moot1337

Too right. Practice, and practice often. Your group sizes will open up like crazy under a stressful situation, and where you place those shots matters. Pistols do not have the ballistic advantage that rifles have, in that rifles can disrupt tissue not directly in the bullets path. Pistols rounds are limited to the immediate area of where they hit, as hydrostatic shock is exponentially less at lower velocities. Get something with which you can place a lot of rounds on target, accurately, and do that regularly. CNS hits count for everything when it comes to disabling a human target, and between the lower-than-rifle shock effects of a pistol, to the inherent difficulty in shooting one accurately, it puts the wielder of the pistol at a great disadvantage, which can only be made up for with intense training.

To give yourself a greater advantage, make sure your rounds meet the minimum penetration standards of the FBI - 12 inches in 10% gelatin. The larger they expand, the better - but only if they meet that minimum. Otherwise they may not reach a critical area, even if a proper hit is made. Never take risks when it comes to self defense - that's why guns are used instead of pepper spray or tasers, and that's also why not to use cheap self defense ammunition.

__________________
And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be
banana-shaped.
This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again
how sheeps' bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
Oh, certainly, sir.