Shoot at the pelvis to stop an attack?

[zincwarrior]

There are are reactive targets that will demonstrate to you the difficulty of the Mozambique head shot and the critical area shots in COM. Try them moving and at a distance. Then one can opine.

Agreed. Outside of special services units, engaging head shots at distance is indeed foolhardy (unless you have good glass of course, but thats a separate type of shot). At close CC pistol range, still difficult but can be done in emergency (I love Mozabiques in shooting competitions, I particularly love seated challenges with head shots). Again, center top torso is the easiest effective target usually, hence why they are focus for police and self defense training.

Now of course, when the Zombies come, you have to be ready.
If The Zombie Training Manual has taught me anything, its that my obscenely large scoped Marlin and 55,000 .22 rounds are going to win WWZ.

 

[Don P]

Hit the nail right on the head, Glenn did. For all the knee shooters posting here, try head shots on IDPA and USPSA targets and for a bunch more fun try your skill set at the Texas Star being the five plates are bigger than the human knee and the are moving.

 

[MosinNOUGAT]

Ya it's sealed now. No more knee shots. However, if there was really a threat big enough for you to fire off a round, why not just stop the threat?

 

[Don Fischer]

Head shot's, knee shots? Why not jus shoot off the trigger finger. Tell you what, a couple good shots to the chest trump's a dozen missed shot at the knee!

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The star is a hoot. It will give you a feel for moving small targets. There are tricks to it that you can't use on a person unless they are an oncoming Olympic gymnast.

We are talking about stopping the threat. Please study up.

Stopping the threat usually entails COM then a failure to stop drill such as a Mozambique and then perhaps a pelvic shot.

Now if there is fight and the opponent is behind cover or concealment and a body part shows, it's suggested to shoot the center of the body part. For example, you see a leg sticking out (FOF, saw that - hit the fat part of the opponent's inner thigh) or under a car, shoot the legs and maybe count on the ricochet shot into the person (but this is all in the extreme).

I would once again strongly suggest that instead of posting random and disjointed thoughts that are easily answered with some study, one actually does research the use of force and normal tactical doctrines. Please take the hint.

 

[Danoobie]

Quote by Old Marksman
"That would indicate very poor shooting."

Yes you are correct, it would. So, on the surface,
you are right. But out of @130 million gun owners
in the US, how many, would you say, are
"good shots"? Bear in mind, these folks, all but
6 million of them, won't even pony up the dough for
an NRA membership. Much less range time, bullets, and
any sort of training. So what do we have out there, in
abundance?
Folks who bought a pistol and a box of ball ammo, and who
either figure they don't have to practice, for belly gun distance
shots, or who watched Mel or Arnold shoot a pistol in the movies,
and figure it's easy. Shooting is not their life, they haven't fired
a full mag, in many cases.

How about the ones under duress, stress, or simply shooting
single-handed? You are absolutely correct, IT IS very poor
shooting. And it's all too common.


As to the "absurd" remark, how do you explain criminals targeting
tourists, rental cars and out of state cars in Florida? Because now
Florida is a "shall issue" state, with strong gun defense law, BGs
are afraid to take on a potentially armed Floridian. Civilians
aren't required to follow police guidelines in defending themselves,
and they don't follow police procedures in shooting back, either.

I don't think it's too absurd that criminals fear being shot in the
crotch.


Let's take a closer look at the "small, only one target" pelvic
area, shall we? Well, let's see, I notice

1.The very sensitive, nerve loaded reproductive organs

2. The Femoral Arteries

3. The Hip Joints

4. The Femurs

5. The base of the spine

6. The Pubic Symphysis


Now, I'm no expert, but it seems like a VERY
target-rich area of sensitive body parts, to me.

As to size, it's approximately the same width as
armpit-to-armpit CBM.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That is not the issue. Of course, people fear getting shot. However, this is the point, the organs you point out have a lower chance of actually disabling the opponent such that they cannot return fire to you.

That is quite different from being scared. That is why experts, like the doc who teaches anatomical principles in shooting, point out where to shoot to more likely stop the fight. Not being an expert physician and gun trainer, I took that course so I know what I am talking about.

I also think you need to study up on whether the use of lethal force is more loose for civilians than police in Florida. The standards are pretty universal. Please quote the law that makes it easy for you to shoot than a cop.

 

[Danoobie]

It's not ease, Glenn, with due respect, it's predictability.
Cops are predictable, private gun owners are not.
Do I need to post a link for "Fear of the Unknown",
here?

Do I need to post a link of criminals interviews stating that
while they didn't fear the cops, because they kept to a set
timetable, and always handled things in a predictable
manner, civilians pop up out of nowhere, at any time,
and not having the uniform police code to follow, could do
anything ?

I shouldn't have to, because you have had all the training here,
right? You should already KNOW this.

You want to talk about posting a link, I'd like to see a link of
statistics of people shot CBM, VS Pelvic area, where CBM was
statistically more effective. NO simulations, please. We're
talking real life, here, right?

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

No, you didn't answer the question. You said:

Civilians
aren't required to follow police guidelines in defending themselves,
and they don't follow police procedures in shooting back, either.

What are those guidelines? Do you mean the laws concerning lethal force?

I would also like to see a legit study that criminals do not fear cops. Give us the link.

 

[OldMarksman]

Civilians aren't required to follow police guidelines in defending themselves,and they don't follow police procedures in shooting back, either.

I'm not sure what you are getting at, or what, if anything, it might have do with the discussion at hand.

Now, I'm no expert, ...

That is becoming increasingly obvious.

 

[Frank Ettin]

.....Do I need to post a link of criminals interviews stating that while they didn't fear the cops, because they kept to a set timetable, and always handled things in a predictable manner, civilians pop up out of nowhere, at any time, and not having the uniform police code to follow, could do anything?......

Yes you do. You must provide evidence to support your claims.

 

[OldMarksman]

Well, Old Marksman, what I'm getting at, is the armed
civilian isn't required, or likely to issue a verbal warning,
for one.

Nor is a sworn officer, anywhere, when acting in self defense.

Perhaps you are thinking about officers who are apprehending suspects, which is something that civilians cannot lawfully use deadly force to do except in a few jurisdictions and in very limited circumstances.

They aren't restricted by police regulations.

What might those be?

And they don't always shoot for CBM, like perhaps they should.

No one always does, and there are no relevant regulations on the subject.

They don't always react to a situation the way police treat a crime in progress.

That's not a matter of being "required to follow police guidelines". It's more a matter of roles and responsibilities. Sworn officers are expected to intervene in a crime in progress, and citizens who are not sworn officers are expected to go elsewhere and call the police.

For two folks with, apparently, massive amounts of training,
you and Glenn seem almost inanely and obtusely unaware of the
interviews with criminals, in which they voiced a major concern
with encountering armed civilians, at the wrong moment.

I am very much aware of that, and I am sure that Glenn is, too.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The criminological literature - such as the work of Foxx and the victim selection literature indicates that economical driven criminals take into account victim resistance. That's not the issue of 'guidelines' causing criminals not to worry about the police.

I guess I wasted my time at the ASC meetings all those years. Being a trained scholar, as I said - I'm waiting for an analysis based on the literature from law, criminology and law enforcement on the issues of guidelines and the laws of lethal force.

If not - then - well, you can guess what I think of the analysis.

 

[OldMarksman]

Some time back there was a study based on interviews with incarcerated criminals who had shot police officers.

Some of the high points that I recall:

• Many of them were concerned about encountering armed citizens; that is not to say that they did not "fear" police officers.
• Many of them were well practiced in the use of firearms.
• The usually did not use holsters, because they would have to discard those in addition to their guns.

 

[Frank Ettin]

In the Wright and Rossi study published as Armed and Considered Dangerous (Second Edition, Aldine Transaction, 2008), one of the conclusions reported (ibid, pg 158) based on the analysis discussed in the chapter, "Confronting the Armed Victim" is: "In general, encounters with armed victims seemed to be about as worrisome to these men as encounters with the police."

 

[OldMarksman]

That's right, it was the Wright and Rossi study.

One finding was this:

"...34% said that when thinking about committing a crime they either “often” or “regularly” worried that they “[m]ight get shot at by the victim”; and 57% agreed with the statement, “Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police.”...​

That's a far cry from

"...criminals interviews stating that while they didn't fear the cops, because they kept to a set timetable, and always handled things in a predictable manner, civilians pop up out of nowhere, at any time, and not having the uniform police code to follow, could do anything?......"​

One might wonder why being shot by a victim might be regarded by some criminals as posing a greater risk than running into the police, but nothing was said about a "set timetable" (where did that come from?). predictability, civilians "popping out of nowhere" ((victims "popping out of nowhere"?), or a "uniform police code".

One might, however, reasonably conclude that the uniformed constable on patrol is very visible and can be avoided before a crime is initiated, and the possibly armed victim is not.

 

[Mike Irwin]

At one time in the 1960s or so there was a school of thought that a shot to the pelvis was the way to go for police officers, especially a shot to the hip, as it would immediately immobilize the bad guy.

At least that was the theory.

As with a lot of theories, though, when people tried to put it into practice, it simply didn't work out as the theory said it should.

Actually hitting a part of the hip that would cause structural immobilization is about as hard as putting consistent headshots into a moving target.

Hitting the femoral artery is even more luck because it's an even smaller target.

Hitting the base of the spine is, again, more luck than not as it's a narrow target. It generally will result in PARTIAL incapacitation. Legs won't work, but arms are still capable of wielding a gun.

After a couple of shootings in which police officers were killed after putting several shots into a bad guy's intestines, with no measurable effect, people rightfully woke up and decided that yeah, the people who were advocating for shooting at center of mass are actually making one hell of a lot of sense.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Mike, right.

I have said this before and I will say it again...few people have any real understanding of where they would need to actually shoot a person anatomically in order to hit the very small target areas needed to "break the pelvis," much less to be able to do that on a clothed person for which there are virtually no external landmarks that could be used to make such a precision shot.

 

[OldMarksman]

The very persuasive posts above from Mike Irwin and Double Naught Spy can bring us to a close on a seven page thread.

Should anyone have anything substantive to add, contact one of the moderators.

For now, it's over and out.