Originally Posted by
Ed L.
Just noticed this thread. The study is based on bad methodology and suspect data. Bad methodology or design leads to an inaccurate and invalid study and conclusion.
The person who wrote it, Gregg Ellifritz is an amazing resource on defensive issues. He is a great teacher with a strong background in Law enforcement and training, and has written some of the best things that I have read on a wide variety of topics. His background, skill, and teaching ability cannot be questioned. I can appreciate the amount of time and effort he put into this. However, in the end I am afraid that I don't agree with his conclusion.
By his own description, the author of the study tried to record every shooting he could find. By definition this includes situations where an armed person shot an unarmed person, or shot someone who was not interested in fighting him in the first place, or not very serious about posing a threat. All of those fall into the heading of "every shooting he could find."
The author of the report "scoured the newspapers, magazines, and Internet for any reliable accounts of what happened to the human body when it was shot."
This is a huge problem because you often don't get accurate information about the gun or caliber used, number of shots fired or hit, where they hit, circumstances of the shooting, etc. In most cases you don't have accurate information to conclude when the person being shot stops. So you absolutely cannot include these accounts in any statistical study.
Even if the information was accurate, in most cases all you know is how many rounds were fired--not if the person shot was stopped.
Further, even if the data were accurate, the premise of this study is flawed in the way it compares dissimilar shootings.
Shooting someone who isn't a serious attacker, who may not be armed, and is afraid of you isn't the same as shooting an of objective driven violent criminal attacker.
If you look at this author'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 Federal HST JHPs and as fires multiple quick shots at an attacker in the manner in which he was likely 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 Federal HSTs?
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.
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