# Why did the police adopt more powerful handguns?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-police-adopt-more-powerful-handguns/512604>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 4, 2009, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-police-adopt-more-powerful-handguns/512604 "2009-10-04T23:29:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-police-adopt-more-powerful-handguns/512604/21 "2009-10-08T04:04:56Z")

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> [@smiling\_bandit](#):
>
> I’m curious if this was related to the military’s interest in moving to a higher-caliber handgun. I’ve read that in Iraq, units occaisionally did fined themselves using sidearms for whatever reason, and having damnably hard times putting enemies down (incapacitated or dead) with them: the enemy could simply keep going even after several torso hits.

Any pistol-caliber weapon is marginally effective compared to a high velocity rifle round, even the 5.56x45mm, and no handgun round, even the .357 Magnum, is guaranteed to knock down an opponent with one shot. The 9mmP, particularly in the hardball configuration, is known to penetrate through-and-through, doing less damage than something like a .45 ACP that will tumble, or a 7.65x39mm rifle round that will do significant damage via hydrostatic shock. A pistol is basically better than a club, but not by all that much.

Stranger

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