Seriously a “high-powered handgun.”? Where can I get me one of those death-ray handguns that could take down a satellite if your not careful?
I am constantly amused over the uproar about “high-powered” guns. If I sit and think about cases of people I have actually known or known of who were killed with a gun it was in many cases a little .22 rimfire “squirrel gun”. It really comes down more to where the bullet strikes rather than the actual size or speed of the projectile. In fact if you are hit in a certain way you may be better off to be shot with a .45 than with a .22. A strike in the outer part of the rib cage, for instance, may mean a couple of broken ribs with a .45 but a survivable wound because it passes right on through while a .22 in the same spot may enter the rib cage and travel around inside the vital organs causing a quick death because it lacks the power to break through and exit the ribs.
On the other hand if you are shot in the head by a professional hit man you are maybe 99% certain to die regardless of the caliber but the case of Phineas Gage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage proves that a person may survive being shot through the head with a 1 1/4 inch diameter steel projectile weighing 13 pounds and longer than his arm.
All the commotion about bigger and more powerful handguns remind me of the way some people think you need a monster engine in a pickup truck to pull a trailer. Having hauled a lot of loads with a relatively underpowered engine I found that my biggest worry was how to stop the load that my medium sized engine would pull, I don’t think I ever wished for a stronger engine, just better brakes. An antique pickup with an eighty horsepower, six cylinder engine will pull a considerable load faster than it is safe to travel. Heaven forbid that some inexperienced driver should be given a 400 horsepower pickup truck to drive pulling a heavy load.