Inspired by so many rap lyrics mentioning this ammunition. Sometimes there is a .45, or a shotgun, or even an AK.
Is it still considered a top choice for a sidearm or machine pistol? Or does it evoke something grandpa would have carried? More generally, what kind of cartridges does the modern gangster, or soldier, prefer to use?
9mm is still the most common cartridge for US police and military handguns. And probably the civilian market too, at least for semi auto handguns.
There have been a million “45 vs. 9” debates on gun forums, and there’s still no consensus. 
My opinion? For a CCW, most people are better off with a 9 mm. My reasoning? 45 ACP is pretty damn expensive. It’s so expensive that you may not want to spend much time training with it. Which is bad, obviously. You’re more likely to spend more time at the range with cheaper ammo like 9 mm. In addition to the cost advantage, 9 mm has less recoil and the gun can carry more rounds.
Some people claim 45 ACP has more “stopping power” than 9 mm. I am not sure if there’s been a definitive answer on that one. Even if it’s true, shot-placement is most important, and this is a function of training, which is a function of cost, which tips the hat toward 9 mm.
Is that because it’s lighter? What about even smaller calibres like 4.6mm and 5.7mm?
I read exactly this (concerning shot placement; the author did not mention cost) in a coffee-table book about handguns. It is by now an old book; yet, surely that point remains valid (or invalid).
To quote likely thousands; “A hit with a .22 is better than a miss with a .44”
Are you talking about effectiveness of stopping power, or cost? I don’t know much about stopping power (and I’m not sure if anyone does). But IMO the cost of ammo is something that should be of high importance for reasons I gave in my above post. What is the price of 4.6 mm and 5.7 mm? I haven’t checked, but I am guessing that stuff is pretty pricey. First-and-foremost, I want ammo that is both “good” and “cheap.” IMO 9 mm is better at these two things than any other caliber. YMMV.
The gangsta rappers do not usually go into a detailed breakdown of their budget, but I imagine that on the real live streets economy may be important. As for the military, I have no idea, but imagine they are going to be pretty conservative before switching anything around.
Specifically for the history, just as gangsta rap was emerging into popularity in the 80s was the time that 9x19mm Parabellum was starting to be adopted widely by USA officialdom, replacing in the military the .45 ACP and in police use the .38 Special. This was the USA finally coming around to adopting the NATO standard for something instead of making NATO adopt ours. So it was the great new thing.
Big reason for adopting the 9mm was like for the 5.56mm in rifles, you can carry more ammunition for the same or less weight, and the thing is, for the purposes and in the situations that most individual-carry firearms are used, you really do not need something that “will blow your head clean off” or that will knock them out of their boots at 1000 meters, but you CAN always use more rounds on hand. This was especially in the minds of police departments who did not feel too good about going up with a six-shooter against some gangbanger with a MAC-10.
In the 90s and early 00s there was some pushback about “stopping power” that led to development of the 10mm and the .40SW cartridges and made them popular with law enforcement. But with time and development of better ammunition and guns that has become something of a wash when it comes to cost-effectiveness, and both the ammunition and the firearms developed for it are super-mature technologies, solidly reliable and economical, and the firearms made for 9mm today can be as light and concealable as a .380 used to be.
Since I shoot Cowboy Action I generally use .38 for competition or sometimes .356 if I need a little more oomph to knock down a particular steel target. I’m a reloader, so cost matters and both those calibers are relatively cheap to reload. 9MM is used by just about everyone these days for self-defense and is also a relatively low-cost round to shoot and reload. I like the low recoil of my .38, but it’s not the caliber I keep next to my bed.
I have a Ruger 5.7 x 28 pistol and I really like it. The bullet is a small one in a bottle necked cartridge with a lot of powder behind it. Very fast, 1800 to 2000 feet per second. Shoots flat and fast, no recoil, and very accurate for a handgun at long range. Most 9mm handguns are about as accurate as throwing rocks. This gun is miles ahead.
The ammo is currently very expensive, $1 to 1.50 per round but the price is coming down. 9mm ammo is fairly cheap and available in comparison because that is what everyone uses.
Just want to address the point of what a sidearm is. Crappy. There, I said it, and I mean it, despite owning it. The saw you’ll see repeated (ad nauseum) is that “a pistol is only good to get a shotgun, a shotgun is only good to get a rifle.” Pistols are (relatively) lousy at everything you’d expect a firearm to do (accuracy, range, and ‘stopping power’) with the single exception of portability/concealment.
Civilians carry pistols predominantly as concealable but reasonably effective weapons. Police carry them for the portability, but if expecting actual combat, they have and use more effective weapons depending on the department (again, combat is not a main police function). Most military units do not use or issue sidearms anymore, because concealment and portability are not normally a primary need. Gangsters carry pistols for the reasons civilians do, and also as a signifier of their culture. See also this thread.
As for attitudes regarding the 9mm specifically, the arguments you’ll see are normally 9mm vs 40 S&W vs 45 ACP. In that order you get most ammunition, middling, and fewest, but reverse in terms of perceived efficacy in stopping. As mentioned upthread, with modern defensive ammunition (not traditional ball ammunition however), any of the above are effective. The issue becomes (generally) the more concealable a pistol (compact and sub-compact especially), the shorter the barrel and the lousier the accuracy. So most sub-compact semi-autos (revolvers are another kettle of fish) are 9mm by default, so you can have a small package with a respectable number of rounds.’
The 5.7 mentioned upthread is reportedly a joy to shoot with nice flat ballistics - but even at current prices for 9mm, is 3-5x as expensive to keep ammo to practice. As for efficacy, the results are mixed, as it’s very (!) high velocity but low mass leaves it open to the same complaints voiced by those who are die-hard .45 fans. Overall though it would absolutely get the job done, even if it generally doesn’t have the same access (yet) to defensive, high-expansion style rounds.
Please keep in mind though, one of the reasons is is more accurate is high velocity (less drop off from the muzzle over effective range) and that most 5.7 platforms use a longer barrel than those of defensive 9mm carry pistols. As a comparison, a default Ruger 5.7is just shy of of a 5 inch barrel. My old S&W M&P 9c (which is on the large end of the concealed weapon size) has a 3.5 inch barrel. So yeah, short barrels are not going to provide accuracy.
Last ('cause this is a book), at least one article on firearms used by criminals echoes what we’ve gone over earlier -
TL/DR: Criminals use cheap handguns, with 9mm being pretty much top, because, gasp cheap 9mm are frickin’ everywhere. So it’s cheap to buy, which also makes it more commonly available if stolen, and cheap to buy ammo for. But I don’t think criminals are buying guns after spending much time searching websites to evaluate their efficacy. 
And for some of us smaller people less recoil is also a factor in practice. In a true emergency situation (in my mind, the only reason to fire a hand gun outside a range) recoil isn’t much of a factor due to adrenaline and the fact a real shoot out isn’t likely to last long. It is a factor on the range when you’re practicing. If practice becomes painful you’re less likely to do it.
Also…
Personally, I favor .38 over .45 and recoil has a lot to do with that. Also, my aim is better with a .38 than a larger/more powerful caliber. Hitting the intended target is important. So if I do ever buy a gun for myself it’s likely to be a “smaller” one due to control and comfort in practice reasons. Oh, and a lower cost would be nice, too, though shootin’ is getting to be an expensive hobby.
There’s a lot of what seems to me to be weird thinking about handguns, concealed carry, and what the things are for. If I’m ever in a situation where I’d consider using a gun what I’m shooting at would be close up and the matter would be over, one way or another, very shortly because my objective in such a situation would be to end the threat long enough for me to run like hell to somewhere safer. I’m not going to be shooting at someone in the distance, I’m not going to be performing military maneuvers, I’m not going to be “clearing” a building, or willingly walking into a hazardous situation. I’m not a cop or soldier. Buying a weapon just because “the cops carry this” or “soldiers carry this” strikes me as not really considering the use for the tool.
But that’s just me and my opinion.
You’re the first other person I’ve run across that has a .356. I have the Marlin 336ER in Win .356.
It’ll knock down a target I’m sure. If it doesn’t just blow a hole through it. 
Some typical lyrics: (or maybe 
because drug dealers shooting at each other is unfortunately far from mythological)
Heh, yeah, I don’t listen to music of that sort, so wasn’t able to evaluate the lyrics as it were.
It sure makes the point that the evaluation criteria for ganstas is very, very different from the average CCW / Grandpa / Military evaluation. 
There’s gangsta, and then there’s narco.
Reading that article briefly, it is more being used as a status symbol than an effective weapon. the M82 is a .50 cal sniper rifle. It has a (comparatively) low rate of fire, a long range (that requires a huge amount of training to make use of), and weighs so much that you wouldn’t ever want to actually carry it.
But it LOOKS freaking awesome. I’m sure that most actual narcos use a M16 or AK for their normal skirmishes with other gangs or to suppress the average village. A lot easier to carry and actually get on target / spray and pray.
You caught my typo. That should have been .357 Magnum, which is basically the same dimension as a .38 only longer with more powder. I didn’t know there was a .356 out there. Learn something new every day.
The .365 Win is basically a necked up .308. I think of it as more of a cannon. I thought maybe you shot a rifle too. The Marlin 336 chambered in .356 is a lever action carbine. A ‘cowboy type rifle’ I have a .357 mag as well, and it’s easy to confuse the numbers.
My Dad gave me the .356. Considering that we have black bears wandering around that have gotten into our cars 4 times, I’m gonna hang on to it.
But I’ve gotten away for the 9mm handgun topic.
We sell a lot of Diamondback DB9’s and in the summer I carry one myself in a pocket holster when wearing shorts. It is about the same size as most .380 pistols but packs the full 9mm cartridge.
I have put thousands of rounds through mine without a single hiccup.
Plus they are very inexpensive.
If you want a better known brand, Glock has put out a couple of 9mm with single stack magazines. This makes for a slim package with narrower grips, frame, and slide, and with the proper pocket holster you can carry a full size pistol in your front pocket with nobody the wiser. The 48 and 43X come with single stack 10 round mags but Shield Arms makes an excellent 15 round aftermarket magazine that still fits flush. The 43 (a differnt model from the 43X) comes with a 6 round mag and does not accept the mags that fit the 48 and 43X. The 43 is a good handgun but I find it too large for only holding 6+1 rounds.
Baby Glocks are still good sellers. Even though they are blocky like most Glocks they are quite concealable. And on top of their 10 round mag they also accept the 17 round and 33 round magazines.