Maximum EFFECTIVE range (that you can hit what you aim at) for a .40 cal is probly not much over 100yards, but modern ammunition will travel much further and still have the energy to kill.
Yes, I realize that if a bullet can get there, it has the potential to be lethal.
I don’t believe in shooting your weapon in any direction where there may be people down range.
I am a fanatic about NOT pointing my weapon across any plane that intersects a living being.
If I am walking with my weapon, I do so with the safety on, the barrel aimed at the ground, and my hand cupping the trigger guard.
I can’t tell you how many times I have been out shooting, or around people with guns, where they wave that thing around like it’s cotton candy.
If someone does that to me, I leave.
I once had someone call me on walking around with a magazine still in the mechanism, even though I had the gun pointed at the ground and was walking with my hand over the trigger guard.
Only moments before I had a guy take his rifle and move left to right across my torso without so much as evidencing he knew what he had done.
I grew up on a farm. In that climate you can walk through a lot of bushes. That’s why I keep my hand over the trigger guard.
My gun is always considered loaded. It’s always considered to have the safety off.
I wish others always played by those rules.