Sturmwehr

Stopping power

Your edit comment was:

(Removed conjective statement (that was also downright frightening statement. Errant bullets DO hit and kill people). Also fixed to make more neutral.)

Just to be picky, can you actually find a recorded incident where a shot fired by police at a suspect missed the intended target and hit and killed a bystander? Or better, passed through the target first (which is what the statement you removed stated)? The stats in the article backed up the claim that it is "very unlikely" to be hit by an errant police bullet, so that's not conjecture. scot 16:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Only it is conjecture. Any round that completely penetrates a target and exits has the ability to hit (and sometimes possibly kill) a bystander. And, most certainly, rounds can overpenetrate walls and still have the joules to kill - as anyone that's viewed the Box-o-truth knows. The phrase "every bullet you fire has a lawyer attached to it" exists for that reason, and many people have been killed because they figured they just knew the ballistics of the firearm they were using (and they later found out they knew wrong). I'm not advocating against or for overpenetration, just the fact that it's statistically VERY POSSIBLE and claiming it unlikely is false. Sturmwehr 22:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The statement "very possible" is meaningless--possible just means the likelyhood is nonzero. If you're saying it's not unlikely, then you should be able to prove it by providing examples; if you can't find an example, then I'd say that fits the definition of "unlikely" pretty well. The quoted statitics, for example, listed 367 shots fired at suspects, and no collateral hits; that argues for a maximum of about 0.27% chance of a collateral hit (there's a statistical way to calculate a confidence for that, but it's been too long since my stat classes for me to remember how to calculate that). I don't know about you, but I'd call less than a third of a percent pretty unlikely. scot 23:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

It is not meaningless, and having read several reports of people killed by errant bullets, post all the statistics you want - it doesn't change the fact that people get killed by bullets that weren't ment for them. And, as for documentation: http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob83.html "The cheapest, most widely available 230-grain full metal jacket .45 hardball will still probably solve your anti-personnel needs. No ball round is ideal for self-defense, because it tends to overpenetrate excessively. A .45 ball round can go through the bad guy, through and through the poor sucker behind him, and lodge in the body of an unseen innocent bystander who is third in the row. Hollow point ammo, designed to open up and stay in the body of the intended target while at the same time dumping all its energy into that designated target, remains the ammo of choice."

I don't know about you, but if Ayoob said it, I'm willing to accept it. He may have pushed the point further than I would, but the point is still valid. Statistics are wonderful, but they don't save you from manslaughter charges. Overpenetrating is a danger, yes. Misses are even more so. Simply because the report states no bystanders were hit doesn't mean the danger is miniscule, especially when you consider a 5.56x45 going through regulation dryboard, insulation, and vinyl still has enough velocity to kill/seriously wound. As I said before, every round you fire has a lawyer attached to it. Misses and sometimes even overpenetrating rounds kill people. For the author to simply dismiss the possibility of errant bullets killing/wounding bystanders as "unlikely" just because one report didn't show any is inconclusive to say the least. Sturmwehr 00:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Well first, while you may accept Ayoob as the end all and be all of firearms information, he is not universally reguarded as such--take for example Fackler and the people at [www.firearmstactical.com], who take serious issue with some of his work. Now it is true that the penetration of .45 ACP FMJ in ballistic gelatin is over 24"[1], and so it is theoretically possible to shoot through two people and into a third, the FBI specified minimum penetration for ammunition is 12", and 18" is preferred[2], either of which is still enough to overpenetrate on a frontal shot. If a shot underpenetrates, it is likely that the assainant will not be disabled, and will continue to be a threat; if the shot overpenetrates, then there is the potential of harm to bystanders, but certainly the chances of an overpenetrating shot (with its energy greatly reduced by passing through the intended target) hitting and killing someone are far less than the chance of a miss (which retains all of its energy) killing someone, and even that chance is statistically verifiable as a very low likelyhood. As the FBI report says, The concern that a bullet would pass through the body of a subject and injur an innocent bystander is clearly exagerated. The report also says that handgun bullets only expand 60-70% of the time in actual shootings, and so expanded performance should not be relied upon, but merely considered a bonus--this is why the terminal ballistics test put things like multiple layers of cloth, sheet rock, glass, and thin steel in front of gelatin, to plug and deform the standard hollow point and prevent expansion; an example is the INS protocol (which uses a 9" minimum and a 20" maximum, so they disagree somewhat with the FBI)[3]. I've also searched for any mention of a bystander killed by a bullet passing through a suspect, and have found nothing. I did find one mention of a bystander being killed by a bullet passing through an interior door (the assailant was standing right in front of the door with a knife when engaged by the police)[4] but anything more potent than an air gun will go easily though an interior door. Even the NYPD, which shoots off hundreds of rounds a year with a <30% hit rate on the intended target, doesn't appear to hit, much less kill, a signficant number of bystanders[5]--in the particular case of Sean Bell, the men were nominally unarmed (though they had rammed a police van, insufficient justification for lethal force by NYPD ROE) but they were the targets. scot

--- "Well first, while you may accept Ayoob as the end all and be all of firearms information, "

Do not put words into my mouth. Never did I claim such nor imply, and the fact that some people take issue with it - that's fine and dandy. However, the experience lies with Ayoob, and ballistics gel is not the perfer substitute for human flesh. You wanted sources, I gave you one. Don't piss and moan and try to undermine the author simply because you don't agree with his findings. The vast majority of the firearm community finds Ayoob to generally know what he's talking about.

You are also citing a lot of sources from firearmstactical, which even by your own admission disagrees with many of the "experts" in the field of firearms.

"but certainly the chances of an overpenetrating shot (with its energy greatly reduced by passing through the intended target) hitting and killing someone are far less than the chance of a miss (which retains all of its energy) killing someone, and even that chance is statistically verifiable as a very low likelyhood."

I said this myself. Re-read where I said actual missed shots are much more dangerous.

"As the FBI report says, The concern that a bullet would pass through the body of a subject and injur an innocent bystander is clearly exagerated."

Exaggerated? Depends on your viewpoint. Do I think it's as pressing as some people think? No. However, then again, that is simply my viewpoint.

"Even the NYPD, which shoots off hundreds of rounds a year with a <30% hit rate on the intended target, doesn't appear to hit, much less kill, a signficant number of bystanders"

Yet it only takes one bullet to kill someone.

In fact, there's some bizarre cases of stray bullets:

"A stray bullet, fired by men target-practicing on a tree, pierced the roof of a house about 150 yards away and killed a woman in Newton County [GA] on Friday evening, authorities said.

Tanya Rosemary McCracken, 31, was in an upstairs bedroom of the house in the 800 block of Hightower Trail in Covington when she was hit, sheriff's officials said.

Two men have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony, in the shooting. Officials said both were using a rifle to shoot bullets into a tree."

"CASPER - While playing video games on the TV with a friend, a man accidentally discharged a new 9mm pistol he was unfamiliar with (having just bought it at a gun show the day before) while working the slide, firing a bullet that nicked his arm and eventually ended up striking a man using the bathroom in another building, police said.

However, since the bullet traveled through two walls, across a courtyard and ricocheted off a shower wall, it left only a small bruise on the chest of the man it hit and did not require treatment, police said."

"The New Orleans Saints vs. Chicago Bears televised playoff game was a blast for a Chimacum [WA] man who accidentally shot himself while reacting to a Reggie Bush touchdown for the Saints.

He had removed the .45-caliber automatic's magazine, and was cleaning it on his living-room coffee table while watching the game on television.

Passing through the 52-year-old's left hand, the bullet flew though a flower pot, a window and a wooden fence before burying itself in the wall of the house next door." http://airbornecombatengineer.typepad.com/airborne_combat_engineer/firearm_safety/index.html

I also remember a story of a .45 ACP going through a wall of a building behind a shooting range, hitting the ceiling, and then ricocheting into the head of boy (killing him). I can't remember what forensics show it was on, but other have seen it as well (http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=27224).

As I said, your statistics are wonderful, but it doesn't make the fact that stray bullets kill/injure people go away.

October 2023

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