In reading about the serious damage caused by the ammo used in the Las Vegas mass shooting, the issue of finding ammo that would provide a reasonable level of self protection came to mind.../ /...
You do realize of course that the Las Vegas shootings were done at a range of about 400 yards, and using high velocity rifle rounds, right?
If you put the two together, you are in essentially then asking about less lethal rifle rounds. The answer to that came with the Hague conventions in 1899 and 1907, where article IV section 3 stated:
"The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions."
This essentially banned soft point and 'dum-dum' bullets from use in warfare - at least between signatory countries.
On the other hand, the countries involved almost immediately started exploring the phenomenon of high velocity rifle bullets tumbling on impact to improve terminal effectiveness. The British in particular found .276" (land diameter, .284" groove diameter) to be ideal in this regard in a full power battle rifle cartridge and were planning to adopt a .276" cartridge in the Pattern 13 Enfield when WWI broke out and scuttled that plan. After WWI, they had too much .303 ammunition and too many .303 caliber SMLEs (along with a bunch of .303 chambered Pattern 14 Enfields) in the inventory to even consider a switch. After WWII they proposed two intermediate cartridges in .276 caliber - the .276 British and the compromise .276/30, which could be produced on tooling designed for the .30-06, for use as the standard NATO cartridge.
In the early 1960s the US developed the 5.56mm M193 ball round which was specifically designed to tumble and fragment, greatly increasing it's terminal effectiveness - and pretty much flying entirely in the face of the Hague conventions, without actually violating them.
-----
On the civilian side of the house, if you eliminate soft point ammunition you will greatly decrease the lethality of the ammunition. However, that is a bad thing as it also means that you'll make it much more difficult to get clean and humane kills on game animals. In shot, you'd be degrading the primary and normal function of hunting ammunition just to reduce the damage caused in the extremely rare instances when a psycho with a long gun shoots people.
I just had a look for less-lethal ammo and found a lot of shotgun shells and rubber bullets.
The problem with these less lethal rounds is exactly that - they are only less lethal. Hit someone in the head with a large rubber bullet from a shotgun and they are very likely to be just as dead as if you shot them with an actual lead bullet - or just as brain damaged, which can be worse from a civil liability perspective.
Way back in the day there was a school of thought in law enforcement of "shooting to wound" as a means to reduce the lethality of officer involved shoots. However, in practice the result was that officers shot more frequently, with less provocation, and in the long run killed more suspects. The end result was going back to a "shoot center of mass" philosophy, with an intent to rapidly incapacitate an assailant - and because lethal force was being used, to only shoot when absolutely necessary. The war on drugs and the promotion of threats to officers lives as justification to shoot when a minimum legal justification is present (rather than only when absolutely necessary) has distorted this a bit, but the pendulum is starting to swing back to a less extreme position.
Does anyone know of a 9mm round that would provide self-protection without totally destroying someone?
I tend to believe, however, that the FBI tests in ballistic gel show that hollow-point ammo is appropriate. Maybe this is a lost-cause search.
In terms of handgun and self defense ammunition, hollow points improve the odds of stopping an assailant in the minimum number of shots. In fact, using less lethal FMJ ammunition would more often than not result in more hits being needed to stop an assailant and the increased number of wound tracks would actually increase lethality.
A trauma surgeon I used to consult with (who had experience with about 1500 gun shot wounds) indicated that the more times a person was shot, the more wound tracks were created, and the more organs and systems were potentially damaged, with each wound track making it much harder for a surgeon to repair all the cumulative damage.
For example if you have a .22 LR pistol with 10 rounds, you would probably find yourself having to put all 10 into the assailant in hopes of stopping him, and you probably wouldn't be successful doing that with shots to his torso. The limited penetration and small wound tracks would limit immediate blood loss, and thus not get rapid incapacitation. However those 10 wound tracks would create enough cumulative damage that the assailant would be very likely to die hours or days later.
In short, well placed hollow points both stop assailants and save not just police officer lives but also the lives of assailants who end up being shot fewer times.
Hollow points also reduce the risk of over penetration where an over penetrating round may hit an innocent bystander. Give the 20 or so percentage hit rate for officer involved shoots, it's arguable about whether reducing over penetration matters when 8 out of 10 rounds are misses that skip all over the neighborhood anyway.
However for an armed citizen who holds full civil and criminal liability for each round fired, avoiding over penetration is something you should be concerned about, and hollow points are your best method of doing that in an effective self defense caliber.
. I have the good fortune to live in a gated community within a larger, and very safe, area.
