First and foremost, when I hear someone describe a gun they plan on carrying for self defense as, "Well, it's better than nothing!" I have to wonder if that person even understands the concept of self defense. "Better than nothing" does not appear anywhere in my personal self defense plan. The planning stage is the only part of a self defense event you get to control. The idea is to set yourself up to succeed, not to fail, during the most important seconds of your life. "The .22 you carry is better than the .45 you leave at home." Who on earth would be stupid enough when faced with that choice to leave the wrong gun at home?

If a .380 came close enough to being adequate for stopping the range of attacks we have to expect, then police departments would be issuing them to officers. They are lighter, easier to shoot and the ammo would probably be cheaper when bought in police department quantities. The fact that no cops in this country carry duty .380s means that the caliber is not considered capable of defending police officers, and departments won't risk the moral and legal problems that under-gunning their officers would cause.

And please, don't give me the, "But we're not police officers, our needs are different and we don't need the capabilities they need." In fact, we need guns like police officers carry because we face exactly the same people police officers face, and we face them first. Then, ASAP, we call 911. We may need more compact versions of service weapons and our holsters don't require the same level of retention, but we most certainly do need the same minimum caliber and quite possibly the same capacity magazines...

If a person has a physical disability and can't handle the recoil of a 9mm or a .38 Special, then I'd recommend that they triple their situational awareness and base their self-defense plan on avoiding, evading, or escaping, and carrying the largest caliber they can handle. If they can shoot a larger caliber but don't have the strength to rack the slide on a 9mm pistol, I'd recommend a service caliber revolver (.38 Special - plus P if possible - with good bullets).

Anyway, that's my two cents worth!