Is a .22 LR Good Enough?

Last week a news story out of Arlington, TX caught my attention. A pharmacist named Rick Ray, who owns Arlington Pharmacy, was beaten pretty severely with a tire iron by a man wearing a Halloween mask after Ray refused to give the man medication. Ray is only here to tell his story because of the .22 LR Derringer, like the Bond Arms Derringer shown above, that he used to stop the attack.

Watch the story here, my thoughts below.

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

The caliber wars have been going on longer than the Hundred Years’ War, with many battles and a LOT of posturing. I’m not trying to fan that flame here, but I would like to discuss the reality of the “good enough” question using this real life story as an example. Is a .22 LR good enough for self-defense?

Stopping the Attack

Most of the self-defense instructors I’ve known/trained with teach to “shoot until the attack stops”, and I think this makes a lot of sense. In my experience, people respond well to goal oriented training, regardless of the type. Whether the application is sports, the workplace, self-defense or something else, I think having a goal is important as I believe it helps provide the proper mindset for your training.

In the situation above, Ray stopped the attack. He shot his attacker, presumably once, with a .22. This reminds me of an instructor I had a while back, who was a particularly entertaining old guy and longtime Texas cop that said, “99 times out of 100, you only need to change the attacker’s priorities. Pull your pocket pistol, pop him [the attacker], if he keeps coming, pop him again. Once he starts leaking [bleeding], all of the sudden he’s gonna have bigger priorities than whatever he was trying to do to you.”

I think that makes a lot of sense from a certain perspective, and he said it in response to why he recommended pocket 380’s like the popular Ruger LCP to people as a concealed carry gun. They are small and easy to conceal, can be drawn from a pocket, and are “usually enough” to change an attacker’s priorities.

But is “usually” good enough for you?

Stopping the Attacker

I submit that while stopping the attack is the most important thing (your immediate problem), stopping the attacker is perhaps a better mindset.

The man that Ray shot with a .22 ended up running away, so yes Mr. Ray successfully stopped the attack. But the bad guy, a man that was willing to kill someone with a tire iron for pills, is still out there, and will likely attack again. Maybe the next time the outcome will be much worse. If someone attacks you, do you want to stop him only to give him the chance to come back and take revenge, maybe on your loved ones? I don’t.

This is why I prefer “Stopping the Attacker” as a mindset over “Stopping the Attack”. I understand that there are perhaps legal reasons why people don’t make this distinction, and I’m certainly not encouraging excessive force. What I am encouraging is that if you are attacked by a lunatic with a tire iron, that if possible, you have more to greet said bad guy with than a couple shots of .22.

Can you stop an attacker with a .22? Absolutely, with proper shot placement, a lot of skill and perhaps a little luck it can be done, but personally I don’t want to take that chance. I think Mr. Ray said it best when he said that he wished he’d had his .357 with him, and that he’s very fortunate to have survived.

In my opinion, when confronted with a deadly attack, your goal shouldn’t be to scare off the bad guy, it should be to put him down.

Wrapping Up

So is a .22 LR good enough? Like a lot of questions in life, there is no right or wrong answer.

Hearing the story of Mr. Ray, there’s no question that he is a lucky man to be alive. Had he missed with his Derringer, had there been more than one attacker, or had the stars not aligned so well for him on that night, he’d probably be dead now. I’m just not willing to take that chance, so for me, the answer is no.