[quickthrower2]

The neighbour argument makes it sound like most people live in sparsely populated rural communities, where the danger is from the neighbouring accidently shooting you on the way back from a hunting accident.

In a town, city or school or church the two guns would be completely different.

[BobbyJo]

Not really. They have different penetrative properties, but the risk of a stray bullet hitting more than one person falls off exponentially over pretty short distances. The only real chance of a bullet hitting more than one person is if they are very close to each other in that moment, like a dense crowd.

I can't explain the math in great detail here, but, if we assume something like an urban residential complex, the risk of two people standing along the same line from a misfire at 30 ft is already so small that the extra risk a bullet capable of 60ft, or 120ft of travel poses (I'm using small distances because I'm assuming walls/furniture in the way) is only a fractional increase.

If you look at people being hit by strays, it actually doesn't correlate at all with caliber/magazine/etc., since most incidents are 9mm handguns being fired in urban environments.

If you consider dense crowds instead, then the extra risk can be a multiplier (say 2-5 if you're going from 9mm to .50), but I am totally fine with any gun just not being allowed at events like that assuming police are on site.