While the 9mm Parabellum--a.k.a. 9mm Luger, 9x19, 9mm NATO--is used by more armies, police forces and civilian shooters around the world than any handgun cartridge in history, it generates strong opinions among shooters. Some go so far as to claim its present popularity (it has, by the way, lasted 104 years) is but a passing fancy and shooters will come to their senses any day now and embrace larger caliber pistol cartridges.

Its rich history begins with Georg Luger, an Austrian engineer employed by Ludwig Loewe & Co. of Berlin--later known as Deutsche Waffen und Munitionfabriken or DWM--who was responsible for radically redesigning Hugo Borchardt's cumbersome semiauto pistol into what became the Pistole Parabellum. A new cartridge was also developed for it, the 7.65mm Parabellum, a rimless, bottlenecked case 23mm long that was topped with a 93-grain full-metal-jacketed bullet that was propelled to 1,220 fps.

Since the days of the first Browning Hi Powers, part of the 9mm’s allure for armies around the world--including ours--has been the ability of pistols so chambered to hold lots of rounds.

The pistol was adopted by Switzerland in 1900, and while the German army expressed interest, officials were concerned about the possible poor stopping power of the 7.65mm round. In 1902, DWM's engineers blew out neck of the cartridge case, shortened the length to 19mm, loaded it with a 9mm 124-grain FMJ, truncated-cone bullet traveling at approximately 1,150 fps and named it the 9mm Parabellum. Shortly after that, 9mm versions of the Pistole Parabellum were adopted by the German army and navy.

After the Great War, several new 9mm Parabellum pistols were developed, the most prominent being the FN Mle. 1935 (Belgium), Lathi L-35 (Finland), Radom VIS vz. 35 (Poland) and the Walther P38 (Germany). Of these and others, it was the FN Mle. 1935--better known as the Browning Hi Power--that probably had the biggest influence on the popularity of the 9mm cartridge. The Hi Power introduced the high-capacity magazine, and the gun eventually became the most widely used military/police pistol outside of the Soviet bloc.

1955 saw the introduction of the first U.S.-made 9mm Parabellum pistol, the S&W Model 39, and beginning in the 1970s a plethora of new 9mm pistols were introduced that combined the DA/SA trigger mechanism of the Smith & Wesson with the Hi Power's high-capacity magazine to produce a genre of handguns that became known as the "Wondernines."

While many traditionalists scoffed at the very concept of the Wondernine, the breed was immediately popular and soon became the choice of police agencies and armies around the world. NATO settled on the 9mm Parabellum as its issue pistol cartridge, and even the U.S. Army finally replaced .45 ACP 1911A1 pistol with the 9mm M9 Beretta. Then, in the late 1980s, Glock brought out the Glock 17, a high-capacity 9mm pistol with a polymer frame, and today nearly every major handgun maker has something similar in its stable.

But yet, despite this widespread popularity, the 9mm cartridge has its fair share of detractors. Critics generally call out the round for two things: lack of stopping power and lack of accuracy.