I responded to more shootings in my career than I can remember, and there are two indelible lessons I learned: First, shot placement is everything. And secondly, I don't ever want to be shot with ANYTHING.
We had a young drug dealer shot with a .45...he ran for about three blocks before he finally stopped. The bullet entered his midsection and ricocheted downward into his lower abdomen.
We had a crackhead shot in the face by a Baltimore cop. (He was attacking the officer with a large mallet.) The 9mm round entered his face just to the right of his nose, was deflected down through his mouth and neck -- where it nicked his jugular vein -- and stopped in his right lung. He dropped immediately when he was hit. (Our paramedics got him to Johns Hopkins, where they saved his life.)
An old man some years ago, in a poor neighborhood in East Baltimore, saw some teens messing with his car across the street, and cranked off a couple of rounds from a .25 automatic. One round connected in just the right place, and killed one of the kids.
We had an armed robber walk out of a West Baltimore grocery store, smug and full of himself. He stuck his .22 pistol in his waistband, where it discharged. The bullet severed his left femoral artery, and he bled to death before our medics could get there.
If I carried a gun (which is legally all-but-impossible in my state) I would probably carry my Model 19 or Model 66, as much as I love my various Government Models. But in the end, IMHO, the "best" handgun to carry is the one you can carry comfortably and shoot accurately, regardless of caliber.
