When Bullets Fail

[Arik]

There's also that recent case (working from memory) in Illinois, a Sgt. Grimmins, who engaged in a roadside firefight with a bank robber. I believe Grimmins fired over 30 rounds from his Glock 21, hitting the suspect some 11 times, 7 of which were torso hits, with .45 acp hollowpoints. It wasn't until he put three rounds into the face/head that the shooting stopped. The suspect still had vitals at the ER. Grimmins was on his final magazine, with just a few rounds left, when he ended the gunfight. I believe the officer now carries a Glock 17, with two 33 round sticks in addition to his two spare 17 round mags.

There's also that case (working from memory) where a state trooper shot a fat man 4 times in the torso with his .357 magnum loaded with winchester silvertips. After absorbing 4 .357 magnum hollowpoints, the fat man shot the officer once underneath the arm with his .22 mini revolver, killing the officer.

There is no magic bullet, and fights are unpredictable. Picking a good handgun, with proven ammunition, puts us many times more prepared than 90 percent of everyone else who doesn't even carry a gun.

The incident with the 357 was that the trooper emptied his revolver. All 6 shots center mass. The man shot him once in the armpit area with a 22lr. The bullet went into the trooper's heart. The man has been in prison ever since. This happened in the early 90s. Virginia I believe

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[Protected One]

The vast majority of DGUs (defensive gun uses) in the US *do not* involve a shot being fired. This according to The National Crime Victimization Survey, the gold standard survey for criminology statistics. John Lott estimates that the percentage of DGUs that involve zero shots fired is in the mid to high 90 percents. In other words, *if* you ever have to use a gun in self defense, there's around a 2-5 percent chance you'll have to actually drop the hammer.

Those are the empirical numbers on the issue.

I wonder if that's part of the reason we have so many career criminals?

 

[ISCS Yoda]

I heard that Andy Jackson story before. And I am familiar with all of those crime histories. But I admit I have always had a fascination with all things firearms related and the history of mob violence and crime as well.

Jeff Cooper was probably correct about that hatchet but in certain situations only a mouse gun will do. Easy to have with you than a hatchet. Behavior modification (love that term) is as important as almost anything in a confrontation that doesn't have to erupt into gunfire. Nobody, GENERALLY, wants to get shot.

I have often discussed on this Forum my afternoon of counter terrorism training at the Caliber 3 school in Israel (headed back there soon, too!).

Home

One comment from the instructor was telling so I will repeat it here. He noted that you keep shooting until the terrorist is dead. I do not believe he said "down" or "stopped", I am quite sure he said "dead". And the demonstrator, who was armed with an assortment of weapons, and had to shoot a number of targets in the demonstration, literally fired and fired and fired at every target. He never once took just one shot, and all of his shots were on the mark.

Once that is settled, the rest comes easier - aim, shoot, repeat, until the threat ends.

At the CT school, the mindset is that "the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist" so they take no prisoners. Surviving a shootout with Israeli commandos is an unlikely event.

On a parallel note, although I have taken many years of martial arts, it was my twin brother's sensei in a shorin-ryu karate class who taught him that if he gets into a fight his job was to kill his opponent, only leaving him to tell the story. That might be a little over the top, and there are always witnesses to deal with but, still, it represents the mindset under discussion. To quote Tuco in "The Good, the bad, and the Ugly",

if you have to shoot shoot don't talk.

So, to bring it back full circle, there is no magic bullet, and whether you are using a mouse gun or a hand cannon, if you're going to use a gun you have to make the decision that you WILL use deadly force if necessary and that means using all the force at your disposal. If the bullets are tiny, well, you might need to use a lot of them! Maybe even if they are not so tiny...........

That's just how it is.

 

[American1776]

I wonder if that's part of the reason we have so many career criminals?

I believe the reason cited for why so many DGUs don't involve any shots fire is because once the gun comes out, and the suspect sees it, he, in the words of a famous gun writer, 'reconsiders his negative attitude', and runs for his life.

 

[SMSgt]

I've seen black bears dropped from a tree by a single .22 mag shot in the ear. One never knows how many shots with anything will do the job.

 

[jag312]

Years ago I was told about two cases that illustrate the mental response to being shot. A steroidal body builder was shot once in the arm with a .22. He fell to the ground, totally incapacitated. A 100 pound woman was shot in the body with a .44 Magnum. It didn't faze her.

No magic bullets and no magic guns. Modern bullet construction is an improvement over the old ammunition, but never underestimate the mental condition of the attacker.

 

[V0OBWxZS16]

My only goal is to cause my assailant to decide that he/she has something better to do at the moment . . .

My goal is to render the assailant(s) incapable of acting on the decision to continue attacking (paralyzed) or incapable of forming the decision to continue attacking (unconscious or dead.) If they choose to quit and flee before I succeed that's desirable, but is not the goal itself. The ideal is for them to never choose me as a target in the first place.

 

[Ziggy2525]

There's some new video released of a failed bank robbery in Rockford IL, that was fatal to the perpetrator.

There are three HD camera angles that give a surreal overview of normal people's lives and the terrifying violence that instantly appears.

Too graphic for here, but it's 5:21 long and published on YouTube by "Video Leak Police" under the title "♦Full♦ Bank Security Guard Involved in Robber Fatal Shooting Is Justified".

Interesting case study of surprised peoples reactions.

Thanks for posting that. It's a really high quality video.

For me, there were four things that were very interesting about the video.

1) How quickly the security drew and fired his weapon.
2) How the security guard used a one handed grip initially to engage quickly and then as the bad guy tried to run away, switched to a two handed grip.
3) When the bad guy was shooting at the security guard from 3 feet away, the security guard didn't flinch at all.
4) How the security guard used cover to his advantage.

 

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

. . . but as any police firearms instructor will tell you, the elements of surviving a shooting incident, in order of importance, are: mindset, judgment, tactics, marksmanship and firearm. A hit with a .38 Spl is more effective than fifteen misses from a 9mm. Survival does not begin and end with the gun or its ammunition. It is but one member of a “five-man team” that determines who leaves the crime scene under a sheet. Food for thought.

The instructor quoted above perhaps advised correctly concerning where a potential victim should focus his attention, but I believe that the actual observable facts, both mirrored earlier in your post and supported by analysis of the mechanics of wounding human beings, indicate that luck ranks very high in the quintet quoted, high enough to displace one and keep it a quintet, rather than making it a sextet.

 

[petepeterson]

The instructor quoted above perhaps advised correctly concerning where a potential victim should focus his attention, but I believe that the actual observable facts, both mirrored earlier in your post and supported by analysis of the mechanics of wounding human beings, indicate that luck ranks very high in the quintet quoted, high enough to displace one and keep it a quintet, rather than making it a sextet.

You stole my thought! In several of the stories posted above, luck would rank higher than the other five.

 

[Jack Flash]

... at one point, Jackson carried a bullet (lead ball) in his body for many years as a result of a duel (surgeons apparently couldn't remove due to its location in his body. ...

Given the crude technology and the appallingly low skill level of the surgeons of the those times, I wouldn't want them cutting on me either. Back then, did they even know enough to wash their hands and sterilize their tools before the operation?

 

[Muss Muggins]

The ideal is for them to never choose me as a target in the first place.

Admirable, but has nothing to do with whether or not you may have a pistol on your person. Unless you're really scary looking or open carrying (although many on this forum would claim that open carry is a reason TO attack you), you may not really have any input into that variable . . .

 

[Kframerbluvr]

The incident with the 357 was that the trooper emptied his revolver. All 6 shots center mass. The man shot him once in the armpit area with a 22lr. The bullet went into the trooper's heart. The man has been in prison ever since. This happened in the early 90s. Virginia I believe

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Trooper Mark Coates, South Carolina Highway Patrol. There was dashcam video of this incident. I saw it many years ago.

 

[patrickd]

I'm pretty much sold on these bullets. No HP to plug and fail to expand because they just don't need expansion to create massive wound cavities and they penetrate plenty deep to hit what's needed.

Lehigh Defense - Manuf. of Bullet and Defense Ammunition Technology – Lehigh Defense, LLC

 

[Arik]

Trooper Mark Coates, South Carolina Highway Patrol. There was dashcam video of this incident. I saw it many years ago.

That's the one! It's still on YouTube. Seen it a while ago.

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[SuperMan]

I'm pretty much sold on these bullets. No HP to plug and fail to expand because they just don't need expansion to create massive wound cavities and they penetrate plenty deep to hit what's needed.

Lehigh Defense - Manuf. of Bullet and Defense Ammunition Technology – Lehigh Defense, LLC

...I'm now using the Lehigh bullet loaded by Underwood in all my defensive handguns... .380, 9mm, .38 Super, .38 Special, .357 and 10mm... The only one I don't is .41 Magnum since they don't make any...

Bob

 

[federali]

Luck

My feeling is that winning is a matter of skill and luck. The more skill you have, the less luck you'll need. If we truly believe that it is largely a matter of luck, then there's no point in conducting quarterly firearms training and trying to learn from previous shootings.

 

[Watchdog]

A perennial Internet topic that refuses to go away is the search for the perfect bullet, capable of that all-important one-shot-stop.

Maybe it would go away if folks would stop starting threads about it and talking about it on gun forums.

But then again, probably not.

 

[CATI1835]

The idea of a "one shot stop" round is like a unicorn. It does not exist. After extensive research, the FBI concluded that the concept of a "one shot stop" is a myth, UNLESS that one shot is to the cranium or upper spinal cord. And in that case, almost any round, even a .22, will do the job.

As I have posted before, start at page 7:

http://gundata.org/images/fbi-handgun-ballistics.pdf

 

[SuperMan]

The incident with the 357 was that the trooper emptied his revolver. All 6 shots center mass. The man shot him once in the armpit area with a 22lr. The bullet went into the trooper's heart. The man has been in prison ever since. This happened in the early 90s. Virginia I believe

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"Trooper Mark Coates, South Carolina Highway Patrol. There was dashcam video of this incident. I saw it many years ago."

I pulled up the video and interview with the badguy and contrary to the "stories" the badguy took no "center mass" hits. He was hit in the buttocks, appendix, arm, shoulder and one that entered this shoulder and went down through his body but didn't sound from the interview that it went through his heart or lungs.

Also in watching the dashcam video the rounds did "stop" the badguy but he was able to get the one shot off during the confrontation.

The .22 bullet that killed the Trooper clipped the aorta, lost blood pressure and he went down about 15 seconds or so after he was hit...

I've talked to about ten officers I've worked with who center punched people with a .357 Magnum...no one needed second round.

Bob