American Handgunner

[200RNL]

I just found out that an article titled 'Stopping Power-Equipment or Caliber?' is in this issue.



http://americanhandgunner.com/ah/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/AHSO13col1.jpg

[TiroFijo]

It's like drawing lines on the water... you cannot get a very accurate description of the person's behaviour when he was shot, the time involved, why he did what he did (ungry, excited, drugs, scared, combative, etc.), and the subject's physique, clothing, angle and trajectory of shot, etc. So all these charts are tainted with false or blurred data points.

Digital versiona here:

http://fmgpublications.ipaperus.com/FMGPublications/AmericanHandgunner/AHSO13/

[200RNL]

It's like drawing lines on the water... you cannot get a very accurate description of the person's behaviour when he was shot, the time involved, why he did what he did (ungry, excited, drugs, scared, combative, etc.), and the subject's physique, clothing, angle and trajectory of shot, etc. So all these charts are tainted with false or blurred data points.


That's very true. I don't think there are definitive answers on this subject but when you examine all of the various studies and observations made through the years, one can come to a personal conclusion.

I'll just add this one to my inexact knowledge on the subject and adjust my beliefs....or maybe not.

[Shawn Dodson]

The American handgunner article is simply a regurgitation of a two-year old article published here - http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/handgun-stopping-power

All the data presented are exactly the same, except for .32 ACP, which the American Handgunner article lists as 24 "percent who did not stop" compared to the 2011 article which listed 40 "% of people who were not incapacitated".

[TiroFijo]

Just to show how meaningless this type of "statistic" is, please note that "average number of rounds until incapacitation" is 1.38 for all 22 rimfires, and 1.40 for rifle calibers...

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/publicfiles/Ellifritz_Rnds_to_Incap.png

[Ed L.]

I think there is an issue with this study in terms of trying to draw conclusions.

By his own admission the author of the study tried to record every shooting he could find. This includes lots of situations where an armed person shot an unarmed person or someone who was not interested in fighting him in the first place, or not very serious about posing a threat, or even citizens not wanting to fight shot by criminals. All of those fall into the heading of "every shooting he could find."

The shooting may have also occurred when an argument between punks or drunks escalated into a shooting, often of an unarmed person who in not in a mindset to fight, with the shooter being the aggressor and the person who is shot wisely decides to back off, submit, flee, or drops in surprise the way he has seen people do when shot in the movies.

Shooting someone who isn't serious, may not be armed, and is afraid of you isn't the same as shooting an of objective-driven violent criminal attacker.

I think it is admirable what the person who wrote this study tried to do, but I am afraid the methodology wasn't quite there.

I would not try to extrapolate any of his results on what would work for me if confronted by a violent criminal.

[200RNL]

Just to show how meaningless this type of "statistic" is, please note that "average number of rounds until incapacitation" is 1.38 for all 22 rimfires, and 1.40 for rifle calibers...

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/publicfiles/Ellifritz_Rnds_to_Incap.png

This graph puts things more into perspective.

http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/publicfiles/Ellifritz_Failure_to_Incap.png

The 22 rimfires take 1.38 rounds to incapacitate but they fail to incapacitate 35% of the time.

Rifle calibers take 1.40 rounds to incapacitate but they fail to incapacitate only 9% of the time.

[TiroFijo]

Respectfully, to ME, it has written "mental masturbation" all over it...

[200RNL]

Respectfully, to ME, it has written "mental masturbation" all over it...

That could be said about the debate from the late 1800's to the present. The rest of the world doesn't discuss this much anymore and recently, the Russian and Chinese militaries have adopted the 9x19 without controversy. We Americans are the master debaters when it comes to this subject, to the point of going blind someday.;)

[TiroFijo]

Scientific research is fine and needed, as well as debate pondering over the real needs for accuracy, range, terminal performance, penetration, soldier load weight, etc.

It is just the flawed methodoly of this work that strikes me as pointless...

[Ed L.]

It's like drawing lines on the water... you cannot get a very accurate description of the person's behaviour when he was shot, the time involved, why he did what he did (ungry, excited, drugs, scared, combative, etc.), and the subject's physique, clothing, angle and trajectory of shot, etc. So all these charts are tainted with false or blurred data points.

Good points; exactly right.

The whole study was put together with several hugely flawed premises.

First, he says he "collected data on nearly 2000 shootings."

Does this mean he had the actual police and medical reports?

Did he interview participants and witnesses in the shootings?

Or did he get the info from news accounts and what he read on the internet?

News reports and internet info is often incorrect or incomplete regarding the caliber and type of weapon, number of rounds fired, even where the person was hit, as well as other details. Nor will they likely have a full account of events. If these are the source of his info, I would not expect his data or figures to be accurate. Remember, garbage in, garbage out.

From his description 'Every shot in the data place took place in a military battle or an altercation with a criminal.'

From his definition, this would include instances of criminal violence against unarmed citizens as well as criminal violence against other criminals who happened to be unarmed.

He produced a chart including categories like "What percentage of people shot stopped their aggressive action after one hit to the torso or head." to "What percentage did not stop no matter how many rounds hit them?"

I seriously doubt his data has sufficient information to reach these conclusions.

There are several major flaws in this one-shot stop theory.

First, as I mentioned, the data that it he bases it on may not be complete or accurate.

Second, not all shootings are equal, due to a multitude of different factors in each shooting--such as the people shot, where they were hit, their mental state, body types, mind altering substances, etc.

Finally, unless you interviewed the participants and eyewitnesses of each event, you don't know whether someone was really stopped after one or two or whatever number of shots. All you know is how many shots were fired. You really don't know how the person shot reacted. Without interviewing the participants and witnesses in each shooting, you cannot possibly say at which point someone was stopped.

If you look at this guy's logic, if two drunks at a bar get into a pushing match and one pulls out a .25 auto and shoots the other once and the man who was shot backs off, it counts as a one shot stop.

But if a police officer draws his 9mm loaded with Ranger Talon JHPs and as fires multiple quick shots at an attacker the way he was trained, it counts as a one-shot failure, or a situation where multiple shots were required to stop someone.

I submit, would you rather rely on a .25 auto for self defense or the 9mm loaded with Ranger Talon JHPs?

By his criteria, a situation where one person pulls out a .22 shoots someone one time and runs off after shooting them counts as a one shot stop, since only one shot was fired.

I applaud the guy for his efforts, but feel his study is subject to questionable data and flawed logic.