For a self defense shooting, when one is given the option of COM or pelvic girdle, why would anyone shoot at the pelvic girdle? If your options are limited by distance, time, etc... then shoot at the best place you can. If COM, and head shots are out of the question, the pelvic girdle is the best out of the remaining options. Here's why COM would be much better than pelvic girdle:
You're goal in a SD/HD situation is to
stop the BG. Stop does not mean to limit his ability to walk or to knock him down. Stop means to stop him from being a threat. To stop the BG is to take away his ability to harm you, your loved ones, or anyone else. Shoot a guy in the pelvis, he can still pull a trigger, use a knife, choke you to death, etc.
A hit to the pelvis might not even stop his movement (if for some reason that is your goal). To take someone down to the ground you need to take him off balance. Hitting him right in his center of gravity is the worst way to do this. To take him down you'd need to hit a nerve, his spine, or break the pelvis bone in such a way as to make him unable to walk. Depending on the caliber size of BG, and many other factors, your chances of this are low to none.
When it comes to 2 to COM, 1 to the head style of training I would advise to leave this to people who have the ability to effectively train for it. If you can't spend at least a few hundred rounds at the range every month and/or don't have the ability to practice at moving targets leave the 2+1 training to the pros. The head is the smallest and hardest target to hit. It's constantly moving and in a real world situation almost impossible to hit. Most people make head shots by missing COM.
I'm not saying don't aim for the head. I'm saying that routine 2+1 training isn't a very good idea for the average civillian. Train for head shots, but not automatically following COM shots with them. Instead train for the situation where the BG isn't affected at all by your COM shots and suddenly becomes close enough for an effective head shot. That's a distance where the outline of the head can be easily seen above and on both sides of your sights.
I'll go ahead and assume that the guy the OP is referring to is actually who he claims to be, and was telling the truth. If you're not in a military special forces unit, don't train like you are. You're not going to be facing the same situations they will. What works for them is not necessarily what will work for you. Also, just because the military is doing something doesn't even mean it's what is best for them. The military changes the way they do things more often than I change shoes. Many times they do something for a few months only to go back to the old way.
there are several very major blood vessels, large nerve clusters, large intestine, bladder.
hit any of these things and the bg is down. a femoral artery will have the bg bled out in 3mins.
put some holes in the intestine/bladder and sepsis will likely kill him even if the bullets dont.
and having a colostomy bag will keep him from too much crime.
There are major organs there, but no vital ones. To effectively
stop a BG you need to hit something vital. Yes a direct hit to the femoral artery will lead to death very very quickly, but you have a better chance that the BG will drop dead from a heart attack than actually hitting a particular artery. Even if you do, that 3 minutes gives the BG plenty of time to kill you or your loved ones. Sepsis may kill the BG, but that will happen
days or weeks later. Again he has time to do bad things to you and your loved ones.
TacticalDefense1911 (Post #23) is 100% correct.
The hope is that even a person super high on drugs will go down if that basic needed hip bone is shattered.
And then the bad guy can be disarmed without killing him.
The BG is going to have three options when you draw your gun. He's going to surrender, he's going to fight, or he's going to flee. Very very few of them surrender. Most of them flee. Many of them fight. Take away the option to flee and a very large majority are going to fight back. If I miss COM and I hit the pelvis and the BG goes down, I'm going to give him about .5 seconds to throw his weapon away and keep his hands where I can see them. If he doesn't do this by .6 seconds, he's going to catch some bullets with his brain. One should never attempt to disarm a BG. Distance is your friend. If you get close enough to take his gun away, he's close enough to take yours, and he's close enough to put a bullet in your head.
Once again, the only way to eliminate the threat of the BG is to
stop him. Being stopped and being dead have the exact same symptoms. That is why I practice to shoot to kill. If I kill the BG, I will effectively stop him. That's the whole point behind using lethal force. There are only two ways a human being dies from a gunshot:
1. They bleed to death. This happens when blood vessels and or vital organs such as the heart are ruptured. This type of death can take anywhere from just a few seconds to a few hours. A direct hit to the heart will cause death in about 3.5 seconds or less. While it is still possible for the BG to enflict lethal force during this time, the trauma caused by the wound usually keeps him from doing so.
2. Direct hit to the central nervous system (CNS). This is a hit to the brain, the brain stem, or the upper portion of the spinal cord. Preferably a direct hit to the medulla oblongata (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medulla_oblongata). This is the only way to immediately kill the BG. While FTF with the BG this area is located at the back of the skull right behind that nice little spot right between his eyes.
None of these vital things are located in the pelvic region. A shot there will not quickly stop a threat. This is why I train for COM, and if needed head shots. COM takes priority above the head because it's bigger and easier to hit, and because bullets have been known to bounce off of skulls.