actual gun fight - I was armed with a Browning Buck Mark - not my gun of choice - but it was close at hand when needed and the Mdl 19 S&W was not...

it got the job done, mainly cause the BG didn't like any form of pain - my wife and I were lucky that the diminutive bullet tearing into his flesh was painful enough that he decided he wanted to seek an easier target somewhere else...

Hinckley used a .22 during his 1981 assassination attempt on Pres. Reagan: Shortly before 2:30 p.m. EST, as Reagan walked out of the hotel's T Street NW exit toward his waiting car, Hinckley emerged from the crowd of admirers and fired a Röhm RG-14 .22 cal. blue steel revolver six times in three seconds.[11] The first bullet hit White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head.[12] The second hit District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty in the back.[13][12][14] The third overshot the president and hit the window of a building across the street. The fourth hit Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy in the abdomen.[13][12] The fifth hit the bullet-proof glass of the window on the open side door of the president's limousine. The sixth and final bullet ricocheted off the side of the limousine and hit the president under his left arm, grazing a rib and lodging in his lung, near his heart.[9] Sixteen minutes after the assassination attempt, the ATF found that the gun was purchased at Rocky's Pawn Shop in Dallas, Texas.[15] It was loaded with six "Devastator"-brand .22LR cartridges which contained small lead azide explosive charges and were not manufactured in the US; any bullet which contained actual explosives had already classified as an illegal Explosive Device under US Federal law at the time Hinckley purchased them.
(Wikipedia, 2008, online)
(of course "exploding bullets might help)

jongle

I use a .22 for target practice but I would not bet my life on that itty bitty round.

tns0038

Back in the 80’s and 90’s I use to carry a North American little pocket 22 LR all the time, when warring shorts, or as a backup to my G19, at work;. But I retired it a few years ago.

The reason I retired it, is today we face a different kind of threat than we did twenty years ago. Today, allot of armed robberies are drug related, and BG’s hopped up on crack, coke, PCP, etc. do not feel getting shot like a sober person does. Or at least in reading police reports of shootings, BG’s who are hopped-up don’t go down when shot, unless you cause a major wound channel.

While I still don’t believe you need a 44 magnum to kill a human, with advancements in polymer guns there is no reason to not carry a 380 pocket gun, when IWB or OWB is not an option.

Redneck Repairs

I am not an assassin, I dont fire from stealth, nor do i have the opportunity to place a shot surgically. What i do have to deal with is putting multiple hits into or as close to vital zones as i can starting after the whole situation went rodeo . I dont care how well the .22 works for an assassin , heck i know it works fine for them as i have put down cattle , horses and truth be known deer and antelope with single shots from a .22 pistol . What i care about is that it will not reliably dissuade joe q sixpack when he is upset much less Mr Weightpile on parole . The biggest baddest pistol you can carry will at best be a marginal tool to use in a gunfight and with that being said ill again state that nowadays the .380 is the floor for me , 9mm is normal and at times i bump to .45 , not because i think the .45 will do much if any better than 9mm but because i happen to know that when one is pointed at you ( by someone with ill intent ) it looks like you can Tapdance arm in arm with the entire cast of the rockettes down the bore .

Schwebel

If I were to carry a .22 for SD, it would have to be a wheelie. Rimfires in an auto are just too unreliable. My GF packed a .22mag wheelie for a long time, and I've carried it a couple times (as a BUG ). It would not be my prefered caliber of choice, but for anyone who shoots them well they can make a decent SD option.

TN_Mike

A .22lr as a ccw? Well, I wouldn't unless I couldn't carry anything else. But, it sure is better than nothing.

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