"Shoot them in the Crotch"?

[aarondhgraham]

 

[herrwalther]

Army Gunfighter school teaches to take shots at the Pelvic girdle when 1) a helmet is present/impractical for head shots and 2) Body armor is present or suspected.

It should never be a primary target. The Pelvis takes up roughly the same body area as the head, so it is as easy to miss as the head. If the objective is to stop the fight, damage to major organs or the CNS is still your primary focus. But when drugs and shot opportunity are available, its really hard to walk with a shattered pelvis and bleeding genitals.

 

[JTHunter]

With the smaller caliber sizes used in many CC guns these days, particularly the .380 and under, I wonder how much damage those small calibers could do to the heave, dense bones of the hips and crotch. A 9mm FMJ might be adequate to damage the ischium or the pubic bone (the 2 in front), I doubt even that round could do serious damage to the ilium. But, if you can nick the femoral artery as it starts down the inside of the leg, they will bleed out quickly.

 

[WrongHanded]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. And particularly @Double Naught Spy for the highly informative post.

I didn't assume the pelvic region was a new target that had never before been considered. But as I have never seen much mention of it as a valid target, I wondered why not. And I think this thread has done a great job of educating me (and maybe some others) about that.

 

[Jeff White]

It should never be a primary target. The Pelvis takes up roughly the same body area as the head, so it is as easy to miss as the head. If the objective is to stop the fight, damage to major organs or the CNS is still your primary focus. But when drugs and shot opportunity are available, its really hard to walk with a shattered pelvis and bleeding genitals.

Contrary to popular belief you are no more like to render your attacker immobile with a pelvic shot then you are with a hit anywhere else. herrwalther has this exactly right. People walk into the ER with broken hips and pelvises. It's a good target, but if you are counting on it to render your attacker immobile you are likely to be disappointed. Unless you are packing around a 90mm recoiless rifle loaded with beehive rounds, your change of dropping your attacker with one hit anywhere isn't all that great. Adrenalin, drugs and the attackers will have more to do with how hard he might be to stop then any physical damage you can do to him.

There are simply too many documented case of people absorbing what should have been (and often later were) debilitating and fatal wounds and still continuing to function. Often for a long time. And the other side of the coin are the people hit by a small caliber bullet in a place that shouldn't be debilitating or fatal, who drop dead right there.

 

[lemaymiami]

Read all the replies and some I even agreed with... that said - here's the advice I'd give anyone on my crew back in the day - down here in paradise 1973 -1995... In a gunfight, always aim a bit low.. (the stress you're under will have you shooting high unless you spend a lot of time practicing at the range...). I'm sure a pelvic area wound would be really tough on an opponent -but as a cop what I really wanted was not to have to fire a single shot...

In real life on at least one occasion when faced by two offenders who weren't paying a bit of attention to my gun pointed at them... I simply lowered my aim to a position below their belt buckles and advised them that " at this range - there's no way I'll miss"... and that did the trick...

No this isn't something a citizen should be thinking about (you'll have entirely too much else going on if you're in an armed confrontation - but for a cop -what you really want is compliance - and anything short of shooting them isn't a bad thing - if it works...

 

[Wichaka]

Having assisted in quite a few autopsies of shooting victims, I can attest to a few things;

Pistol rounds are way under powered to be a reliable stopper, unless the rounds go in the snot locker.

The minimum standard response for pistols should be 3-5 rounds before assessing.

I've seen 380 rounds get stopped cold in the pelvic area, specifically the ilium and pubic bones.
I've also seen the bullets sail right on thru without hitting anything but meat. From the diagram posted on the first page, you can see the areas where that might happen.

On the other hand, like has been said, the pelvic region is a on-off again target...ugh. If its the first shot you have, take it. You pump enough rounds into it, it'll drop them, but not put them out of the fight unless they decide.

Remember, a person can live 2+ minutes with a clean heart shot, and a lot of damage can be inflicted in that amount of time. So the more rounds pumped in creates more holes, which means loss of blood, lower the blood pressure and the end result...they faint. If you can't get a head shot, make them faint really really fast.

I agree with Clint, get what you can. I can't recall a gunfight where someone did the failure drill...2 to the body, one to the head. or the old...a few rounds to the body, then to the pelvic area, then end up into the head. Its hit what you have available as many times as you can. Most don't have the time to detail pick where their shots go. In the end, I would not discount the pelvic area, its just not the first choice.

Great thread topic...I think its a forgotten target.

 

[sota]

View attachment 803993

.... I want that as a shirt...

 

[Kendahl]

Clint doesn't claim that a pelvic shot is a fight stopper. He just says that, since your muzzle will cross it on the way to the chest or head, you might as well drop a bullet in there in passing. Even if you don't break a bone, a bullet flying around inside his abdomen won't do him any good. It might hit a major artery and start him bleeding out. It might catch his lower spine and immobilize him.

If there are multiple assailants and all you have is the ammunition in your J-frame, I can see where a pelvic shot isn't a good use of your limited supply. If you have a G17, and a spare mag to reload when you get a break, you can afford to "waste" a round on the way to better targets.

I like Clint. Although I'm sure he enjoys being a wiseass, his style helps his students remember the serious points he makes.

 

[entropy]

If you break the hip, they can't keep coming.

But they may be able to keep shooting......

It wouldn't be my first shot, but I'm not ruling it out, either.

 

[Dibbs]

That's funny, everybody seems to be singing a different tune about pelvic shots than they were
a year ago...

 

[FL-NC]

The pelvic area is a viable but not ideal target. It is better than no damage. Shooting someone in the foot is better than no damage. A shot to the lower body may be all that is available at extreme close distance. The best shot is one that ends the fight immediately. The best way to do this is a shot that kills the attacker.

 

[Godsgunman]

Being in the medical field and dealing with trauma patients in ER and surgery, the pelvis is definitely a viable option. With major arteries and it being the weight bearing center of the body it can definitely wreak havoc on the attacker. COM is still preferred but pelvic area is a good 2nd option as its a much larger target than head.

 

[jdh]

Those big red and blue lines quickly leak copious amounts of very vital bodily fluids when you poke holes in them.

Having said that, the only time I advocated targeting that area was on the 12 gauge qual range.

 

[Sistema1927]

View attachment 804174

Those big red and blue lines quickly leak copious amounts of very vital bodily fluids when you poke holes in them.

Having said that, the only time I advocated targeting that area was on the 12 gauge qual range.

But those big red & blue lines are significantly larger north of the pelvis.

 

[Jim Watson]

A store/range elementary CCW class here was teaching COM, left pelvis, right pelvis sequence.

On the other hand, the lawyer shot by a cop* here had a well expanded hollowpoint fetch up in his butt. I don't know the angle but he was not seriously discombobulated.

*Not a joke, Happened in store. Lawyer wanted to see Glock takedown demonstrated, clerk couldn't do it. Cop couldn't get showcase gun apart, offered to demonstrate with his service weapon. My term is "reverse cleared." Rack slide to eject chambered round, remove magazine, pull trigger. Ouch.

 

[Elkins45]

If I'm ever in a gunfight I imagine I will shoot any and every part that is available to me until the threat is gone. Mossad Ayoob has written about gunfights where a handgun round to the pelvis put the attacker on the ground and took them out of the fight.

Everything's a target on a guy that's trying to kill you.

 

[Officers'Wife]

All of this is far beyond my experience, I can only imagine that in a circumstance that I am having to shoot at someone I would be doing so at any part of the body that presented itself.

Noting that inexperience, it would appear to me that if I had someone upset enough to want to do me bodily harm… Destroying his love life could quite possibly give an even greater incentive to kill me than he had before. Keep in mind that Lorena Bobbitt waited until her abuser was asleep and then got away as fast as she could.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Rack slide to eject chambered round, remove magazine, pull trigger.

My drill to decock a striker-fired trigger-safety pistol is (a) remove magazine, (b) eject chambered round, (c) point muzzle into a square bucket with about 10" of phonebooks in the bottom, (d) pull trigger.

I've been doing it wrong?

(also, (c.1) if no 9mm round ejects from the chamber, I visually inspect the chamber for a .380 that has slipped the extractor)

 

[Jim Watson]

Nope, the cop did it wrong, which is why he was able to shoot the lawyer when he disregarded THAT safety rule.

 

[Swifty Morgan]

Most people are lucky to hit ANYTHING with a pistol, so my plan is to shoot at the upper body.

 

[Wichaka]

A store/range elementary CCW class here was teaching COM, left pelvis, right pelvis sequence.

On the other hand, the lawyer shot by a cop* here had a well expanded hollowpoint fetch up in his butt. I don't know the angle but he was not seriously discombobulated.

*Not a joke, Happened in store. Lawyer wanted to see Glock takedown demonstrated, clerk couldn't do it. Cop couldn't get showcase gun apart, offered to demonstrate with his service weapon. My term is "reverse cleared." Rack slide to eject chambered round, remove magazine, pull trigger. Ouch.

Not to hijack the thread, I always thought that was a major engineering flaw with the Glock...having to actuate the trigger to get it apart.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Mossad Ayoob has written about gunfights where a handgun round to the pelvis put the attacker on the ground and took them out of the fight.

Yep. You can find stories where a person shot in the shoulder, arm, hand, leg, gut are out of the fight, not because they are physiologically stopped, and often put on the ground as a result .

Then you have folks like this guy with multiple shots to the pelvic area with handguns and finally a .223 that breaks off the blade of the ilium and he is still fighting when the cops tried to cuff him.
https://www.defensivecarry.com/documents/officer.pdf

 

[jdh]

But those big red & blue lines are significantly larger north of the pelvis.

Yes, Where they may be somewhat protected by the afore mentioned body armor.

 

[GEM]

Took a class on 3D shooting and it was mentioned that the pelvic shooters when they aimed did not aim towards the blood vessel but more off to the sides where the effect could be minimal as shattering was rare.