surprise_i'm_armed wrote:TAM:
As a little aside to the knife issue, was it you that said the only
time you ever saw a bullet go through and exit a body, that it
was a .41 Magnum?
We're supposed to use JHP's as our self defense carry loads instead
of FMJ's in order to avoid over-penetrating the person we shoot.
SIA
[off topic]
No, I've seen lots of other exit wounds from bullets, but the exit holes were all relatively small — only a little larger than the entrance wound — and going by those cases in which there were multiple hits, some of which exited and some which did not, those were mostly caused by either FMJ or hard cast bullets. I could have put my fist into the exit hole from the .41 magnum, but the bullet had passed through his heart on the way to his kidney (which no longer existed) and the guy was very much dead. His partner, also a bad guy, had two through and through wounds traversing from one side to the other which turned his guts to soup. It took him a week to die a hard death. I have no idea if the .41 magnum bullets were JHP or not because all of the wounds they caused were through and through, but judging by the havoc they caused, I'm guessing they were.
That said, most of us aren't carrying pistols chambered in magnum calibers beginning with "4", and so I don't think that over penetration with a JHP is a likely issue. And in the particular case of this shooting, the two "victims" were felons escaped from Ft Leavenworth prison who had made it as far as California, and they were attempting a home invasion on a little old lady from Pasadena. What they didn't know was that her son was visiting at the time and was upstairs. The son was was a semi-retired artist, a painter, who was also a former Green Beret with a number of years "in country" with A Teams in Vietnam. He knew exactly what to do.
The bad guys brought the .41 magnum with them. The one with the gun went upstairs looking for loot while the other one slapped the old lady around. The son met the bad guy at the top of the stairs, disarmed him, kicked his a** four kinds of terrible, threw him down the stairs, and shot him twice on the way down, killing him. He then charged down the stairs and shot the other bad guy twice. That's the one who took a week to die.
This happened sometime around 1982-1985. I tried to search the Pasadena Star News website for an archival story on it, but it predates their even having a website so I am unable to provide a link to it. But it was a big deal back then, getting lots of coverage in both the Star News, the LA Times, and local TV news outlets; and the son was celebrated as a hero.
[/off topic]
Skiprr, I got your message. Thanks for the link. I'm reading it right now. BTW, I guess I should amend my previous comments to say that I would use a knife if required, but I regard it as a weapon of last resort, and in recognition of my own physical condition, I would say that if I've
got to use a knife, I've already done something wrong somewhere. The knife that I carry, a
Kershaw Tanto Blur, could be used as a weapon; but so far it has only been used to open boxes and letters and to peel fruit with.
By the way, I have a question....
If you begin the confrontation with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, how do you reload if you have to?
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
