.9mm is an extremely small caliber. Smaller than the average pencil tip in fact. But that doesn’t seem to stop criminals from stealing and using .9mm handguns. Here’s a sample from the mainstream media coverage in the last month:

3 charged with 100+ counts in string of robberies [via wistv.com]

Investigators were executing a search warrant at a Stephens Street residence in Branchville where they located Koger on the premises. Inside a vehicle in plain view was an opened backpack that appeared to contain marijuana.

The bag contained a loaded .9mm handgun, several grams of cocaine, and marijuana worth an estimated $12,000 in street value.

Sheriff’s Dept: 2 men in custody after stray bullets hit neighboring house [via kvs12.com]

When deputies entered the home they found the front door had many bullet holes in it along with roughly 40 .9mm casings on the living room floor.

Deputies also found a .9mm Taurus Millennium G2 pistol laying on the living room table with a empty box of ammunition on the couch.

Video captures thief stealing rowing machine from Massachusetts crossfit center [via masslive.com]

In addition to a Smith & Wesson .9mm gun that was recovered when Mitchell allegedly threw it at State Police Troopers after he crashed . . .

Judge Guy Williams involved in past road rage cases [via kiiitv.com]

Just a day after learning that Texas Rangers are now investigating claims that Judge Guy Williams waved a .9mm pistol at a couple in a supposed road rage incident on April 28, 3News has learned of two past incidents he was involved in over the past four years . . .

3News asked the judge about the latest alleged road rage incident that is being investigated by Texas Rangers.

“I don’t even own a .9mm gun, sir,” Williams said.

Suspect identified in Fort Myers shooting [via winknews.com]

Blanks ultimately lost control of the car on the intersection of Highland Avenue and Edison Avenue, police said. He got out of the car and fled, but Walsh quickly trackedh im down and recovered the firearm — a Glock 19 .9mm handgun — without incident.

Reputed Gang Boss Pleads Guilty To Sharing Gun Range Trip On Instagram [via chicago.cbslocal.com]

An employee at the range said one of the two women he went with rented a Glock 19C .9mm handgun, which Spann loaded for them as the trio took turns shooting, prosecutors said.

Over $100 thousand stolen from Toledo Teachers Credit Union [via breakingbelizenews.com]

Further inspection inside the building revealed the building’s metal safe was damaged and opened.

Approximately US $7,088.00 US; $116,575.40, a .9mm Glock hand gun with a magazine and a Maverick brand pump action 12 gauge shotgun.

There are more, but that’s enough anecdotal evidence to suggest a trend.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

82 COMMENTS

    • Too true.

      We are supposed to listen to people who can’t tell the difference between a tenfold change in size?

      I don’t like metric any more than imperial, but damn… it IS simple… for most…

      • Not a lot of STEM graduates in journalism. The typical j-student may never have had to use metric units.

        • Perhaps, John O, but I have had occation to write on subjects about which I am lacking in expertise. Further, I frequently have doubt over the syntax of a certain thing about which I wish or feel compelled to write. In these instances I find Google to be a great resource.
          For instance, when I’m unsure of whether the ‘r’ in 7.62x54r is properly capitalized in this context, I would Google the entire string: and in this instance I would find that both formats are in wide use simply by scanning the top 10 or so previews, and thus learn that this particular differentiation is inconsequential.

          Doing the same for .9mm vs 9mm, searching on Google, using either designation returns results that in preview display only the ‘9mm’ format, with no reference to ‘.9mm’ seen at all.

          Since these types of simple scanning searches to determine the proper format or syntax are so easy and quick, it is unforgivable to me that someone who literally writes for a living can’t be bothered to run them.
          It’s not just about guns, its about accuracy, style, reading ease, properly informing the public, and professional pride in the work products quality.

          Perhaps I’m too harsh, but I wouldn’t have a reporter working for me very long who couldn’t be bothered to do the most basic sort of writing accuracy checks. If such a distinction as .9mm vs 9mm is lost on a person due to too little expertise on the subject, then it seems a safe assumption that they know too little about the subject to determine whether the distinction is very important or not. Given that we are talking here about someone who’s job it is to present accurate and unbiased news to the general public, and that said public must inevitably be a mix of complete novices through experts on any given subject, failure to ensure accuracy means that one part of the populace will now be misinformed, while another looks in askance at the credibility of the author and the organization. As an editor, I would look in askance at the reporters commitment to the quality of his work.

          In the case of .9 vs 9, the distinction is somewhat important for the sake if accuracy, but not of critical importance. However, a reporter who doesn’t know the difference can hardly be trusted to know if the distinction is critical not. Given this, it’s inexcusable that a reporter would not do the 10 seconds of research it would have taken to resolve the issue.

          As for misunderstanding the metric system, would it be so easy to forgive a reporter who consistently confused milligrams and grams in an article about drug dosing?
          What of one who confused meters and kilometers in an article about driving distances?
          In the latter, at least all that is likely to come of it is that people who do understand the basics of the metric system think the reporter and editor(s) silly and unserious, but in the former it may well lead to injury or death. Compounding this is the apparent fact that neither the reporter nor the editor know enough about the subject to understand the distinction or its ramifications .

          I don’t think anyone who works as a professional reporter should be given any sort of pass on these types of inaccuracies. It’s sloppy work, it reflects badly on the organization, and l, allowed to persist and spread, could lead to seriously negative outcomes.

      • Do you have any idea what happens when journalists come in contact with mathematics? Have you ever seen the climax of Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

    • Capacity is more important than size. My Bic automechanical assualt pistol holds 100 bullets per clip.

  6. Years ago science fiction writers use to mention needle guns. I guess the future has caught up with us.

  7. The down side: A bit of a *itch to find reloading dies and components.

    The bright side: I’m thinking that the magazines hold a LOT of ammo!

  8. Let me know when the trend switches to .9 caliber, then I’ll be out shopping. Nothing quite like a real hand cannon. I suppose though that all the guns will be single shot.

  9. Preening, virtue-signaling leftists, deliberately getting it ‘wrong’ because they don’t sully their pure, lily hands with dirty-knowledge of firearms, etc.

    Douchebags, every one.

    • Remember when Tucson tried banning the sale at gun shows of firearms larger than .22 gauge holding more than 10 rounds?

  11. Interesting that these clowns (or journalists as they like to style themselves) seem to be cribbing the same misinformation among themselves. We see this across the board in their reporting, on big issues and small. It’s like they all inhabit the same bubble of idiocy. I just don’t even watch or read any MSM product any more…chances are I would know less than if I had.

  12. I can only imagine what kind of damage a 1.5gr bul let (SD – .170) traveling at 12,250fps would do.

    • Reminds me of a technical drawing I once saw. It was of a .50 BMG shell necked down to hold a sewing needle for a projectile. I don’t remember what the fps was, but it was a lot.

      • Well, if you necked a .50BMG down to a .9mm bull et you’d certainly lose a lot muz zle energy, so we’ll start with ~10,000ft/lbs. The SD would obviously be much higher than the handg un bu llet so we’ll go with .412 – the same SD as a 750gr. .50BMG slug. M gr / 7000 d in2 = 3.62gr = .412SD. So, the square root of (10,000 x 450,400 / 3.62) = 35.273.2fps!

        My guess is the rifling on your barr el would be good for 6, maybe 7 roun ds.

        • ‘35.273.2fps!’

          Haha! I think one of those decimal points was supposed to be a comma. Of all the blog posts to make that mistake on!

        • Unfortunately the laws of physics are against you on this one…. A projectile cannot be accelerated faster than the speed of sound in the propelling medium, in this case at the temperature and pressure of a smokeless powder cartridge is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000fps. Gotta use a hydrogen light gas gun if you wanna get truly hypervelocity. Also lookup the Eargesplitten Loudenboomer, a .50BMG necked down to .22 cal, developed just to see how fast you really can get a bullet moving. I believe the best he ever did was just short of 7,000fps.

      • In my youth I saw a picture of a .50 bmg case necked down to take a 55 grain 5.56 round. I think it was a one off.

        I bet it would have ended all that “poodle shooter” stuff.

        • Edit about my previous comment about the Eargesplitten Loudenboomer, wrong parent cartridge, that one was a .378 Weatherby Magnum. The rest of my comment stands and that’s the one you’re talking about JWM

  13. A 9mm is smaller than a pencil? I must have an oversized 9mm. A pencil drops down the barrel with room to spare.

    • No, man. Go back and read the headline and the articles. They are talking about .9mm, not 9mm. See the difference? POINT 9mm. As in 9/10ths of a mm. C’mon, dude, keep up. 😉

  15. I recall a SF short story where the side arm fired .9mm DU darts at 5,000 meters per sec method not detailed though a very large magazine was claimed as was tungsten practice ammo for it… would be fun if it could be made to work but I don’t see it as anything but science fiction.

  16. “I don’t even own a .9mm gun, sir,”
    That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

  18. According to Virginia Governor McAuliffe, the deadly .9mm has killed 92 million people a day.

    Maths are hard for Dimocrats.

      • 94 Million a day = the entirety of the worlds population killed by guns in 34 days.

        If we go all POS (D)’s first, maybe we could stretch that out til the middle of August?

      • It is a very effective weapon, but follow-up shots are completely impossible, as the recoil tends to kill the shooter too.

        If you want to kill someone with it, aim carefully and be sure you are very committed to the task, because it is a “suicide mission”.

        LOL

  20. This reminds me of 3 Mile Island when someone misplaced the decimal point when calculating how long until the reactor might go critical. Of course the media ran with it “20 Hours Until THE END!”, when irl it was 200 hours.

  21. Even deadlier than .9mm is the “.9mm caliber”! It fits in both of the most dreaded assault weapons, the AK-15 and the AR-47, which have a capacity of 30 bullets per round and can fire at a dizzying rate of 150 bullets per clip. These weapons are semiautomatic, which is far more dangerous than automatic because semiautomatic has more syllables in it so it sounds scarier! The AK-15 and the AR-47 can fire these deadly .9mm caliber bullets at the terrifying rate of 150 bullets per clip due to their pistol grip and barrel shroud, which as we all know is the shoulder-thing-that-goes-up. The AK-15 and AR-47 are “military grade” “bullet hoses” that are so inaccurate that the only way for shooters to hit their target is to “hose down” or “spray” the target area with .9mm caliber rounds, yet they’re also dangerous due to their deadly pinpoint accuracy. The .9mm caliber round can shoot down a jumbo jet flying at 50,000 feet with deadly accuracy, yet at the same time it’s inaccurate beyond five feet so is useless for home defense. It is deadly quiet and also dangerously loud!

    (There, did I fit all the anti-gun talking points from the Violence Policy Center into one paragraph?)

    • You’ve encapsulated so much awesomeness into a single paragraph that I am awed by your power of wordsmithing.
      Teach me sensei!

    • You can carry the 9mm if you want, but me, I’ll not settle for anything less than the knockdown power of the .380 cartridge. It has 3 times the numbers, so it’s 3 times as deadly.

    • Actually your explanation is somehow all at once better AND worse than Feinstein’s.

      True genius sir!

  22. I’ve known people who confused imperial for metric measurements. So a 30-cal to them was the same as 30mm (!). When this was pointed out they would ask what is the difference? The differences are 4x the diameter and 64x the mass.

    • Let’s not forget that a few years back an emperial V metric confusion caused the ESA’s software the crash a NASA probe into Mars. And this was highly trained German, French and American rocket scientists!

  26. .9mm? You do know you put decimal points before every 9mm in your story. Did you take another liberal creative writing class?

    • Those are direct quotes from the media. He didn’t put the decimal points there. The decimal points are the entire focus of the article – how the press is all in a tizzy over “.9mm” firearms. Not a new subject around here.

  27. I keep hearing “7.62 caliber rifle”. They must think it makes them sound informed.

    Which 9mm
    9mm Japanese rimmed? 9mm Mauser export? 9mm Glisenti? 9mm Browning long? 9mm Browning short?
    9mm Bergmann? 9x32mmR?

    A Shotgun’s “gauge” is measured by the number of round lead balls, the diameter of the bore,
    it takes to make one pound. Let them try and wrap their pin heads around that one.

    • The CZ-75 was a standard firearm for the old Soviet block countries, but I just learned that those dern Russhkies insisted that they be chambered in 9mm Makarov, not Luger.

  28. Well then .17 cal. is plenty big cuz it’s a bigger number then .9mm, with their math .9mm is bigger then …9mm

  31. um…did TTAG forget what the word “common” means, as in 9mm is the most common carry round? probably the most common round period these days.

    • 9mm is very common, yes. But .9mm – now there’s a rare beast…unless you’re a so-called journalist.

  32. Come on guys. We can’t expect them to be able to differentiate between metric and standard.

  33. The ongoing shortage of .9mm ammo makes me wonder how they can keep using these. I haven’t found any .9mm on the shelves anywhere

  34. Wow! That is really weird. Usually the media submits its stories to EXTENSIVE fact/error checking.

  36. Nit Picking Alert!

    For decades my weapon of choice was a Pentel mechanical pencil. This weapon was chambered for 0.7mm rounds. The tubular magazine held at least 12 rounds, so it would be illegal in California now. My preferred ammo was HB Hi-Polymer which is even better than Hi-Shok. The best feature was located at the butt of the weapon. This device was able to undo the effects of the rounds after they had left the barrel.

    Oh yeah, the nit-pick: 0.5mm is a fine pencil point, 0.7mm is medium, and a 0.9mm pencil lead is relatively fat.

  37. “Reporters are stupid” isn’t exactly news.

    If ever they were not, the web hath destroyed the business model of most news agencies, and thus the salaries of the bodies left. The talented and competent have mostly moved on.

    From what I see in my local large metro newspaper, the dregs that are left are barely literate. Or at least they’ve abandoned the concepts of “editors” and “style guides”. I would have failed ninth grade journalism if I wrote like a typical AJC reporter today.

Comments are closed.