Anyone else remember back in the mid 1980s when Beretta discontinued these pistols and the .380 versions, you could find them NIB on gun show tables for around $175? Even though I was really into .22 handguns at the time, I passed on, even skipped over one to buy a used six inch Python at twice the price. Strangely, I don’t have the Python anymore, or a great story about how big a profit I made, but I still have all the other .22s I acquired, including s couple of Beretta Bobcats I bought during that period.
The absolute beauty of a .22 is its versatility. It can be a small game getter, a training tool, a poor college student’s last line of defense, or a professional’s artistic brush. The members of our own tier one special operations community get more trigger time in training than anyone else I would imagine short of professional competitors and have very high standards to accompany them. It would not be presumptuous to think that Israeli assets were also well trained. The Israeli Air Marshal, as I recall, may have originally been detailed over from either Mossad or Sayaret Matkal (spelling?), and the concept of armed agents protecting flights was still in its infancy. Couple that with the fact that Israel was not a rich country at that time and had long learned to make due with what they had and use it effectively. A well trained special operator with a sharp stick and a high degree of understanding the concept of surprise, speed, and violence of action is certainly going to prevail against a moron equipped with the latest and greatest deadly stuff and trained to the lowest common denominator on its effective employment. That pretty much sums up the Israeli counter terrorism successes. Remember too that in the 70s, things like fragmenting or shot-filled bullets were developed to prevent or minimize aircraft cabin penetration. They were expensive compared to a box of match grade .22 LR, and history has proven they weren’t terribly effective. Of course we know now that it takes a pretty large hole maker to depressurize an aircraft cabin, something that far exceeds the capability of any handgun or even a common AK. I remember once a conversation with a retired tier one operator who had once served in the Viet Nam Delta project, who mentioned using suppressed .22 Rugers and High Standards, and did not conclude with, “I’ll never try that again.”
