How many of you have ever fired a gun?

[1939]

172. Believe it or not

the first meeting I went to on the "personal defense weapon" was a Ft Benning in 1971. I told them that we shouldn't replace the M1911A1 because we had enough of them on hand, it was far more reliable and durable then anything on the street at the time, and that almost everyone armed with the pistol had better things to do in a combat situation then to pull out his pistol and start firing (e.g. machine gunners, mortar gunners, tankers, staff officers, medics, etc.).

They kicked this around until 1985 when they made the decision to go with a 9mm for NATO commonality as we were the only ones using a .45 caliber round.

Among various options we considered were the Ingram pistols (MAV-10 and MAC-11), but they didn't want that because they were rather large and awkward.

Since most of the people armed with a pistol couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, you really could just issue billy clubs.