Don’t bring a pea shooter to a gun fight.
If you really think a .22 is a pea shooter try shooting yourself with it, a pea shooter won’t even leave a mark. Many a grave is filled with the victims of the .22 rimfire. There is a huge difference between a saturday night special .22 loaded with cheap ammo and a quality weapon loaded with CCI Minimags or Stingers. It can be the difference between a minor wound and death. My brother used to tell me that you will have a hard time killing a dog with a .22 and then he himself brought down a large feral dog at 200 feet with one shot from an H&R .22 pistol he paid five dollars for in a pawn shop back around 1960. I grew up eating home butchered beef and pork brought down in every case with a .22 SHORT fired from a Remington rifle by my father. He never needed a second shot, every animal dropped in his tracks.