Shoot at the pelvis to stop an attack?

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DMK

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I just finished reading Combat Shooting with Massad Ayoob (free read on Kindle if you have Amazon Prime BTW). It's a great read and I highly recommend it, along with Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right to Self Defense, another free Prime Reader book.

An interesting point in that book though; Ayoob makes a case for shooting at the pelvic girdle if possible, instead of upper chest in a self defense situation. His rational is that a fractured pelvic girdle will cause an attacker to immediately collapse under their own weight, where even with a heart shot, an attacker might have enough blood in their brain to continue an attack for a few seconds (such as in a Tueller Drill situation).

He backed up his advice with commentary from medical experts and even talked of a police officer who was shot in the heart with a .357, killed her attacker and amazingly survived the gun shot. He also talked about criminals who were shot in the head and continued to fight. One attacker took 10 rounds from a officer at contact distance including head shots before he dropped from a pelvic shot. (He talks at length about the problems with head shots as well)

I have never heard anyone but Ayoob make this recommendation. Have any of you heard of this in your training or research?
 
All fine and dandy until the excrement hits the fan. Train for center mass to stop the threat because when your fight or flight mode kicks in your fine motor skills are pretty much out the window and you will be aiming/pointing at the biggest thing in your sights which is center mass.
 
Take any target you could get.

Lifetimes ago, one of the members of my kung fu school ran into the "angry -ex" scenario. The blow that ended the fight was a straight kick to the pelvis that broke the other guy's pelvic girdle and floored the bg.
 
When I was trained to work armed security, luckily our company hired a man to train us who was ex military, swat and a Chief of Police somewhere on the east coast. His training was actually extremely well thought out and our quals were based on point blank to behind cover firing, which is pretty impressive if you ask me for a security company.

Anyways, one thing he taught us was the Mozambique drill. Additionally he modified it with this same thinking in line. So our taught protocol was 2 to the chest and 1 to the head. If the attacker did not go down, it was followed by 2 to the chest, 1 to the head and 2 to the pelvis. He explained the same as Ayoob. He said your original 6 shots should be to stop the attacker with all the valid reasons why center mass and head shots are used, He explained if this did not put them down or they wore armor, that most likely they would not have armor covering their pelvis and that, as you said, they would collapse.

Edit: And to be honest, if you put 6 rounds on target and they haven't gone down, I would have to agree that 2 to the pelvis wouldnt hurt. I could only see that being used under a rare circumstance but it makes sense and I still practice it today. Sometimes. I do think that center mass is the way to go if your attacker is coming at you. But on the off chance, I have the time, cant hurt.
 
Edit: And to be honest, if you put 6 rounds on target and they haven't gone down, I would have to agree that 2 to the pelvis wouldnt hurt.
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Agreed. If you have put 6 rounds on target and it has not worked its time to try something else. Might as well try two to the pelvis.
 
The notion that a fractured pelvis will stop an attack is interesting in theory, but problematic in reality. It can work, but the problems are:
1) people don't actually know where to aim to hit the pelvis in a structurally relevant area,
2) hitting the iliac blade may not produce a functional cessation of locomotion,
3) just because the person can't walk well, doesn't mean they can't still shoot you,
4) pistol rounds may not produce the desired damage except via very precise or very lucky shots.

Popping a hole or two through the iliac blades, if they don't snap, won't produce a physical stop and snapping off a portion of the iliac blade likely won't either as it isn't involved with structural support for locomotion.

Check out this guy with 3 shots to the pelvic area with a .40 caliber pistol, none of which produced apparent bone damage. The iliac blade was clipped by a .223 round. However, note all the holes in his buttocks and hip area and the LACK of damage to the pelvis.

WARNING: LINK CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
http://www.defensivecarry.com/documents/officer.pdf

I would contend that if you can make a pelvic girdle breaking, locomotion stopping shot, then you can make a head shot.

With that said, a shot to the pelvic area may produce a stop, even if it doesn't break the pelvis or break off the ball from the femur. You never know. More shots on target are better than less, but don't believe for a moment that just because you are shooting in the pelvic area that you are going to break the pelvis and stop the attack. You might, and that is great, but it is NOT a given.
 
The guy who taught my first CHL class 20 years ago recommended the pelvic shot. Don't know where he got the idea, but his reasoning sounded a lot like DMK's quote from Ayoob. It's been around that long, at least. As has Ayoob.
 
If you hit the pelvis there is a lower likelihood of stopping the fight than a hit to the thoracic cavity or the head. There are fewer major blood vessels there and it would be difficult to render someone structurally immobile with gunfire, particularly with handgun caliber bullets. The pelvis is usually touted as an alternative target to the chest because it is easier to hit than the head and often unarmored.

See these previous threads for more details:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=441459
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=416452
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235485

Several of those threads get very detailed; but summarized, damaging the pelvis enough to make someone immobile is tougher than it sounds. The referenced threads include the shooting Double-Naught referenced, a U.S. soldier who won a medal after his pelvis was shattered by a 7.62x54 round, and an 84yr old woman who walked around on a broken hip for a week before the pain was too much to bear.
 
The pelvis is an area with some major arteries, bone support structures and musculature. The actual targets are fairly small and even a good hit Will not stop a drugged out creep or someone who is full of rage and adrenaline.

The fastest way to stop a target is a good head shot. There again it is a small kill zone that covers from the bridge of the nose to the brow line vertically and about as wide as the pupils of the eyes. Neck shots are good targets too because you have the airway, several arteries and the spine. Head and neck shots are some of the most difficult because they move more and faster than the thorax or pelvis. If a person is wearing body armor then your only shots are to the head and neck or the legs and feet. I am training for head and neck shots now and ignoring the rest.
 
In a lawful self defense action, I will take the shot that is easiest under the circumstances. I don't think deeper than that.
 
Yes sir ^^^as we all would. If anyone thinks they are going to be placing shots in a life and death situatuion you have been watching to much John Wick....great movie by the way....:D
 
Maybe it's just me, but are we over-thinking this just a bit? I mean, what usually happens when you strike a man in the groin area? In my experience (and unfortunately I have some experience with this phenomenon), men usually fall to their knees immediately after such an occurrence. Again, from personal experience when this has happened, I completely forget about whatever it was I was doing just prior to the event, at least for several seconds.

Now, I understand that we're not specifically talking about shooting people in the groin, but I have to imagine that if you were shot near the groin, your first reaction would be similar to that if you were in fact shot in the family jewels.

That momentary 'distraction' could be considered a temporary stoppage of the attack, IMO. And that moment might be all you would need to finish the attack on a suddenly much-less-agile attacker.
 
The pelvis shot is mentioned as a failure to stop drill when the COM shots seem not to work. Of course, as mentioned, the head is the preferred target but may be hard to do.

I've taken classes and shot at reactive targets that fall if you hit them in the magic spot. It is hard.

As mentioned also, you probably won't shatter the pelvis with a standard pistol round to guarantee a drop (and a motivated person can keep shooting). In a class on shooting anatomy, we saw diagrams of where a pelvis shot can be a mobility hit and it isn't in the center of the bone. It's inward towards the joint. There are practice targets that map out this area.

So the idea is out there but it's not a guarantee to drop someone. About men getting all discombulated and stopping fighting - don't count on that. Dedicated or deranged opponents have soaked up lots of holes and stay in the fight.
 
Yes the theory has been around for a while. In competition, I have seen folks miss steel and shoot small groups just off target, sometimes for 5 rounds or more. If the ability to recognize that the desired effect has not occurred and adapt can not be relied upon under the stress of a timer, how much less in life and death?

This kind of fluid/dynamic thought process is the hardest thing to train and why I am an advocate of FoF and Simulator training for defense applications. It is also why I am an advocate of regular practice and competition. The more that can be removed from the cognitive stack, the better your react and adapt thought process will be in the fight.
 
The pelvic shots.

No lessor a personage than C. D. Henderson (a fictional character) recommended the pelvic shot to Bud Pewtie (a fictional character) to stop a determined attacker.

-a man comes at you again, soaking up lead like that, you got to stay cool and break his pelvis with a big bore bullet. Break his pelvis, down he goes. Hit him three inches inside the hip. Puts him down every damn time.
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C. D. (a fictional character) said he got this advice from Jelly Bryce (a nonfictional character). You can read about Jelly Bryce here:
http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=BR030)

This is from Stephen Hunter’s book ‘Dirty White Boys’ copyright 1994.

Personally I'd go with the sentiments of another Stephen Hunter character, Earl Swagger who said something to the effect that "The fight's gonna be what the fight's gonna be, not what you expected it to be."
 
You are speaking of breaking the pelvis , bone structure which then doesn't support the body. But in my limited experience in hunting and films of hunting the base of the spine might be the thing to think of. Coming from the base of the spine are nerves which fan out and into the legs. Hits in that area immediately collapse the hind end .I've seen large dangerous game like cape buffalo instantly drop the hind end . The BG may be able to shoot but you could get a round or more into him as he does.
 
Shoot center-mass. Very few in an actual gun battle have the ability and the skills to choose where their shot hits.

There's lots of theories floating around out there in regards to most anything you might bring up. Most don't hold water when the SHTF.

It is fun though reading about them...........:D
 
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Soft body armor is prone to "folding." When the prone to fold area above the pelvis is combined with the exposed area of the pelvis it is a much larger target than other alternatives here mentioned.
As to the efficacy, you've heard of the "hide under your desk" nuclear drills, right?
 
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