History Memes

Explanation: During the American occupation of the Philippines, Juramentado warriors were Muslim freedom fighters who sometimes took cannabis to further numb their sense of pain, as they expected to be gunned down in the process of charging occupiers to engage with edged weapons. While the .38 round would kill a Juramentado eventually, 'eventually' is little comfort when they only need a dozen more seconds to hack you into Yankee meat chunks. For this reason, the US military began considering adoption of a pistol round with more stopping power, eventually settling on the M1911, a .45 caliber pistol (though by this time the fighting in the Philippines was largely over).

During the period of increased US involvement in the Middle East in the 80s and 90s, US Special Forces sought a pistol with more stopping power than a 9mm in order to quickly incapacitate jihadi irregulars, who, often involved in the drug trade, would themselves sometimes be 'pumped up' on a mixture of determination and narcotics that made a 9mm round ineffective in immediately taking them down. For this reason, the US military considered the adoption of a pistol with more stopping power, eventually settling on the MK 23, a .45 caliber pistol... which, to top it all off, was basically an M1911.

... and on top of that, the M1911 had only been replaced by the US military with a 9mm pistol in 1985.

Time is a flat circle, and all that jazz.