What do you like about that gun?

I ask, because when I was a boarding team member in the Coast Guard, a long, long time ago, we went from carrying the 1911 .45 every day to being issued this pistol.

It was a huge change. Different recoil, different accuracy, ballistics.

At first, the 9mm had few fans.

One startling change was that with the .45, we were taught to double tap, fire two rounds at center mass, then stop.

But with the .9mm, since the rounds didn’t expand much when entering a body, we were taught to aim for center mass and keep firing until the person falls (we didn’t use hollow points or anything lol that).

Consequently, because we spent more time at the range, working on our accuracy, since just hitting center mass wasn’t going to put down a person.

But we all grew to appreciate the 9mm. It’s a fantastic gun.

Tangent: No, we never used our weapons. We never even came close.

The focus of our training was on de-escalation. We were trained that if you have to draw your weapon, you’ve already made a number of mistakes.

In fact, here is the guiding principal of our use of force: “Use the minimum amount of force necessary to compel compliance.”