Popularity
After World War I, acceptance of this caliber increased. Nine-millimeter pistols and submachine guns were adopted by military and police users in a number of countries. The 9×19mm Parabellum has become the most popular caliber for U.S. law enforcement agencies, primarily due to the availability of compact pistols with large magazine capacity that use this cartridge.
Worldwide, it is one of the more popular pistol cartridges where it is legal, (some countries ban civilian use of weapons that chamber current or former military cartridges) and cartridges in this caliber are generally available anywhere pistol ammunition is sold.
From the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, there was a sharp increase in the popularity of semiautomatic pistols which coincided with the adoption of the Beretta M9 (a military version of the Beretta Model 92) by the U.S. Army. Previously, most police departments issued .38 Special caliber revolvers with a six-shot capacity. The .38 Special was preferred to other weapons such as variants of the M1911 because it offered low recoil, was small and light enough to accommodate different shooters, and was relatively inexpensive.
The 9mm is ballistically superior to the .38 Special revolver cartridge, is shorter overall, and being an autoloader cartridge, it is stored in flat magazines, as opposed to cylindrical speedloaders. This, coupled with the advent of the so-called 'wonder nines' led to many US police departments exchanging their revolvers for some form of 9mm automatic handguns by the 1980s.
Read more about this topic: 9×19mm Parabellum
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