Defensive Caliber

Question
I'm from N.Y.C. and trying to decide on which caliber to to go with for home defense. I recently received a "premise/target permit. After doing research on the Internet; I'm still confused on which is the best defensive pistol caliber. I have heard that JHP ammunition are only for law enforcement in New York. Therefore, I'm restricted to FMJ ammunition. Looking for enough stopping power in a handgun. 9mm, .40acp, or .45Acp?

Answer
Gerald,

Before 1999 the NYPD was the only law enforcement agency in the country still to use FMJ ammunition, that configuration being clung to by administrators who live in a world of myth and political correctness.

On 4 Feb of that year four police officers opened fire on an unarmed immigrant who was trying to hand them his wallet (they claimed they thought he had a gun). Forty-one rounds were fired before the man fell and died of his wounds.

In the aftermath NYPD quietly switched over to hollow-point ammunition after the investigation revealed that had it been in use at the time, the man may have lived.

Hollow point ammunition has two life-saving advantages over FMJ. The first is that on expansion it dumps its kinetic energy into the target, allowing the person to know that he has been hit. Knowing that one is hit is often enough to make him give up the fight. By contrast, many people who have been shot with FMJ have reported that they didn't even know they were hit, and so just continued to do what they were doing, causing the shooter to keep shooting. Because of the higher number of rounds that targets tend to absorb when FMJ is used, they are more likely to sustain lethal wounds that they may not even feel at the moment.

The second safety reason for JHP ammunition is that it limits collateral damage. The projectile is more likely to stay in the target rather than exit and continue on a path toward unintended targets.

These benighted policies make people unsafe and cost lives, but you have to play with the hand you are dealt, so I will give you three considerations:

1) Consider looking into Federal EFMJ (Expanding Full Metal Jacket). These projectiles have a full jacket that is scored, and an internal cavity that is filled with a white rubbery substance. Upon impact the round flattens out. I'm almost certain that EFMJ would satisfy the law are regards POSSESSION of ammunition. What is uncertain to me is how a DA would look at it if you actually had to use it in self defense. I'll have to leave it to you to look into, but I hope this gives you a start for something to go on.

2) Modern expanding ammunition has pretty well mooted the caliber question. When the use of modern ammunition is in the mix, there is no appreciable difference between the calibers.

3) If forced to go the FMJ route, the .45 ACP in that configuration has a proven record. The 9mm is someone underwhelming when configured with FMJ. However, 9mm is the NATO round and will be available when nothing else is. For the same reason is also the least expensive of the cartridges mentioned, and the hardware (caliber) is useless without the software (which comes from frequent practice).

If ballistic effectiveness is your primary consideration and I was limited to FMJ, then if it were me, I would go with a .230 gr. .45 ACP.

If recreation and the ability to train to proficiency were my primary goals, then I would go with the 9mm, understanding that a hit (or multiple hits) with a 9mm will always be more effective than a miss with a .45 ACP (scratch this consideration is money is no object to you - .45 will cost at least 2x what 9mm ammunition does). For self defense, I would use a cartridge with the heaviest bullet that is supersonic, that is the 124 gr. (avoid the 147 gr. subsonics they have a poor track record as a stopper).

The .40 S&W ammunition will probably be slightly less expensive than the .45 ACP, and guns chambered in it will typically hold more rounds. In JHP configurations, it is more formidable than the .45, but probably less so with FMJ (being a modern cartridge, it was developed around JHP, so FMJs for that round are an afterthought). If you opt this route, I would use the 180 gr, bullets for self defense.

I hope this is helpful. It's tremendously hard for me sitting here and not really knowing your situation completely to say, "You should do this," so I've tried to supply you with the relevant data so that you can make an informed decision.