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Javier730 wrote:If 9 out of 10 times just drawing your pistol stops an attacker, a 25 already has 90% chance of stopping a bad guy. Still not my first choice but its better than nothing.

About pissing someone off if you shoot them with a 25, be sure you piss him off about 6 times.

The Florida woman whose experience I cited did exactly that and ended up severely beaten and with major injuries. Although she survived, that's not my idea of a my desired end state for a defensive shoot.

I'm also not at all sure that 90% figure holds when the pistol is as small as a .25. A lot of folks in neighborhoods where violence is common don't have the same fear of being shot as those from less distressed areas might. They know that getting shot with a handgun is survivable in the vast majority of cases, and lots of them carry the scars to prove it. They are also familiar with the differential results between big guns and little guns.

While reason would tell most folks that getting shot at all is something one should work hard to avoid, that level of wisdom plays a significantly diminished role when alcohol, meth, coke, and other substances are in the bloodstream in high concentrations.

I've seen such folks puff out their chests and say "go ahead - shoot me!" when confronted with a .38.

I've also seen a really nasty crowd part like the Red Sea did for Moses when the "main mouth" was confronted with a .45.

I'll stick with the "big barrel hole / heavy bullet" school of thought because if I need it, I'm pretty sure it'll do what I need done more often than not.

I don't have that level of confidence in the admittedly very convenient to carry mouse guns.

YMMV

The .25 ranks far behind a decent folding knife for defene in my book due to 2 situations I'm personally familiar with:

1. One of the local barflies went home drunk again after promising his current beau he wouldn't do that anymore. She figured that was reason enough to shoot him between the eyes with a .25 while he snored away. He didn't wake up, and continued to snore away until morning. He only called for a ride to the hospital because he had a headache and a cut on his head. The X-ray showed the slug about 1.5 inches inside the skull. He went home in a couple hours with a band aid and a prescription for antibiotics after the doc said it didn't need to be removed and hadn't hit anything he was using anyway.

2. A woman in Florida awoke when a home invader pried open her sliding door around 6:30 one morning and attacked her. She grabbed the .25 from her nightstand and emptied the magazine into him. He proceeded to beat her so badly that when she staggered to a neighbors' house in her nightgown they refused to let her inside because they didn't recognize her. Police found the BG deceased so I guess you could call that a win - sort of.

It's true that no handgun rounds will give you a guaranteed quick stop on an attacker, but it's worthwhile considering that some are much less likely to do so than others.

The .25 is clearly in that category.

Besides cartridge ignition being less than reliable, a lot of them don't feed reliably either.

I categorize them as gamblers' guns - because folks gamble with their lives when they rely on them to save their lives.