Disclaimer: This thread is in no way politically motivated, is in no way linked to gun control issues and should not be used as a platform for anyone. It is merely meant to satisfy my idle curiosity and eradicate my ignorance.
I’m armed, and a random psycho is coming at me. I shoot. How much does it really matter, at that particular moment, if I shoot him with a .22 or a .50 Desert Eagle, provided the guy isn’t on some ignore-the-pain drug trip or otherwise specially capable of handling a bullet? An average person will go down from a small bullet, right?
The size of the permanent wound cavity is mostly dependent on the caliber of the bullet, other things being equal. This affects the amount of tissue damage and rate of blood loss.
An individual’s reaction to being shot is very sensitive to shot placement and their state of mind.
In general, bigger and faster is better. The two ways of quickly stopping an assailant are massive blood loss and damage to the central nervous system.
I’ve only seen results from the perspective of the emergency department, but in general an average person will not go down from a small bullet, particularly a .22. Damage is related to caliber, velocity, composition of bullet and where it struck. A .22 is not typically very lethal, although of course even a pellet gun might kill with a lucky shot. A .22 has trivial stopping power for random pyschos, I’d say. It often glances off bones such as the sternum, ribs, and frontal part of the skull. The mass is so small there just isn’t much damage. It’s pretty common to see someone with several small-caliber wounds from incompetent shooting who is still in reasonably good shape.
Now don’t go trying this at home; a .22 will kill just fine. But the immediate effect is actually quite small and most lethal injuries from small caliber weapons take a bit of time, during which time a psycho might hardly notice he’s been hit.
Maybe if you shoot them in the eye, or put the bullet right through their heart. Other than that, people (especially people drugged up or very motivated) don’t automatically fall like a sack of potatoes when shot. I saw surveillance video on TV of a robbery where one guy got shot by a small caliber pistol, and later died. Not only didn’t he go down, you couldn’t even tell that he had been shot, the show had to point it out, the guy didn’t react at all.
What you’re talking about is commonly called “stopping power”. Without getting into specifics that I don’t actually know, larger caliber handguns have more stopping power, and are going to be more likely to drop an assailant with one shot than small caliber handguns. This was an issue in the early 1900’s with the .38 pistol currently in use found to have too little stopping power, prompting the introduction of the .45 M1911 pistol.
While not as portable, at close range it’s hard to beat the stopping power of a 12-gauge. When the greater part of your torso is a gory crater, you’re probably going down no matter how much PCP you’re on.
Stopping power is significant for self defense. A .22 can kill, and they can kill very easily, but killing someone with a .22 may not mean you put them down before they seriously hurt you.
There’s many instances of people being shot in combat situations, for example, with higher caliber rounds than a .22 and not even realizing it until later (adrenaline and et cetera.) Plus, rounds in common use by the militaries of the world are often jacketed and are designed to penetrate armor, which they do very well–they also penetrate flesh like a knife through butter, often literally “punching a hole” through someone that isn’t much greater in diameter than the bullet itself. Hollow point bullets on the other hand can’t penetrate modern body armor very well, but do enormous tissue damage.
If you’ve read Mark Bowden’s novel Black Hawk Down he mentions that several members of the U.S. Army’s Delta Force used non-standardized weapons and rounds precisely because they did not like how the M16’s FMJ 5.56 mm would punch clean holes through the enemy without putting them out of the fight.
(True hollow point bullets are prohibited in warfare for nations which were signatory to the 1899 Hague Conventions–but many modern, jacketed metal rounds exist which can do tissue damage not much different from true hollow points.)
I might as well chime in with the Mythbusters’ finding that a gunshot isn’t going to throw a person backward, no matter how big the round. No one in this thread has yet suggested it would–but I’d just like to point it out.
“Gunshots” meaning everything they tested–I think they stopped with an M1 Garand (though they tried deer slugs too, I think… would that be more powerful?)
Please remember that the object is not (or should not be) to kill the person. The object is to stop him. I think for most assailants merely displaying a gun will deter him. I think that if one were to fire a shot, most assailants who are not detered by having a gun pointed at them would change their minds at this point. Especially if you manage to hit them. (Note: Don’t fire a warning shot. If you’re going to shoot, shoot to hit.) So in my non-psychologist and non-criminologist opinion, I don’t think size matters if you only want to stop the attack in most cases. But a psycho? I’d want some physical stopping power.
Shot placement and accuracy are most important when trying to stop an aggressor. Better to hit them in the head with a .22 than miss with a .45.
Size is next. Better to hit them in center mass with a .45 than with a 22. So carry the biggest calibre that you can shoot accurately. If that’s only a .22, so be it. Better than throwing rocks.
Right. Any round capable of blasting someone in the air like in a Robert Rodreguez movie would also toss the shooter back as well. Isaac Newton and all that.
That’s horrible advice. If the situation requires you to pull a gun, it is now officially “on”. You might scare them off. Or you might scare them into getting behind some cover. Or they might count on you hesitating for a second and pull out their own gun. Better to be decisive. Once you have identified your target as a lethal threat, a couple shots to center of mass should do the trick. Once he’s down and no longer a threat, then let the police and hospital deal with it.
I am certain there are standardized “stopping power charts” out there, because I found one published by the FBI to [sub]help out someone making an RPG…I know, I know.[/sub] These look quite a bit at the kinetic energy transfer and shock value to the target, but IIRC they also had footnotes incorporating anecdotal experience with the chart as validation. I’m sorry, I tried Googling and using some other searches, but I cannot find them now. You may want to see if you have better luck - I guess the point being I know it’s been studied well, and you should be able to find some hard facts on it.
I must not have been clear. If you pull a weapon, you must be willing to use it as soon as you have determined that the assailant is a lethal threat or may cause you grievous bodily harm. I did not mean to imply that you should hesitate in the situation.
What I meant was that legally there is a difference between shooting to stop and shooting to kill. You do not aim for an arm or a leg. You do aim for the center of mass. If he dies, he dies. Too bad for him. But if you intend to kill, then an overzealous prosecutor might file murder charges against you. I don’t think it is likely, but there are some nuts out there. You’re allowed to use lethal force to the extent necessary to stop the situation. But if you’re going to use a gun or any lethal force against an attacker, you should be conscious that ‘intent’ may figure into the aftermath.
Johnny L.A. is 100% correct: your intent is to *stop * the threat. Any kill is incidental. Never tell anyone, “I was scared for my life, so I killed him.” If you feel a need to say anything, say, “I was scared for my life, so I *stopped * him.”
Try your best to avoid getting in a fight in the first place.
Never fire warning shots.
When you’re fighting someone, keep a close eye on his hands. Only hands can hurt you.
Aim for his chest.
The only way to *immediately * stop the bad guy is for the bullet to penetrate his brain or spine. But unless you’re a master shot, it is advised to aim for his chest.
Keep squeezing the trigger until the threat is gone. Front sight, squeeze, rinse & repeat.
The main reason people fall after being hit by a bullet is because they think that’s what they’re supposed to do. They have been subconsciously programmed by countless movies that “a person always falls immediately after being shot.” But unless you are hit in the brain or spinal cord, there is no reason for you to immediately drop to the ground. So if you are hit with a bullet, try your best not fall down. Keep fighting.
Call the police immediately after you shoot someone.
Never alter the crime scene.
If the bad guy runs away after you display your gun (which is what usually happens), you should still call the police ASAP. Why? Because the bad guy will probably call the police and say, “Some crazy guy just pointed a gun at me.” *Assume * this will happen, and call the police before he does.
Do not talk to the detectives afterwards. Tell them you were scared for your life, and you do not wish to be interviewed at this time. Tell them as little as possible, call your lawyer ASAP, and then shut up.
If you shoot someone - even if it as a justified shooting - it will cost you at least $25K in legal bills.
This has always been solid advice. I read a report that recommended shotguns to women for defense, as good aim was not as critical (depending on the rounds).
I had a friend who was awakened by a robber downstairs in his townhouse. He racked an EMPTY shotgun (he couldn’t find the box of shells fast enough), and that singular sound drove the guy out of the house!
No, it wasn’t. The standard-issue US Army revolver from 1892 until 1911 used the .38 Long Colt cartridge. It wasn’t a particularly powerful round. During the Philippene Insurrection, the troops found it wanting in “stopping power” (although they also complained about the same thing WRT the .30-40 Krag). The PTB issued revolvers in .45 (Long) Colt, the same cartridge used in the Colt SAA (Peacemaker) in previous decades. The Colt 1911 and its .45 ACP cartridge were adopted, after the Thompson-La Garde tests among other things, as an effort to more-or-less duplicate the effects of the .45 (Long) Colt cartridge in one of the then new autoloading pistols.
You could legitimately claim that the .45 ACP was invented because of US experience in the Philippenes, but it wasn’t invented for use there. By the time the 1911 was fielded in any numbers the Moro rebellion was history.
I was just going to say the same thing. The FBI’s rating system for the stopping potential of calibers emphasizes penetration. Note, however, that you don’t want excess penetration, as a bullet that penetrates through and through both fails to apply maximum energy to the target and poses a threat to bystanders.
The penetration value of a bullet depends on a number of things, including its velocity, rate of expansion, how well it stays together or the likelyhood of fragmentation/jacket seperation, what you’re shooting through, and a few other things, but all things being equal sectional density determines penetration. Surprisingly, the .22 rimfire bullets have some of the highest sectional densities; their light weight, and the fact that a hollowpoint bullet in this caliber will almost immediately flatten or fragment, makes it ill-suited for defense. The 9mm Parabellum also has a very high sectional density, which is probably why it has such a poor reputation among troops; as a roundnose FMJ it’ll tend to punch right through a body where a .45 ACP would drag more. Going to hollow point bullets gives some advantage to lightweight (115 gr) supersonic 9mmP rounds, but not much, and they have a tendency for the pit to become plugged and the bullet not to expand, whereas a larger cavity in the .45 ACP or the very high velocity of the .357 Magnum tends to more reliable expansion.
The FBI eventually concluded that the 10mm Auto round offered the best of both worlds–penetration and expansion–but discovered the pragmatic reality that the high recoil and large size of handguns chambered for the 10mm Auto were excessive for even average-sized agents, much less shooters with small hands or weak grip strength. (Anyone who has fired one of these monsters will know what I’m talking about.) The .40 S&W round (based on the ballistics of the 10mm Auto ‘Lite’ load)was a comrposmise that both allowed more managable handling and a round that could be packaged within existing high capacity “wondernine” handguns that were became so popular with law enforcement in the 'Eighties.
The ideal bullet would penetrate 10-12 inches and immediately expand and stop, doing maximum damage to internal organs. Since we don’t live in an ideal world, the practical best is a round that penetrates to ~14 inches with consistant expansion and minimal fragmentation. Although much marketing kudos and invective by gun control groups were given to certain rounds which promoted themselves as expanding with ‘golden sabers’ and or making a spinning buzzsaw of ‘black talons’ with ‘extreme penetration performance’, in fact the degree of expansion is not all that important except insofar as it delivers energy to the target. The best reliable expansion is about 50-60% over the initial caliber size (meaning that you still have to place your round on target), and far from spinning like a buzzsaw it’s rare that such rounds make more than two revolutions before coming to a stop. Also, you can ignore all the nonsense you hear about hydrostatic shock damage, at least insofar as pistol rounds are concerned; while the shock wave will cause localized bruising beyond the permanent wound channel, it’s not going to turn flesh into hamburger or (typically) cause organs to explode the way a high power rifle round can.
That’s not to say handgun rounds–even the lowly .22LR–can’t be destructive and lethal. Far from it; while we’re entertained in movies where the hero takes a “flesh wound” through the shoulder, and then soldiers on, apparently unaffected except for staining his Armani suit, the reality is that any wound to a joint, nerve cluster, or organ is likely to have permanent, debilitating effects, and a shot to the intestines has a very high likelyhood of septic infection and shock. All firearms, regardless of caliber, should be treated with the utmost respect as potentially hazardous tools.
Johnny, I understand with what you’re saying, and agree with former part of it, but not the latter. Displaying a firearm will encourage most non-determined, non-lunatic perpetrators to find a softer target. In displaying a firearm, though, you’ve upped the ante, and you’d better be prepared to play out the hand, so to speak. It’s true that in combat there is not “shoot to wound” or “shoot to kill” but simply “shoot to hit”. However, I wouldn’t rely on hitting someone just anywhere, or even somewhere vital, as being effective in stopping them. In such a circumstance, the adreneline is flowing, the mind is focused, and if the shot doesn’t hit some immediately disabling spot then you can pretty much rely on the person continuing to fight until they pass out or are disabled. (This, in part, is also why I consider OC pepper spray to be inadequate alone for self defense.) In this sense, size definitely matters (again, in terms of achieving adequate penetration and energy transfer), but what matters even more is placing the rounds in an area where they will best or most likely disable the target, and doing so as rapidly as you can controllably fire. The sooner and with the fewest rounds you put the threat down, the less likely of injury to yourself, bystanders, or even the perpetrator. Once you’ve drawn on him, you’ve committed to using lethal force (and you’d better damn well be able to back up that decision in court) and your primary consideration should be to making the force you apply as effective as possible.
What caliber would I pick for a self-defense arm? I think I’d go for something chambering a 12 gauge 3" magnum shell. But if I needed for some reason to tuck something away in an IWB holster…I’d pick whatever I could should controllably, afford to practice with regularly, and carry discreetly. It’s a toolbox; you use the tools you have.
All of that being said, you’re far better off avoiding the kind of situation where you’d ever have to put any of this into practice, for legal, emotional, and moral reasons. Awareness and avoidance should be your primary objectives in self-defense.