Here's an outtake from the above article. Such copyrighted material is permited to be reproduced in small outtakes as direct, attributed quotes...

But it pretty well sums up what everybody thought.

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Here goes:

...We contacted several agents familiar with the pistol selection and, after promising them anonymity, they agreed to comment:

"'When John Hall was in charge of the 10mm program, he told me, 'I love the .45, I carry a .45, but I couldn't go before Congress and ask for $3.5 million for a .45 when the army had just spent millions to replace the .45.' So we came up with a cartridge that ballistically was identical to it -- the downloaded 10mm," an FBI source said.

"The FBI has been conducting an ongoing study on ballistics since Miami [the 1986 massacre in which two agents died in a bloody gunfight with bank robbers]. They found the .45 is a pretty good round. In a tradeoff between controllability and knockdown power, the .45 is it. Confidence level is also a part of it [the decision to adopt the caliber]," said another informed source.

There! The words no one wants to admit officially: "knockdown power." You know that was the reason for the .45 specification; I know that; and surely the FBI knows that. But they aren't about to admit it. The assorted liberals in the alphabet soup-- HCI, ACLU, NAACP -- would have a field day with such an admission. You can just imagine the headlines: "FBI Shoots To Kill," "FBI Picks Deadliest Weapon."

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Apparently, some in a liberal Congress at the time wanted the 9mm because it was a "less-lethal" round....

Gee, nobody's ever put that sharp a point on it before. But it's clear some want the 9mm PRECISELY because the 9mm IS less deadly...

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...........

And don't forget that Ronald Reagan had been shot just a mere 7 weeks after taking office just a few years earlier.

Also, recall that Reagan's support for gun rights got a LOT spongier after that incident...

As much as I hate to say it, the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords also might have had a far, far, far worse outcome if she'd been hit on the same bullet path with a .45, a .357, a 10mm or a .40 -- as opposed to a 9mm.