Park--You're a much better shot than I am!
Really? You've been talking about head and heart shots. The pelvis is a bigger target, basically the same as COM but lower. It also allows you to aim low, so the BG doesn't suddenly duck and "disappear" below your sights. That's what Mas Ayoob taught me, FWIW.
If all you want to do is break a bone, use one of those heavy Irish fighting sticks.
But if I'm close enough to hit him with my shillelagh (I'm part-Irish
), he's also close enough to stab me. I'd rather step back and shoot him.
Indeed, shooting someone where deadly force isn't quite justified because you subjectively thought that it would only break a bone is probably going to land you in prison.
I never said that. Of course I would never shoot unless faced with an immediate and otherwise unavoidable threat of death or grave bodily harm to an innocent (I've got that memorized
). The point is, I'm not shooting him in the pelvis because I don't want to kill him. I don't buy into that "shoot to wound" nonsense. I'm shooting to stop him, and if he dies in the process, tough. My intent was not to
kill, but my intent was not to
avoid killing either.
The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes the "kill" shot and the "stop" shot are different. Often they are the same, head shots for example, and the distinction doesn't matter. But a heart shot is not a reliable stopper, even though it's usually lethal. One of the BGs in the FBI Miami shootout was hit in the heart and went on to kill several good guys before he was finally stopped.
Consider a woman attacked by a rapist:
Hypo 1: She shoots to stop and aims for his groin area to prevent him from reaching her with his knife. He goes down, she runs away and calls the cops. Good for her.
Hypo 2: She shoots him in the groin so he'll never be able to rape someone again. He goes down, but this rapist had a gun instead of a knife, and he shoots her. Bad tactics because she was thinking about punishing the rapist, not stopping him.
Do you see the difference in mindset?