I already own a .45 ACP; while it's great for home defense I can't imagine lugging it around on my belt all day. So I've been trying to decide for myself whether to purchase a .380 or 9mm caliber handgun for carrying purposes.

I found this terrific article by Dick Metcalf, who's the Technical Editor at Shooting Times:

When it comes to personal-defense carry, most people buy little guns. The single largest category of handguns bought in the US during the last 10 years has been small, short-barrel, pocket-size defense models-autoloaders and revolvers alike. Overall, compact concealment-size handguns account for more than 70 percent of all current civilian handgun sales, and autoloaders account for approximately 75 percent of that number (according to the most current BATF statistics). In terms of caliber selection (not counting the sub-effective .22 and .25 chamberings), the two most popular choices within this dominant portion of the overall handgun pie are the .380 ACP and the 9mm.

My research has helped me settle on a 9mm.

[9mm Versus .380 ACP For Self-Defense]

The cover story of the August 2010 issue of Harper's Magazine is titled "Happiness is a Worn Gun: My Concealed Weapon and Me," by Dan Baum. It's unusual.

It's certainly not the kind of cover story that Harper's would have run under the editorship of Lewis Lapham, whose trademark leftist rants became too frequent and too detached from reality for me to continue purchasing the magazine. Lapham is still listed in the masthead as "National Correspondent", but his name is not among the writers in the table of contents. If the Harper's Index were to to somehow quantify the contempt for America and Americans spread throughout each issue of the magazine, it would certainly record a substantial drop from the closing years of Lapham's editorship. Good riddance to an old fool.

I would not have picked up the August, 2010 issue if not for the promise of the first-person narrative in "My Concealed Weapon and Me." That phrasing in the title, and the cover image of a vintage High-Standard Sentinel "belly gun" revolver suggested authenticity, so I paid my $6.99.

The article itself lives up to my hopes. Baum is a lifelong gun owner and the article is free of contempt for those who hunt or own guns for defensive purposes. He gives a fair appraisal of the state of concealed and open carry in the United States, why and how people choose to do it, and what the societal effects have been and might be in the future.

Baum is at his best when he is gently dismantling anti-gunner beliefs. Playing to Harper's readership, he presents John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime with a fair amount of skepticism and neglects to mention the Bellesiles fraud. Immediately after, though, he brings forth this defense:

"There are going to be armed people in bars. The good news for you is that people who are concerned about the law are now allowed to be among them."

(Thanks to @Serataru for helping me come up with this formulation.)

The Washington Times diagrams the Kaine gun vetoes in an editorial. It begins:

When Tim Kaine campaigned for Virginia governor in 2005, he ran an ad implying that former National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston was praising him. His campaign claimed that "Tim Kaine strongly supports the Second Amendment." Once he won office, Mr. Kaine vetoed one gun bill after another that would have helped Virginians protect themselves from criminals.