Well, I'm back from my road trip out-of-state.
Seems this battery bunny thread topic still has some juice left.
FWIW, at the last moment before leaving I packed one of my J's ... (M&P 340 w/lock
, which is my favorite of the pair - and the other one is without a lock) ... in one of my suitcases. It never left the luggage throughout the trip. My LCP, on the hand, rested snugly in its pocket holster in my jeans whenever I thought it appropriate ... and whenever I wasn't sampling some local craft brews.
Now, lots of folks still seem to put a lot of emphasis on handgun size, capacity, caliber and even special ammunition choices.
Cool. Free country.
However, when I'm the one doing the qualifying or training, I'm still going to be looking at the individual's ability to know the applicable laws (and agency policies, for the cops), their familiarization and safe handling of whatever it is their using ... and what their targets look like when they're required to demonstrate their skills under some of the more difficult & demanding drills.
It's all well and good to be able to produce some excellent slow-fire handgun groups on targets which demonstrate good basic handgunning skills.
However, I've seen my fair share of skilled shooters (including other instructors and even competitors at the local or international level), who seemed to unpredictably lose their edge when they were faced with new and different shooting drills, courses-of-fire, differently done time requirements ...
and having to make a judgment in an unexpected shoot/don't shoot situation (meaning surprise threat or non-threat targets).
So, caliber discussions are all fine and entertaining, but it's
the user, and the circumstances for which
the user has prepared themselves, that's probably still going to drive the user's
demonstrated performance in any particular situation ... and also have an influence on whether or not their choice of gun/caliber/ammunition is as relevant as they may think it is, when the choice is being made in the luxury of the situation not being unexpected, chaotic, evolving & dynamic.
Just some thoughts, folks.
I don't shill guns, calibers or ammunition ... but I do tend to have an interest in how well a shooter makes the choice to develop and upgrade their ability to actually perform with whatever it is they've chosen, or been required to use.