My wife's gun is a Ruger LCR revolver in 22LR. She won't move up in caliber but to her credit she has tried an LCR in 22 WMR, Kel-Tec P-32, Beretta Tomcat .32, Glock 42 380acp and a few others. But in the end she is confident/competent/comfortable with her 8-shot LCR. And she is very able with it for sure. We did ammo testing to determine the best round and CCI Velocitors worked best. I am comfortable with her choice.

I enjoyed that video, and that is what it takes - finding what is comfortable for you.

I'm retired Law Enforcement; know many like that. Yes some do carry a .22lr and those carrying a 22lr carry 22lr hypervelocity ammo.

Standard hollow point 22LR bullets do not expand during shooting from short barrel handguns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbVY4gT5P20

However, I believe that if this guy slightly reopened the holes or slightly cut the points, he would get very good expansion.

Here's another opinion on the 22LR and it's possible use as a self defense gun:

I don't own any 22 handguns, but I do own a couple of 22 rifles I like to practice with. If you can get shots on target I am not going to argue the defensive capabilities of 22 ammo. Some people cannot handle the recoil due to infirmities. My wife for example cannot rack a slide on a semi-auto and cannot shoot double action with a revolver, but she more than I needs the ability to defend herself.

On a side note - I saw a video of two inept ghetto thugs doing a home invasion recently. Masks falling off, pants falling down, looking at a cellphone while in the act of robbery, they were waving Glocks around and threatening a woman, her toddlers, and what looked like her mother. High capacity Glocks or not, if it were my wife whose grandkids were being threatened, that old police revolver we keep handy for her would have been out and she'd have been punching .38 holes in them single action.

Several years ago, I purchased for my wife S&W, Springfield, M&P22.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJhnC51qu7I

She has problems with recoil springs in 9 mm handguns. M&P22 is a good, comfortable, and reliable semi-auto, no one issue with any 22LR ammo. I love to shoot subsonic 22 LR ammo because of very quiet sound report. Great for training.

I was at a public range a few months ago I met an elderly man and wife who had that gun and a .22 revolver. They let me shoot both of them and they had little recoil and were very accurate. The man and his wife both had arthritis and couldn't shoot a heavier caliber. On a side note; the guy in the video is an administrator in a private Christian school.