ShivaX
2976
Even a 5.56 (M16 round) fired from the same length of barrel as a 9mm will have a lot more energy because a 5.56 has a lot more powder behind it.
5.56 is generally regarded as not great for stopping because of it’s relatively low mass and very high velocity. A lot of handguns have better stopping power. But with rifles you’re usually talking about a military scenario at range, not someone at under 20 feet you need to stop what they’re doing immediately.
Which is why SWAT snipers and the like tend towards larger rounds like .308.
Which is why the training adapted once we moved to village/city patrols and indoor engagement.
Houngan
2978
Eh, I’m no expert but have picked up some stuff through the years of shooting. “Stopping power” is a bit of a misnomer, particularly when you’re talking about the military, because the military can’t use expanding rounds. That 5.56 packs a shit-ton more energy than a handgun, but in the military’s hands is a hard bullet that won’t deform as it passes through a body. Lethal as shit, and it’s an important point that a wounded soldier is more punitive to an enemy than a dead soldier. Kill someone, you remove one person from the opposing force. Wound someone, you have other people recovering that person, transporting them, and treating them.
You want someone to stop working you pump them full of whatever round is convenient that expands and blows big fat wound channels and puts shockwaves through their organs. Pistols do a fine job of that, provided they don’t have regular armor like the police wear. That armor stops most pistol rounds that are in use, and are mostly useless against any rifle round in use. Pistol rounds are heavy and slow and thus can be stopped, rifle rounds are light and fast as hell and cut through all that stuff without significant SWAT levels of trauma plates and whatnot.
Gripping hand, if you want to make somebody stop what they’re doing you shoot and keep shooting until they are on the ground and not moving, and that probably means you shoot them several more times while they’re on the way down. Ugly as shit, and really not a useful road to go down when talking about proportionate responses.
This makes sense to me, but what it says is that the police have been trained like an occupying force in a hostile foreign environment, while also being rendered immune to the international laws and norms that apply to troops acting as an occupying force in a hostile foreign environment. It seems bad.
Agreed. Change the dependence on the firearm as the all-in-one tool. That will change the training and force other actions.
Timex
2983
That’s gonna go over real well.
Matt_W
2984
I’m curious if there’s actually any data on “stopping power”. All of the conversation in this thread about tactics and weapons has been conjectural. I mean it all makes sense, but how often do people actually still present a threat after being shot once? What’s the data on the type of ammunition and firearms that are most effective? How often are bystanders hit when cops “shoot until they’re on the ground and not moving”?
Yeah, I’ve never heard or read a conversation about “stopping power” that convinced me that it was either a well-defined concept or in any way measurable.
Houngan
2986
I’ve read books where people have done the research, Masaad Ayoob is probably the go-to for someone who looks into this sort of thing. People not going down with one shot is pretty common if you’re talking about a situation where it’s fight-or-flight. Placement matters more than caliber, though caliber tells out eventually.
Just googled this so full caveats, but the data says that pistols do get slightly more effective as you go up the power scale, then there’s a big jump for rifles:
rowe33
2987
Police lied again and said Mario was violent before they killed him. It’s so weird how that keeps happening when there are just a few bad apples sprinkled throughout America’s police forces.
Matt_W
2988
That’s interesting data. It’s a little suspect because he’s not a professional researcher and it’s not clear if the data sets he’s using are tainted in some way. And part of his criteria for “incapacitated” involves a running person not falling to the ground within 5 feet, which seems like momentum would accomplish in most cases even if the person was all the way dead. I’d be curious to see a breakdown of that. I’d use a criterion like “attacker stops attacking” and that’s it. Also too, if I’m in close proximity to someone and they’re shooting at me, there’s no incentive to run away, particularly if cops are trained to shoot until movement stops. My best chance to survive is to grapple them–get close enough that I can interrupt their shot or wrest the gun away, so I’d be curious about data on the effectiveness of one-shot stops on a target that is distant vs close.
Houngan
2989
Just reiterating my “full caveats” not that you ignored it. To your last question, I don’t think caliber would have any effect, a pistol bullet at 5 feet isn’t going to have that much less energy at 25 or 50. But if someone is already running from the police/gunfight, then the adrenaline question pops up. They’ve got a head of steam and that seems to matter a lot, anecdotally, from what people like Ayoob say. I could see how the 5 foot arbitrary measurement would differentiate between someone folding up and dropping vs. being able to function for a step or two more, which seemed to be his threshold for “stopped.”
If you aren’t opposed to hunting books, Death in the Long Grass is a fascinating read for a lot of reasons (but if you’re turned away by casual or enthusiastic stories about killing animals or animals killing humans, avoid at all costs) one of which is discussion of how large game behaves when shot poorly or well. The definitive example is the Cape Buffalo, which apparently terrified big game hunters more than any other animal (maybe a herd of confused, pissed-off elephants beats it, but not one-on-one). The story I remember from that book vividly was him discussing a buffalo that rather than being hit immediately in a lethal spot, got its adrenaline up (complete with discussions about relative size of the gland, apparently they have a bucket) and was then shot through the heart. The buffalo proceeded to do all sorts of vigorous things for quite a while, and apparently fell down as it was bleeding out shooting a stream of blood out of the hole for dozens of feet. But if you hit them right when they aren’t expecting it, they die like the overgrown cow they are.
Spoiler for graphic animal death.
Timex
2990
Good ol’ wikipedia has a bunch of interesting starting points regarding various theories regarding stopping power.
I recall A LOT of discussion 2002-2003 about the stopping power of 5.56mm. Lots of reports that the grunts over in Afghanistan and Iraq were not pleased that hits weren’t actually dropping insurgents quickly.
Houngan
2992
I think that speaks back to the hardball vs. expanding rounds. 5.56 in police hands would be a better gauge, I believe they can use expanding. (which brings up the eternal point: why are police allowed to use lethal and non-lethal technology against citizens in the US when our own military acknowledged they were inhumane on the battlefield?)
RichVR
2993
Another question would be, why are we civilians allowed to buy JHP if it’s inhumane?
Houngan
2994
Good question. Quick answer is “hunting” where it’s MORE humane, because the animal doesn’t get taken to a hospital to survive, so better to kill it effectively with one shot. Says nothing for pistols, etc. though.
