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The object of shooting someone is to stop an aggressor. Incapacitate him. Sometimes it needs to be done, and the sooner the better. I hope never to ever find myself in a situation that requires shooting someone, but I have prepared for that eventuality through both training and introspection.
My first “real” gun, a Browning Hi-Power is a 9mm weapon. My current carry weapon is a Glock 19, also a 9mm. I chose 9mm initially because it was then (and still is) the standard NATO handgun round and should be more available in a SHTF situation than most other handgun calibers.
I have not bought a new defensive handgun in nearly two decades and am thinking I’d like to. There is a temptation to move up to a larger caliber and I have been investigating both the 10mm and its little brother, the .40 Smith & Wesson. In the course of my investigations, I’ve read innumerable articles comparing the various rounds and learned much. Of course, there are many who worship the venerable .45 ACP. This big, lumbering bullet has the most “stopping power” to hear them tell it. The forty cal and the 9mm have their adherents as well.
The ’90s saw the introduction and adoption of the 10mm, hailed as a “magnum” round in a semi-auto. Law enforcement jumped on this for a variety of reasons (not least of which was a side effect of the “assault weapons” ban) and quickly regretted it. The 10mm proved to be too hard to handle for many and thus was born the .40 S&W, a shortened, lower power version of the 10mm which was subsequently adopted widely by Law Enforcement and civilians alike. Many of those same L.E. agencies are now returning to the 9mm. After considering many factors, I’ve all but concluded that I will stick with 9mm. But all that is beside the point.
While researching larger calibers, I came across a very interesting article that bears particularly on the “incapacitating” issue. It’s very clinical but may be disturbing just the same. It’s not too late to turn back…
Basic Wound Ballistic Terminal Performance Facts
Interesting read. There are two ways that a bullet wound can incapacitate: physiologically and psychologically. A person may receive a would that is not lethal, or even physiologically incapacitating, yet be psychologically incapacitated. They give up the fight. Incapacity has been achieved.
Contrary-wise, a person can receive a wound that is physiologically incapacitating, even lethal but yet not psychologically incapacitating. These people can fight on for a short while before the incapacity takes effect. I suppose this might apply to very determined people or those on drugs. We hear about people on PCPs who just won’t stop. In the few seconds before incapacity, they can fire many rounds or do more harm to their victims.
And if the aggressor is on drugs or otherwise not psychologically incapacitated, and none of the defender’s shots are physiologically incapacitating, the defender will have to keep shooting.
Except for wounds to the Central Nervous System (brain or spine), no wound is immediately physiologically incapacitating. And there’s no way to know if an attacker will be psychologically incapacitated by a wound. This is why defensive handgun instructors teach the “double-tap” — two quick rounds. Two hits are more likely to incapacitate than a single hit. When I took a four day defensive handgun course earlier this year, it was two to the torso followed by one to the “cranial ocular cavity”. If the first two did not incapacitate, the third would.
Since the object of shooting someone is to incapacitate, and few of us can reliably hit the brain or spine in a high-stress situation, some people don’t stop at a simple double-tap. They continue shooting until obvious incapacity is achieved or they exhaust the capacity of their magazine. Even police do it.
Psychological incapacity is something I knew existed, of course, but have never heard discussed in firearms training, which focuses on the mechanics of self-defense shooting.