Gun Control & RKBA

There is a reason why police departments and members of the general public both have moved-on from revolvers holding 5-7 rounds on average to semi-auto pistols holding 6 (for a subcompact) -17 rounds (many standard duty 9mm pistols) on average.

No one wants to "spray" any quantity of bullets "around the store." The only goal is to stop the threat and insure the safety of the innocent. In this case, five rounds from a revolver was not enough. Given that police officers hit their targets ~18% of the time during armed altercations, the mother hitting the assailant even once with a 5-shot revolver under the extreme stress of a threat to her and her daughter's lives is impressive.

Again, this is an actual case that happened this month, not some musing about police actions of 30+ years ago.

Regarding your point about "the ammunition," small-framed people (particularly women) have to make choices between recoil, grip size, and effectiveness. In self-defense discussions, .38 and .380 are considered the low-end of adequate, and I think that this conclusion is borne-out here. It took four rounds connecting to incapacitate the assailant. Hollow-point rounds might have helped (though the article does not mention what rounds were used), but the old saying is that "9mm might or might not expand, but a .45 is not going to shrink." The problem is that many women do not feel comfortable with a .45 handgun. They are large, although in a semi-automatic, their recoil can be manageable for many with practice.

-app