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Title: Should You Shoot to Wound?
Source:
Patriot Net Daily
URL Source: http://www.patriotnetdaily.com/2013/11/11/should-you-shoot-to-wound/
Published: Nov 13, 2013
Author: David Nash
Post Date: 2013-11-13 23:39:01 by James Deffenbach
Keywords: None
Views: 231
Comments: 22
I talk a lot about lethal force, and one concept comes up almost universally. I call this idea the leg shot syndrome. The leg shot syndrome is expressed by the statement “I wouldn’t aim to kill; I would shoot the robber in the leg”. I believe I know where this thought comes from. It comes from the fact that everyone I give firearms classes to comprise the “good guys”. Good guys don’t go around killing, robbing, and raping people. They believe that everyone has redeeming qualities. Good guys don’t want to kill people, they didn’t start the encounter, and if they had their way, the bad guy would just leave. Now before I get tons of hate mail, let me say that I understand the reason people think this, and I wish everyone in the world felt that way. If there were no bad guys, there would be no crime. I could then put more energy into my primary job of preparing for natural disasters instead of diverting energy to preparing for criminal disasters. While understanding and admiring this idea, I want to emphasize that this is not a good way to apply this concept. There are many reasons why this philosophy is not sound in the lethal force arena. Some of these reasons are legal, some tactical, and some, yes, are even moral. I will jump into what I hear as the most widely use reason why the leg shot syndrome should not be used, legal. A handgun is a lethal weapon. Unlike a baseball bat, a butcher knife, or a policeman’s baton, there is no less lethal way to use a handgun against another human. The law does not distinguish the difference between shooting a person in the head, and shooting a person in the chest. If there is not legally defensible motive and the person dies it is still murder. A bullet cannot be recalled once it leaves the barrel, and what it does upon entering a person cannot be decided by the person who fired the bullet. There is a major artery in the human leg, which if severed, can kill a person as quickly as shooting them in the chest. Tactically manipulating a firearm under lethal force pressure is extremely hard. Quite a few books, and statistics from a vast amount historical data show that only about 1/3 of the rounds fired impact on the target. This doesn’t seem to be that bad, until you look at other statistics that show approximately 90% of gun fights happen under 7 yards and comprise less than 3 shots total. How realistic is it then that when most people would be lucky to hit their attacker, you are going to hit one of the smallest areas, and an area that is most likely to be moving. Tennessee (and every other state I have found that has a defined handgun training curriculum) specifies shooting center-mass with the intent to stop. This involves two concepts. The first being center-mass, this means aiming your projectile to impact inside the largest target area (the chest), since this is the largest area you have the greatest ability to actually hit it. Also the chest area has the largest ability to stop your attacker due to it being the location of most the body’s organs. Intent to stop, is neither aiming to kill, nor shooting to wound, either of these are irrelevant, your legal self-defense ability is centered upon the attacker being able to kill you, and trying to kill you. If the mere presence of your legally owned firearm cause the attacker to stop, it has done its job, if one well placed round to center mass persuades the criminal to stop, that’s okay, however if it takes 3 ” boxes of bullets to stop a drug crazed, gang-banging, neo-nazi terrorist from killing you, hey so be it. This intent to stop is the half of my moral argument. The other reason comes from plain street sense. I have a few years working in corrections. These years are split between entry level corrections working on the recreation yards and cages listening to inmates talk about themselves and their crimes, to working as a supervisor in maximum security units and applying inmate psychological knowledge to keeping the prison running smoothly. Criminals do what they do because it works for them. If a mugger or a rapist tries to talk you into leaving with him, it’s because it has always worked for him before. Believe me, a violent criminal hasn’t decided to start being a violent criminal just because your there, a criminal starts small and works up gradually becoming more violent. If a criminal gets away with hurting you, he will do it to someone else. I am not saying that vigilante justice is okay, I’m not. I am not advocating deadly force as a punishment for a criminal either. What I am saying is that you are a reasonable person, with an inalienable right to life and liberty, minding your own business, living a peaceful life. You have a right do what you need to do to be safe, to go home to your family, this criminal attacked you, tried to hurt you for no reason other than his personal gain, you’re not trying to kill him, only making him stop trying to kill you. This is not wrong. This is right, your family needs you; make sure you do what needs to be done to be there for them.
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#1. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
Awww, split the difference - shoot'em in the "V". At least if they live they won't reproduce. "Honest Injun - I was trying to shoot at his leg." :-)
"“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” ~ Gautama Siddhartha — The Buddha My thoughts: If my or someone I care about life is in danger, its a nobrainer, shoot to kill. Hopefully you would have done your due diligence examination prior to clearing leather. If you only wound, you WILL be sued. A dead purp. is less apt to cause you harm, near term or financially in the future.
..LIFE IS LIKE A COIN, YOU CAN CHOOSE TO SPEND IT ANYWAY YOU WISH, BUT YOU CAN ONLY SPEND IT ONCE...
It's a gun. It puts holes in things and people. For gods sake ,what kind of numbnut thinks leg shots don't kill? Any kind of a shot can kill , guns kill. That is what they are supposed to do.
______________________________________ Suspect all media / resist bad propaganda/Learn NLP everyday everyway ;) If you don't control your mind someone else will.
They can also shoot tires flat, except the D.C. police would have us believe that it was more difficult for them to do that, even while a car was stopped, than it was for them to gun down a mother to death in front of her child. ------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
In theory, yes. However if you aim at a smaller target than what is available and you miss the bullet is going to go somewhere, right? Suppose some little old lady is walking by ten or fifteen yards away and the bullet you intended to go into the assailant goes into her instead. If she survives it is quite likely she will sue you and if she doesn't it is quite likely her family will sue you. Paul Craig Roberts
Sure it is but you should never admit to anyone that your intent was to kill. Your intention should be to "stop the attack" and if someone happens to die they initiated it and it is their fault they are dead. But saying that you intended to kill could give you far more trouble than just saying something like "He attacked me and I defended myself. My intent was not to kill, merely to stop the attack." Paul Craig Roberts
I think OI is right. The pelvic area might be best to aim for as it's central with a lot of major vessels. This area is not as likely to be armored as the chest and I suspect body armor should be assumed.
I know of no defensive training where an instructor teaches anything other than shooting a person in the center of their body. This assumes you feel as tho your life is in danger and no other options are available.
I can't tell you the number of rounds I've seen bounce off the side of a steel belted radial tire.
If you kill them it's your word against theirs.
"Have Brain, Will Travel
While I hope I will never be put in that position I would aim for the middle of the chest--that is the biggest target and the one that most people might be able to hit in a stressful situation. Paul Craig Roberts
Of course. You shouldn't be using lethal force against anyone who isn't intent on harming or killing you. But if their intent appears to be to hurt you or kill you then any and all force is justified until the threat ends. Paul Craig Roberts
I thought it was correct to start low and work my way up until I am out of ammo. ______________________________________ Suspect all media / resist bad propaganda/Learn NLP everyday everyway ;) If you don't control your mind someone else will.
Yep, you would do that because you haven't been deluded by all those Hollywood movies where the good guy shoots the gun out of the bad guys hand.
Harder to bury them if they're alive ain't it? But if the target is a soldier, shoot to wound. Kill him, you remove one man from the battle. Wound him, you remove three. Unless he's in a prisoner battalion and medics won't be wasted on him. "If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbados, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper: be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.'" Thanks for the second opinion. ;-) And the point about that area likely being unarmored was, although not articulated, in the back of my mind. "“Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings - that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” ~ Gautama Siddhartha — The Buddha Yeah, as you say that only happens in movies. The chances that anyone could actually do that in a stressful situation is probably greater than the chances of being hit by lighning twice in the same day. Paul Craig Roberts
Shoot to wound originated in Hollywitz and their ridiculous Westerns that had the Lone Ranger shooting Colts out of the bad guys hands.
Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from evil. ~ Unk (Paraphrase of Clarke's 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")
#2. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#3. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#4. To: titorite (#3)
guns kill. That is what they are supposed to do.
#5. To: Original_Intent (#1)
Awww, split the difference - shoot'em in the "V". At least if they live they won't reproduce. "Honest Injun - I was trying to shoot at his leg." :-)
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#6. To: Give Me Liberty (#2)
My thoughts: If my or someone I care about life is in danger, its a nobrainer, shoot to kill.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#7. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#8. To: James Deffenbach, 4 (#0)
#9. To: GreyLmist (#4)
(Edited)
They can also shoot tires flat, except the D.C. police would have us believe that it was more difficult for them to do that, even while a car was stopped, than it was for them to gun down a mother to death in front of her child.
#10. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
#11. To: octavia (#7)
I think OI is right. The pelvic area might be best to aim for as it's central with a lot of major vessels. This area is not as likely to be armored as the chest and I suspect body armor should be assumed.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#12. To: Jethro Tull (#8)
I know of no defensive training where an instructor teaches anything other than shooting a person in the center of their body. This assumes you feel as tho your life is in danger and no other options are available.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#13. To: octavia (#7)
I think OI is right. The pelvic area might be best to aim for as it's central with a lot of major vessels. This area is not as likely to be armored as the chest and I suspect body armor should be assumed.
#14. To: James Deffenbach (#11)
While I hope I will never be put in that position I would aim for the middle of the chest
#15. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
#16. To: octavia, James Deffenbach (#7)
The pelvic area might be best to aim for as it's central with a lot of major vessels. This area is not as likely to be armored as the chest and I suspect body armor should be assumed.
Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from evil. ~ Unk (Paraphrase of Clarke's 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.")
#17. To: Jethro Tull (#14)
Yep, you would do that because you haven't been deluded by all those Hollywood movies where the good guy shoots the gun out of the bad guys hand.
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
#18. To: James Deffenbach (#0)
-Alex Kurtagic
#19. To: James Deffenbach (#17)
Although, I've read in a book by a tactical instructor (which I can't put my fingers on at the moment but will supply you with the reference when I can) that bullets hit an opponent's gun with more than random frequency in a gunfight. The writer says this is because, in a confrontation with firearms, there's an irresistible focus on the gun in the other guy's hand which affects targeting. So it's not unusual for a gun to get knicked by a bullet in close in gun fighting. Yeah, as you say that only happens in movies.
Know guns, know safety, know liberty. No guns, no safety, no liberty.
#20. To: randge, all (#19)
Now if we could all shoot like this....
Americans who have no experience with, or knowledge of, tyranny believe that only terrorists will experience the unchecked power of the state. They will believe this until it happens to them, or their children, or their friends.
Paul Craig Roberts
#21. To: Jethro Tull (#9)
Were the rounds fired from a distance or at very close range? I can't tell you the number of rounds I've seen bounce off the side of a steel belted radial tire.
-------
"They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
#22. To: GreyLmist (#21)
The distance and degree of angle varied. Puncture strips were developed, in part, because of the unreliability of puncturing a modern day tire w/ a round fried from a service weapon.
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