shotgun effectiveness demonstrated

[500grains]

Wash. man turns shotgun on home invaders, kills one

...

Troyer says the intruders were pistol-whipping the man when his girlfriend reached under the bed and handed her boyfriend a shotgun. He fatally wounded the suspect. He was found dead in the driveway with a handgun and jewelry.

...

http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/106715043.html

[ra2bach]

I don't believe anyone's said a shotgun wasn't effective. forensic photos I've seen of lethal shotgun wounds are pretty gruesome.

[Jerm]

Yeah, I was expecting something along the lines of "attacker blown through wall and found in six pieces".

I don't think anyone will be surprised by "shot in bedroom... found in driveway".

[Eric]

Info updated.

Detectives now believe the second robber accidentally shot his partner in the head, killing him. An autopsy showed the dead man's gunshot wound was not caused by a shotgun, sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said late this afternoon.

Something about the gene pool...

[Entropy]

http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/M...ton%20case.txt

Madman shoots 35 with AK-47 in Stockton schoolyard; 30 of those hit survive. To put the 17 January 1989 Stockton incident in context, it must be compared with past shootings:
1. Only four of the eleven shot at the ESL Co. in Sunnyvale, CA, on 16
February 1988,
survived. The weapon was a 12 gauge shotgun.
2. Only eleven of the thirty-two shot in the MacDonalds (24 July 1984, San
Ysidro, CA) survived. Of the three weapons used, the deadliest weapon by far
was a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun.

Dr. Fackler had huge amounts of data from real shootings and the 12-gauge with buck shot was by far the most lethal overall if used at ranges under 25yards.

[Mac5.56]

Glad to know my wife doesn't need to hand me our guns... But glad this ended up with the a good ending.

[ChicagoTex]

and the 12-gauge with buck shot was by far the most lethal overall if used at ranges under 25yards.

And that's the crucial element. For whatever reason, most folks keep their HD shotguns stoked with bird shot (probably because the patterning looks considerably more impressive on paper), not buck. Bird shot's lethality is much lower.

Because of the incredibly wide variety of loads available, simply telling me "such and such was shot by a shotgun and this happened" is pretty much worthless as a data point without specific information about the load used.

I mean, for all we know it could've been a bean bag load (and yes, I guarantee you there are people in America keeping their shottys stoked with bean bags for HD... yknow, the whole "wound, but don't kill" fantasy)