Over Penetration Threat

S

Shotgun693

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Almost continually people are expressing a fear of shooting through a 'Bad Guy' and hitting an innocent bystander. In 34 years of Law Enforcement I have no first hand knowledge of this happening. Anyone here have this happen or have first hand knowledge of such an accident?
I can only imagine that the odds of this happening are less than the odds of being struck by a meteor.
 
I've always felt the same. I don't really expect anyone I care about to standing behind a bad guy.
If I'm in my house I figure my worst situation would be with someone in front of th bg.
If I'm on the street, it's going to be up close and personal and I'll have a pretty good sized target at that range. Who's going to be behind the bg in this kind of situation? I don't think granny will be standing there.
 
A quick google brings this source up... excerpt below from:

http://yarchive.net/gun/ammo/overpenetrate.html

(Of course the source is old, so the examples are old...)

"Remember that fully 75% -SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT, 3 out of every 4- of the rounds fired in self defense miss their target ... At least without the attenuating effects of having passed through a living body. How much energy is given up in the process is problematical and debatable: a little, some, most? The important point is that the other 75% of the fired rounds are potentially more dangerous having not impacted an assailant.

For those not familar with the Ayoob article he cited three cases of of over-
penetration:

1) 1989, Philadelphia cop is killed by .38 slugs from police passing through
a felony suspect;
2) 1990, Univ. of Arizona campus, officer A fires at suspect and bullet passes
through suspect's ARM and goes on to kill officer B;
3) 1990, So. Cal., L.A. sheriffs "became embroiled in a shootout with an armed
robber". Badguy ran into the doorway of a mom 'n pop convenience store. Mom was behind the badguy when police fired, bullet passed through the badguy, mom died, badguy lived."


Yeah, it's rare of course... I suppose I've kind of been affected by an incident of bullets going through the outer wall of the house next door and lodging in the furniture. It happens around here... Little kids, even, have been wounded by stray bullets not far from where I live, just recently. It's not really a BIG deal to me... just another consideration.

I hear what you're saying though... This type of incident is statistically very rare.
 
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A writer with access to all kinds of resources comes up with 3 shootings? With hundreds of shooting this number is all but inconsequential. There have been far more shooting where the bullet did not penetrate deep enough to stop the 'Bad Guy'. And yeah, I can think of 3 just off the top of my head, oops 6.
 
With hollow point ammunition, the likelihood of over-penetration goes way down. It's far more likely to occur with round-nose or FMJ. Both types tend not to expand, so they don't give up energy as rapidly as hollow points. Hollow points give up a lot of energy just entering the body and expanding.

The FBI gave up on round nose ammunition when they went to the 158gr LSWCHP +P .38 Special load. While not optimum, the bullet does expand better than like 158gr RN +P ammunition.

I'm sure that there are some examples out there of over-penetration, but I doubt that there are very many, especially since the mid-1960's.
 
I completely agree. Overpenetration is the most overstated concern on this forum.
Among the many infinitely more likely concerns:
Missing and hitting a bystander
Misunderstanding a situation and shooting an innocent
Misunderstanding a situation and not shooting a BG
Failing to take off the safety
Missing the vitals
Shooting all of your bullets up and not stopping the threat
Deciding whether drawing your gun is the best thing to do
Etc.
 
Shotgun693

Over Penetration Threat
Almost continually people are expressing a fear of shooting through a 'Bad Guy' and hitting an innocent bystander. In 34 years of Law Enforcement I have no first hand knowledge of this happening. Anyone here have this happen or have first hand knowledge of such an accident?
I can only imagine that the odds of this happening are less than the odds of being struck by a meteor.
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Since it is known that most shots fired in a gunfight miss the intended target, I would submit that it is much more worrisome that some innocent might be hit by those bullets which miss rather than the ones that hit the intended target.
The ones that miss have more energy than the ones that have expended some in the intended target too.
I imagine that more innocent people have been hit by bullets which missed the intended target than were hit by bullets which passed through the intended target.
So practice gun control, and hit your intended target.

I saw a training video which showed an incident where the bullet went through the intended target and into the innocent hostage. The police sniper was above and behind the perpetrator who was holding a female hostage at gunpoint to his front. The sniper fired down at about a 40 degree angle into the back or back of the head of the perpetrator. The rifle bullet passed through the intended target and hit the hostage killing her too.
 
As I have always said, it is really a line of fire issue. As stated, many bullets go up and down and all around but not through the bad guy. Here in So. Cal a whole lot of people, including too many children are hit and killed by gang members shooting and missing. "Line of fire" is unknown to a gang member.
 
I think it was significant enough that it influenced the FBI at one time.

Didn't they settle on the Silvertip because it didn't overpenetrate?

I have heard people say (Chuck Hawks for instance) that the Silvetrtip "failed" in the Miami shootout. But the Silvertip did what it was designed to do, in that it penetrated and expanded about how it was designed to.

Probably if Jerry Dove had been issued FMJ ammo, his first hit on Platt in the Miami shootout would have penetrated at least an inch more than the Silvertip did - which probably would have killled Platt instantly, and the FBI and thousands of other LEAs might still be using 9mm handguns.

But didn't the FBI choose the Silvertip because of the overpenetration concern?

And now, since the Miami shootout, is the focus more on making the minimum FBI recomended penetration through barriers (the FBI protocol) ?

It seems that the focus for LEAs is no longer overpenetration - but adequate mimimum penetration in the various tests.

Maybe a nod to the overpenetration issue is being given by fact of choosing/issuing hollow points rather than FMJ.
 
I started a thread once, looking for solid over penetration evidence. All I got was second hand stories. There are some instances of over penetration, but its far more likely that a total miss would harm bystanders, than one that over penetrated.

It could very well be that over penetration was, over hyped, as a positive selling point for switching to more effective HP ammo in Law Enforcement.

As many people who were alive back in the 70s and early 80s remember, many anti-gun activists were dead set against police HP ammo. They claimed it was much more deadly than round nose, which of course it is. It is also much more effective at stopping someone as most all of us know.

So the fact that many HP pistol bullets stop in their target was used as a positive attribute for their use in police handguns.
 
Well, a friend's uncle's sister's aunt's neighbor's hairdresser's son's college professor's mechanic once shot a bad guy, and the bullet not only over penetrated, it took out a mall Santa, a Salvation Army Kettle Ringer, a guy dressed in a penguin suit (helping Santa, or just a weirdo, maybe) and a whole bus load of nuns on their way to take presents to orphans!

And he was using a .22!

I, too, have never understood the concerns about overpenetration and the seeming lack of concern many have (often in the same discussion) about clean misses.

It's as if a bullet going throug a bad guy has an innocent seeker on it, but a miss just evaporates or something.
 
When I was young I once shot 2 deers with one shot not seeing the doe behind my intended target, a buck. If I new now how long it would take me to live down the nickname "Herd Shooter" I would have left the doe lay there and never told a soul. Point is it does not matter if it's a hollow point or a FMJ, a 22LR or a 45ACP know what your target is and always figure that your target is beyond the problem.
 
When I was young I once shot 2 deers with one shot not seeing the doe behind my intended target, a buck. If I new now how long it would take me to live down the nickname "Herd Shooter" I would have left the doe lay there and never told a soul. Point is it does not matter if it's a hollow point or a FMJ, a 22LR or a 45ACP know what your target is and always figure that your target is beyond the problem.
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I've shot 2 deer with one bullet also. But that is with a high powered rifle. If I'm using a high powered rifle for self defense, I'll move overpenetration up my 'things to be concerned about' list.
 
I've shot 2 deer with one bullet also. But that is with a high powered rifle. If I'm using a high powered rifle for self defense, I'll move overpenetration up my 'things to be concerned about' list.
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Sure dont see where anything was said about using high powered rifles for self defense. Like I said make sure your target before shooting.
 
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It could very well be that over penetration was, over hyped, as a positive selling point for switching to more effective HP ammo in Law Enforcement.

As many people who were alive back in the 70s and early 80s remember, many anti-gun activists were dead set against police HP ammo. They claimed it was much more deadly than round nose, which of course it is. It is also much more effective at stopping someone as most all of us know.

So the fact that many HP pistol bullets stop in their target was used as a positive attribute for their use in police handguns.
Click to expand...
I always wondered, now I know.
Ammo companies didn't want to sell the lethality of HPs so they overstated the dangers of overpenetration. Classic salesmanship, create a problem that needs solving.
 
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I, too, have never understood the concerns about overpenetration and the seeming lack of concern many have (often in the same discussion) about clean misses.
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I've not seen an overt lack of concern over clean misses. In fact, almost every forum I've read about self defense focuses on shot placement, which is exactly how to avoid missing. There is also a lot of discussion about using rounds appropriate to your environment - things that won't over penetrate walls ad so forth (which is a discussion about misses). That said, of course clean misses are much higher risk than over penetration, but that they exist does not diminish the penetration issue.

I'll add one more over-pen case history to the thread: the bear hunter in Idaho (fall 2011) who shot a Grizzly protecting his buddy from attack, and the round over penetrated and killed his buddy. Or at least that's the shooter's story.
 
As a historical fact, look at the photographs of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. None of the LE folks standing behind, or quarter-facing the act in progress, were ever harmed.
 
That's because Jack Ruby shot Oswalt with the same brand of Magic Bullets that were used on Kennedy*































*According to the Warren Report
 
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