Are people really "tougher" than they used to be?

[Ron3]

People were smaller pre-WW2 in general. Some people say bad guys are often harder to "stop" than they used to be.

What say you? Are violent felons "tougher" than they used to be? And since when?

[ABNAK]

Add in the crazy-ass drugs available nowadays that weren't in the past and that will make a threat more resilient to gunfire. Not "tougher" per se, but more numb.

[Ron3]

The drug factor is real, no doubt. (Meth, synthetics, cocaine/crack)

And there is armor, too.

[mack7.62]

I don't think so.

Cole Younger has to be the toughest outlaw who ever lived. In addition to having 11 slugs in his body, one of the Northfield defenders shot away the reins to his bridle with birdshot, and Cole had to navigate his horse with his knees. Pursued by over a thousand farmers hungry for the reward ($10,000), and after a two week run in the constant rain, utilizing old newspapers for bandages on multiple wounds and wading through swollen rivers, Cole and his two brothers were captured at Hanska Slough and taken to nearby Madelia, where the outlaw leader finally removed his boots.

"And then my toenails fell off. . ."
—Cole Younger remembering his capture on September 21, 1876

[SomeOtherGuy]

1) Drugs.

2) Nutrition - anyone born in the US has decent nutrition from day 1, and all but the absolute poorest or worst neglected have amazing nutrition, both in calories and minerals, from childhood on. Think of how many children in the 19th and early 20th centuries were half-starving for some or all of their childhood, stunted, and probably exposed to things like lead and arsenic too, and it's not hard to see why people today are much taller and larger overall. This means stronger and larger bones, which are part of toughness.

3) Fat. Fat isn't tough, but it is something the bullet has to go through, and if you have JHPs tuned for 12" of penetration hitting someone really fat, they may only get a few inches into other tissue. Not many people were fat 50+ years ago, especially in the criminal classes.

[Circle_10]

I kind of agree that the greater prevalence of narcotics, both illegal and legal leads to more chemical-addled, pain resistant perps. I would also suggest that there's more mental cases out and about in society than there used to be who don't always react to being shot in the expected way unless an instantly incapacitating hit is made. In the old days they would probably be institutionalized, but nowadays the "humane" thing to do is let them wander the streets, often under the influence of psychotropic drugs.

A more concerning trend to me may be that while the bad guys seem to be getting harder, regular people (in general) seem to be getting softer and less resilient.

[ramairthree]

Amercia is a country of extremes.

The average overall fitness, mental and physical toughness average is probably down.

There are tons more very unhealthy, very out of shape, dregs out there than never before.

But guys looking to be bigger, stronger, faster are bigger and stronger and faster than ever before.

Fifty years ago how many LEOs came face to face with a six foot five guy that had recently spent the past ten years being well fed, learning how to fight, and lifting weights. Let alone after just smoking a bunch of crack.

Fifty years ago, where they even had ambulance crews that weren’t hearses, how many people would call an ambulance for twisting an ankle, because they weigh 600 pounds and can’t get up, or skipped dialysis again?

I think the average height of an adult male went from 5’9” to 5’11 or somover the past fifty years.

And that may be skewed, we now have way more little brown guys to average in.

[Doc Safari]

I concur with the drug thing. I was on a crime scene where a homeowner's guns had been stolen. Supposedly his girlfriend's ex-husband had taken a bunch of meth and broken into his wood-and-glass gun cabinet. Get this: the gun cabinet was so violently destroyed that it was reduced to shards of wood no bigger than your index finger.

[C-grunt]

Bigger? yes. Tougher? no.

People today have much better nutrition than before and therefor can and generally are much larger. But people from the past lived harder lives. So Id say your average person, pound for pound, was definitely tougher back in the day.

My grandfather was born in the early 20s. Grew up a poor farmer during the depression. Joined the USMC after Pearl Harbor. Spent several years in the Pacific fighting at Guadacanal, Peliliu, and Okinawah. One of his platoon buddies swears that the opening scenes from the show "The Pacific" shows my grandfather storming a beach. After WW2 he became an oil driller for Haliburton which he did until around 1990 when he retired. He never bitched about anything. The only story from WW2 he would tell was getting strafed by Japanese planes and the bunker he was in was full which left his butt sticking out in the air. He thought he was going to get his butt shot off. When he became ill and was dying he wished not be kept alive by life support. After he went into a coma and the hospital removed all medical support, that 90+ year old man survived for 9 days when the doctors expected him to pass within hours. Toughest man I have ever known.

[mack7.62]

^^^ This. You might be bigger, you might be stronger, but in the past you had to be tougher and work harder just to survive.