After reading multiple cases of firearm-inflicted damage necessary to stop a determined attacker, I opine that the following question be given due consideration: With criteria met for acting in self defense or defense of another, a person wielding a firearm should shoot to incapacitate or “stop the threat”, but never “shoot to kill” out of fear of prosecution, yet is it feasible to shoot to effectively “stop the threat” without “shooting to kill”, in that one who shoots for maximum effect of threat stoppage will be aiming for an area inherently vital to the attacker and in effect will be “shooting to kill?”
With regard to those who have personal experience, or through a second or farther removed party, of self defense or LOD shootings in which incapacitation was achieved through targeting an other than vital area, the FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness report by the Department of Justice compiled by Special Agent Urey W. Patrick in 1989 makes a strong argument that immediate incapacitation of an assailant is only guaranteed by a shot that disrupts the brain or upper spinal cord. If a shooter is aiming to deliver a shot to the brain or upper spinal cord for the sole purpose of immediate incapacitation, then in effect that shooter did aim to kill as the likelihood of surviving gunshot trauma to said areas is very slim thereby rendering the statement many of us are prepared to give of shooting to incapacitate, or shooting to “stop the threat”, irrelevant.
I have only recently uncovered the paths leading to, what is to me, this paradox and I was curious as to how others have reconciled the apparent contradiction. Thank you.
-Jonathan
With regard to those who have personal experience, or through a second or farther removed party, of self defense or LOD shootings in which incapacitation was achieved through targeting an other than vital area, the FBI Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness report by the Department of Justice compiled by Special Agent Urey W. Patrick in 1989 makes a strong argument that immediate incapacitation of an assailant is only guaranteed by a shot that disrupts the brain or upper spinal cord. If a shooter is aiming to deliver a shot to the brain or upper spinal cord for the sole purpose of immediate incapacitation, then in effect that shooter did aim to kill as the likelihood of surviving gunshot trauma to said areas is very slim thereby rendering the statement many of us are prepared to give of shooting to incapacitate, or shooting to “stop the threat”, irrelevant.
I have only recently uncovered the paths leading to, what is to me, this paradox and I was curious as to how others have reconciled the apparent contradiction. Thank you.
-Jonathan