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A 10 round magazine isn't big enough.
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Just Wondering
May 10, 2019, 6:28:34 PM5/10/19
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https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/how-many-rounds-you-need-carry-gun/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=20190510_FridayDigest_225&utm_campaign=/digest/how-many-rounds-you-need-carry-gun/
Do you want to know how many rounds you actually need in your carry gun?
The correct answer is you won’t know until after the fact, I’m sad to
report.
Every defensive gun use situation is different. Millions of variables to
consider, everything from the distance to target, number of attackers,
caliber of weapon to the expertise of the shooter, etc. etc., etc., all
play a factor. Trying to prescribe a universal round count, a
one-size-fits-all for every concealed carrier, is, therefore, a fool’s
errand. Telling you that you need “x” number does you no good because
you may only need “y” or you may actually need “z.” You won’t know until
the threat is eliminated.
With that said, this week, I came across an article by a brilliant
writer and 2A advocate from the Cato Institute, Matthew Larosiere, that
postulated that 12 was the minimum number of rounds a novice cop should
have in his sidearm to reliably put down a violent attacker.
“It’s important to consider the realities of defensive gun use, which
occur hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times per year. Someone
who finds their home being invaded didn’t plan the encounter,” Larosiere
wrote in his article “A Defense of Assault Weapons,” published by The
Orange County Register.
“Even law enforcement officers have a 39 percent probability to hit a
target in a high-stress situation,” he continued. “This, combined with
the fact that each hit with a handgun or intermediate cartridge has only
an approximate 22 percent chance to stop the target, explains the need
for larger magazines. From this, we can extrapolate that a novice law
enforcement officer (likely more experienced than the average American)
would need about 12 shots to reliably stop a single attacker.”
I reached out to Matt to get his sources for those percentages. Numbers
were plucked from a 2015 study by the International Journal of Police
Science & Management, which found hit probability for novice shooters,
intermediate shooters and expert shooters at typical engagement
distances (3 to 75ft). Per the study:
Novice Shooter: 39 percent hit probability
Intermediate Shooter: 48 percent hit probability
Expert Shooter: 49 percent hit probability
Matt then juxtaposed that info against an article debunking the myth of
the single shot kill, a real-life defensive gun use encounter, and
academic research published by the Journal of Thoracic and
Cardiovascular Surgery, titled, “Unusually Low Mortality of Penetrating
Wounds of the Chest,” to surmise that each hit only has a 22 percent
chance of stopping the target.
Of course, these numbers are rough approximations and not a definitive
evaluation of the subject. But let’s roll with the numbers Matt
researched. Let’s assume you’re a novice shooter on par with a novice
police officer (per the study) and you draw your Glock 43 with a
flush-fitting magazine to stop an assailant who is about to commit a
forcible felony against your wife. Are 6+1 rounds of 9mm enough?
You may think that if I fire seven rounds at least two to three rounds
are going to penetrate the rapist because 2.8 is 40 percent of seven.
However, you need to remember there are no guarantees that any round
lands on target. It’s a highly stressful situation. Your flight,
flight, freeze (aka autonomic nervous) system is kicking in so your
heart is pounding and your hands are sweating. Put another way, you have
a 60 percent chance of missing the target altogether after every pull of
the trigger.
But let’s say this happens during the confrontation: Round 1: miss.
Round 2: miss. Round 3: hit. Round 4: miss. Round 5: miss. Round 6: hit.
Round 7: miss. You did hit him twice! Nice shooting! But will that stop him?
With that first hit there is a 78 percent chance that it did not. And
with that second shot, even with the compounded effect of the first
shot, it’s not certain that he is stopping the assault. It’s hard to
exactly quantify in a percentage because there’s no way to factor in the
wounding repercussions of the first hit. A bullet to the thigh is going
to affect one differently than a bullet to the brain.
We’ve all heard of stories where assailants are shot 6, 7, 8 times and
keep charging, especially in cases where they’re fueled by drugs. It’s a
really scary thought. I guess we can state the obvious at this point.
There is a reason why law enforcement officers carry duty-sized guns
with a capacity exceeding 10 rounds along with several extra mags and,
in some cases, a backup gun. Because when it hits the fan there are no
guarantees about capacity, save one: more is better.
Do you want to know how many rounds you actually need in your carry gun?
The correct answer is you won’t know until after the fact, I’m sad to
report.
Every defensive gun use situation is different. Millions of variables to
consider, everything from the distance to target, number of attackers,
caliber of weapon to the expertise of the shooter, etc. etc., etc., all
play a factor. Trying to prescribe a universal round count, a
one-size-fits-all for every concealed carrier, is, therefore, a fool’s
errand. Telling you that you need “x” number does you no good because
you may only need “y” or you may actually need “z.” You won’t know until
the threat is eliminated.
With that said, this week, I came across an article by a brilliant
writer and 2A advocate from the Cato Institute, Matthew Larosiere, that
postulated that 12 was the minimum number of rounds a novice cop should
have in his sidearm to reliably put down a violent attacker.
“It’s important to consider the realities of defensive gun use, which
occur hundreds of thousands, or even millions of times per year. Someone
who finds their home being invaded didn’t plan the encounter,” Larosiere
wrote in his article “A Defense of Assault Weapons,” published by The
Orange County Register.
“Even law enforcement officers have a 39 percent probability to hit a
target in a high-stress situation,” he continued. “This, combined with
the fact that each hit with a handgun or intermediate cartridge has only
an approximate 22 percent chance to stop the target, explains the need
for larger magazines. From this, we can extrapolate that a novice law
enforcement officer (likely more experienced than the average American)
would need about 12 shots to reliably stop a single attacker.”
I reached out to Matt to get his sources for those percentages. Numbers
were plucked from a 2015 study by the International Journal of Police
Science & Management, which found hit probability for novice shooters,
intermediate shooters and expert shooters at typical engagement
distances (3 to 75ft). Per the study:
Novice Shooter: 39 percent hit probability
Intermediate Shooter: 48 percent hit probability
Expert Shooter: 49 percent hit probability
Matt then juxtaposed that info against an article debunking the myth of
the single shot kill, a real-life defensive gun use encounter, and
academic research published by the Journal of Thoracic and
Cardiovascular Surgery, titled, “Unusually Low Mortality of Penetrating
Wounds of the Chest,” to surmise that each hit only has a 22 percent
chance of stopping the target.
Of course, these numbers are rough approximations and not a definitive
evaluation of the subject. But let’s roll with the numbers Matt
researched. Let’s assume you’re a novice shooter on par with a novice
police officer (per the study) and you draw your Glock 43 with a
flush-fitting magazine to stop an assailant who is about to commit a
forcible felony against your wife. Are 6+1 rounds of 9mm enough?
You may think that if I fire seven rounds at least two to three rounds
are going to penetrate the rapist because 2.8 is 40 percent of seven.
However, you need to remember there are no guarantees that any round
lands on target. It’s a highly stressful situation. Your flight,
flight, freeze (aka autonomic nervous) system is kicking in so your
heart is pounding and your hands are sweating. Put another way, you have
a 60 percent chance of missing the target altogether after every pull of
the trigger.
But let’s say this happens during the confrontation: Round 1: miss.
Round 2: miss. Round 3: hit. Round 4: miss. Round 5: miss. Round 6: hit.
Round 7: miss. You did hit him twice! Nice shooting! But will that stop him?
With that first hit there is a 78 percent chance that it did not. And
with that second shot, even with the compounded effect of the first
shot, it’s not certain that he is stopping the assault. It’s hard to
exactly quantify in a percentage because there’s no way to factor in the
wounding repercussions of the first hit. A bullet to the thigh is going
to affect one differently than a bullet to the brain.
We’ve all heard of stories where assailants are shot 6, 7, 8 times and
keep charging, especially in cases where they’re fueled by drugs. It’s a
really scary thought. I guess we can state the obvious at this point.
There is a reason why law enforcement officers carry duty-sized guns
with a capacity exceeding 10 rounds along with several extra mags and,
in some cases, a backup gun. Because when it hits the fan there are no
guarantees about capacity, save one: more is better.
Klaus Schadenfreude
May 10, 2019, 7:50:16 PM5/10/19
to
Nobody EVER complained, "I had too much ammo with me."
This is why we make fun of idiots like David Hogg and Snit, when they
say, if you have an AR-15, it's proof you're a bad marksman.
These are people who get their firearms information from movies and
the media.
bigdog
May 11, 2019, 9:05:47 AM5/11/19
to
means you need a 30 round magazine, so be it. There are many reasons a person
would want a high capacity magazine to defend himself. If your home is invaded
by multiple attackers, how many rounds will you need to stop them? I don't know
the answer to that question so the more ammo I have, the better.
> These are people who get their firearms information from movies and
> the media.
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