"Stopping" Hits

[Double Naught Spy]

If you hit any bone in the pelvic girdle, the person will take no more than one step and fall over.

I believe the article (several actually) states that if the bone is broken or shattered that the person will no longer be able to proceed.

It is not good enough to just hit the pelvis. As noted, bullets can pass right through the iliac blade, leave a hole, and not actually produce a break, just a puncture. Additionally, the problem is, you can break off sections of the iliac blade without compromising the girdle integrity. In other words, the ring formed by each innominate that meet at the pubis bones in front and on each side of the sacrum in back can remain intact.

Think of it this way, you can shoot a hole through the shoulder blade without collapsing or destroying the pectoral girdle. The person can often still have significant range of motion of the arm, albeit painful, but the girdle is still intact.

For example, here is a person shot in the ilium that broke off part of the ilium without breaking the girdle itself.
http://www.ulg.ac.be/imagemed/Pages COASS01/6-8-CT-illust-4.htm

Here is a tangential shot to the pelvis, hitting/grazing it, but not doing any real damage...
http://www.medscape.com/content/2003/00/44/96/449664/art-ar449664.fig5.jpg
For more description, see http://images.google.com/imgres?img...m=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS253US253&sa=N

Here is a transpelvic shot that didn't appear to do any harm to the pelvis. Right area, no significant contact. http://images.google.com/imgres?img...m=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS253US253&sa=N

Here is a great image of an innominate from Little Bighorn that shows a nice bullet hole in the illiac blade that did not cause a collapse of the girdle. The bullet simply punched a hole through the bone.
http://images.google.com/imgres?img...&svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1T4TSHB_enUS253US253

 

[Shawnee]

Hi DNaught...

The Little Bighorn link is especially interesting - not for the mentioned pelvic injury - but because it speaks of some truly groundbreaking work done that is now being improved and used in sevreral other battle areas. In fact, it was copied and used to make some incredible findings about the important Battle of Cowpens by Larence Babit.

Thanks for the link !

Still looking for what to do if an assailant is wearing a Kevlar vest though.

All thoughts welcome !

 

[golden]

CENTER of MASS

My agency uses CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM shot only with a FAILURE to STOP DRILL. We fire two shots at the CENTER of MASS and then ONE TO THE HEAD.

Otherwise we shoot for CENTER of MASS. I do not know of any agency that fires for the CNS. All are still going for CENTER of MASS because it is much easier to hit than a small moving target like the head. The spine, which will not be visible to you unless you shoot someone in the back and then your problems will just be starting.

If you are using an adequate caliber with good hollow point ammo like the 9m.m., .40 caliber and .45ACP in a semi-automatic or .357 magnum or larger in a revolver, then do not worry about the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM unless you ACTUALLY HAVE A FAILURE TO STOP!

Jim

 

[easyg]

Ayoob did an article a while ago, mentioning that the pelvic girdle is probably the best place for a secondary shot, if the center of mass or head isn't exposed. If you hit any bone in the pelvic girdle, the person will take no more than one step and fall over.

Ayoob is wrong, plain and simple.

Yes, IF the head or COM is'nt exposed, then the pelvic girdle is probably not a bad place to shoot someone.
But don't count on them falling over.
As I said before, I've personally X-rayed folks with pelvic fractures who walked in to the ER without assistance.

 

[Timthinker]

In the stress and strain of a life-or-death situation, a center of mass (COM) shot (or shots) is easier to deliver. This is one reason why this drill is taught. Also, people are more likely to survive a COM shot than a brain shot. Now, please do not misunderstand what I have typed. A COM shot or shots involve the use of deadly force and can result in immediate or delayed death, even with prompt and skillful medical treatment. But gunshot wounds to the brain tend to have a higher probability of lethality in my opinion.

I hope none of us forget about a topic called the adrenaline dump. When people are frightened, their bodies literally dump adrenaline into the bloodstream. This makes precision work, in this case shooting, far more difficult than target practice on a firing range. I think the topic of the adrenaline dump is one we need to impress upon our conscious minds when discussing a topic such as this. Some unarmed fighting instructors have realized this factor and designed their hand-to-hand techniques accordingly. But I do not wish to stray off into that topic here. Suffice it to say that fear is a real force that people need to consider when they speak about self-defense.


Timthinker

 

[Steel Talon]

Hi Naught,

Here is a transpelvic shot that didn't appear to do any harm to the pelvis. Right area, no significant contact. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgu...US253&sa=N

From the link.....
>>>P. Willey, physical anthropologist and coauthor of They Died with Custer, holds a hip bone (innominate) with a gunshot wound from the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It belonged to Farrier Vincent Charley who was wounded in the hip and abandoned during one of the battle's retreats. His bones were identified here at Chico State.<<<

My point exactly.. They abandoned him cause he couldnt move out on his own locomotion (of course I'm reading a bit into this I wasn't there. ) He wasn't able to ride/run away with the others with this wound . It did put him down, it didnt necessarily take him out of the fight. Either way it had contributed to his dimise with follow up "woundings" or ultimately a bleed out.

It's like hunting large game. such as an Elk.. Elk when shot in the heart and lungs (boiler room) can, and have run up to several hundred yards before piling up. This alone can mean a completly lost animal. A sholder shot Elk will collapse on the spot or with in a couple of feet. He is not dead just "anchored" in place awaiting the follow up CoupDeGrace can the animal die with a blown out shoulder sure but it will take a little bit of time.

RIP Vincent Charley..

Peace
ST~

 

[wbh]

Magic Bullets

Magic bullets shoot you, Jedi? I have yet to see a person aim for ball sockets, much less hit both in one shot along with the tail bone, colon, and boys. Maybe you be shooting boomerrang bullets that hit you and just keep circling inside the body until they hit all the vital structures?

<tinfoilhat>Magic bullets? Absolutely there are magic bullets! There are magic bullets that do in fact circle around inside the body, then exit the body, make direction changes then penetrate another body, circle around in it, and exit yet again, all without damaging the integrity of the bullet. If magic bullets don't exist, what happened to Pres. Kennedy and Gov. Connolly? </tinfoilhat>

 

[Professor Gun]

Fortunately I have never been in a gunfight. I am a physical therapist and I specialize in low back pain which in a lot of patients comes from problems with the pelvic ring.

If the bony components of the pelvic ring are disrupted by a bullet, I think that for the most part that person is not going to be able to motor at all or very much. Would there be exceptions to this? Sure, there has to be; some of you have noted situations where that is true, but usually you will see that person not able to motor. The more disruption of the pelvic ring (bone), i.e., larger caliber, I would think the more likely you can disable an attacker stopping them in their tracks.

As one of you mentioned, if this happened, the attacker could still do violence to you if you are within reach or within range and they have a gun.

Nothing is for sure, we always work on percentages.

 

[Steel Talon]

+1 professor

ST~

 

[Rexster]

If I were to take a pelvic shot, I would try to hit the hip joint itself, just as if I were to go for a chest shot, I would try to keep it centered where the importants bits are, instead of out where it might only knick a lung. My agency does teach us to shoot elswhere if COM shots do not work right away, with both head and pelvic shots being options.

 

[xjchief]

I was at the range last week and a JSO (Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) officer came in with his son who was hoping to join the force. The new targets they use to qualify have a spine on them.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If I were to take a pelvic shot, I would try to hit the hip joint itself

Okay, so what is the external landmark you are going to use as an aim point given that the joint is hidden inside?

I was at the range last week and a JSO (Jacksonville Sheriff's Office) officer came in with his son who was hoping to join the force. The new targets they use to qualify have a spine on them.

So they have the spine shown? Real humans don't have a spine shown.

There was a Eurpoean company as I recall that made 2 layer targets. The top layer showed the bad guy in bad guy gear. The under layer showed major bones and organs. So you shoot at the top layer where the guy is fully clothed and then see what structures you might have actually hit. I tried in vane to get ahold of some of the targets, but the company apparently doesn't make them anymore. Cool targets - if y'all can find them, please let me know.

 

[easyg]

So they have the spine shown? Real humans don't have a spine shown.

Visually locate the target's throat (the area of the adam's apple on a guy), now imagine a line straight down that person's body to their crotch.
This should provide you with a real good idea of where his spine is located.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Visually locate the target's throat (the area of the adam's apple on a guy), now imagine a line straight down that person's body to their crotch.
This should provide you with a real good idea of where his spine is located.

Novel, but problematic. What you describe tells you where the anterior midline is located, nothing more. You are just hoping that the spine is located behind the anterior midline from your point of view, which may not be the case.

Unlike paper, humans are 3 dimensional. The adam's apple to the crotch midline only works for locating the spine if the person you are shooting is exactly squared up with you, his shoulder to shoulder axis being perpendicular to the orientation of the bore. Given the distance between the person's chest midline and the spine in back, a slight cant of your target and your midline shot will miss the spine if the bullet is true in its trajectory. You see, the spine isn't immediately under the skin in the front of a person, so by aiming at that point in front, you aren't actually aiming at the spine and so the slight cant can result is a complete miss of the spine.

The only real way that aiming at the midline will be best assured of hitting the spine is if you are shooting the person in the back, where the spine is just under the surface of the skin.

A similar geometric problem exists when people use the nose an aim point to shoot the brain. If the shooter is shooting from an elevated position and the aim is true, the shot can pass completely beneath the cranial vault, missing the brain entirely.

Again along similar misorientation lines, people talk about shooting the head as a means of producing a CNS stop. The problem here is that a significant volume of the head is composed of the face and trajectories passing through the face that do not actually contact CNS structures cannot be counted on producing a stop. You need to do damage to the brain inside the cranium or hit the brain stem (which from the side is a neck shot).

 

[BobbyQuickdraw]

The groin actually has a lot of blood vessels down there. There are lots of documented attacks that specifically aim for the groin throughout history, from fencing to sword fighting to hand to hand fighting. No joke - Monkey Steals the Peaches, and thats not a joke either. But TKD and other martial arts have moves aimed at, to put it gently, inflicting great damage and blood loss to the groin.

Any major artery, like the femoral, being hit is going to be dangerous. Being hit in the kidney I've head can cause you to die in 15-30 minutes without treatment.

These are all viable targets, though probably not your highest priority targets. The femoral artery is huge- for an artery. Actually hitting it on purpose would be very difficult. Stomach and groin shots are painful and more plausible and of course shouldn't be dismissed.

 

[Soybomb]

Being hit in the kidney I've head can cause you to die in 15-30 minutes without treatment.

And this is supposed to evidence that its a good wound to try for self defense purposes? We're trying to come up with way to force an attacker's body to stop as soon as possible even if he doesn't want to. His death 15 minutes later doesn't help you if he managed to kill you 14 minutes prior to that.

 

[easyg]

Novel, but problematic. What you describe tells you where the anterior midline is located, nothing more. You are just hoping that the spine is located behind the anterior midline from your point of view, which may not be the case.

No.
I radiograph folks for a living, and I obtain spinal radiographs every single day.
Trust me, if you do as I said you will hit the spine about 99% of the time.
It's not a difficult thing.
I suppose you might miss if the target moves at the instant you shoot.
Or if the target has severe scoliosis.

Unlike paper, humans are 3 dimensional. The adam's apple to the crotch midline only works for locating the spine if the person you are shooting is exactly squared up with you, his shoulder to shoulder axis being perpendicular to the orientation of the bore.

Again, no.
It does not matter if the target is squared or turned or twisted.
Unless the guy is doing "combat yoga" backbends, from the neck to the crotch is where the spine is going to be.

 

[gym]

In the "Miami Vice" movie when the "bad guy" says to the swat team that he is going to shoot the hostage if they shoot him, and the swat female officer, tells him that she is goint to put a 223 in his cerebellum or cerebrum, and at 2750fps, he will be dead before he can pull the trigger, that was a cool scene, I don't know if it's true all of the time, but it's not the first time I heard it. There used to be ammo marketed by "super vel", that was marketed as non-retaiatory ammo, it had a second primer countersunk into the tip of the round, with yellow plastic coating over it. maybe some of you old timers remember it, they outlawed it in the seventys, as a similar type of ammo was supposed to have been fired at Regan back then. They wer called exploding rounds, as the primer would explode on impact. I don't think that particular ammo is legal anymore, but it probablly was effective. The concept was that the shock to the nervous system would make it highlly unlikelly that the perp could pull the trigger.

 

[Erik]

Another "current military and LEO training does NOT emphasise CNS shooting" comment.

COM is the primary
CNS the secondary
Pelvic girdle is th etertairy
Apendages the quadranary

Exception where possible: Tactical shooters. CNS and COM swap roles.

 

[GLOOB]

It appears that COM means something different to gun-types than to Websters. In reality, COM is the lower abdmen/pelvis, not the chest. A guy whose chest is his COM has bilateral above-the-knee amputations and an unusually large head.

One conceivable reason for aiming at the real COM (abdomen/pelvis) at, say, a knife-wielding mugger, is that he is more likely to dodge/duck/twist his way out of a shot aimed at his false/gun-lingo COM (chest) whilst stabbing you.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

It appears that COM means something different to gun-types than to Websters. In reality, COM is the lower abdmen/pelvis, not the chest. A guy whose chest is his COM has bilateral above-the-knee amputations and an unusually large head.

NO, in reality it is not. What you are referring to is NOT the center of mass, but the geometric or or height and width midline intersection (optical center). That is not the same as the center of mass for humans because humans do not have uniformly distributed mass.

The center of mass is the point about which there is a balance of mass such that if you spun the object, the rotation would be balanced. Given the distribution of mass in most humans, that point would be somewhere between the belly button and the ziphoid process. That is the balance point.

Here is what Webster's had to say
http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/center+of+mass

Now there is an actual difference between center of mass and center of chest for shot placement, but many gun folks don't make a distinction. Gun folks center of mass is at about the xiphoid process and it is the intersecting midline point of the entire body, minus the head and appendages. It is the aim point that will allow for the greatest amount of error in any direction while still landing shots on the non-appendicular mass of the body. The non-appendicular body is the largest target mass of a human and is that portion of the human that moves least in space.

However, some folks call the center of the chest center mass. It is the central aim pont that will all for the greatest amount of error in any direction while still landing rounds on the main concentration of vital organs. You are correct that the center of the chest is not center mass, but the pelvic area definitely isn't either.

 

[easyg]

In reality, COM is the lower abdmen/pelvis, not the chest.

I disagree.
Center-of-mass is just what it means, the certer of the human trunk...roughly between the neck and the crotch.
On about everyone I have seen that would be at about the diaphragm region where the chest and abdomen meet (at the curve of your lower ribs).
This is a good target area for several reasons....the heart, the aorta, the thoraco-lumbar spine, the kidneys, the liver, the diaphragm itself, and the lungs all reside very close to this region.

If you're hitting the pelvis while aiming COM then you should adjust your sights or adjust your aim.

Here is what Webster's had to say

And if you need a dictionary to show where to shoot your opponent.....
I'm not even sure that you should have a gun.

 

[HM2PAC]

Shawnee wrote:

I think there is some reason to consider hits in the lower torse (pelvic region) as potentially very effective.

Shawnee, would you ever consider shooting a deer in the pelvis rather than in the chest or head?

I am a firm believer in shoot what is available, when it's available, as many times as it's available. But if I have a choice of pelvis or chest/head, I won't take the pelvis.

 

[GLOOB]

"The center of mass is the point about which there is a balance of mass such that if you spun the object, the rotation would be balanced. Given the distribution of mass in most humans, that point would be somewhere between the belly button and the ziphoid process. That is the balance point. "

Actually, no. The COM of the average homosapien is much lower than the xyphoid/diaphragm and is approx at the navel, if not lower. If the xyphoid process was the typical COM, we would not have the ability to do sit-ups.

http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/physics/chapter9section5.rhtml
"A human being’s center of mass is located somewhere around the pelvic area. We see here that, though the diver’s head and feet and arms can rotate and move gracefully in space, the center of mass in his pelvic area follows the inevitable parabolic trajectory of a body moving under the influence of gravity. If we wanted to represent the diver as a point mass, this is the point we would choose. "

My personal experiece onthis matter is from playing club basketball. I think I'm pretty good. When guarding someone quick, it's always best to react to the movement of their hips, rather than shoulders. In basketball, there's a head fake, a shoulder fake, a stutter step. There's no such this as a hip fake.

 

[easyg]

Actually, no. The COM of the average homosapien is much lower than the xyphoid/diaphragm and is approx at the navel, if not lower.

This is totally wrong.

If the xyphoid process was the typical COM, we would not have the ability to do sit-ups.

Where did you get this info?
The Sparknotes???

Don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Or are you talking about "center-of-gravity"?....they are not the same at all.

Do you know why women can limbo lower than men?
Because women have a lower center-of-gravity than men....even though they might have the same proportions and the same center-of-mass.

If you don't believe me try this....
Take a man and a woman of approximately the same height and weight.
Have them face you with their legs shoulder-width apart.
Place your hand high on their chest and slowly push them backwards.
I'll bet you that the guy has to reposition himself or tip backwards long before the woman does.

When guarding someone quick, it's always best to react to the movement of their hips, rather than shoulders. In basketball, there's a head fake, a shoulder fake, a stutter step. There's no such this as a hip fake.

Again, this has nothing to do with the COM, or even COG.
It's about human mechanics of motion.
Where the hips go the body follows....regardless of COM.


Besides, tell me again why you would choose the pelvis?

There's a good chance that you will miss the person altogether, and a very good chance that you would fail to hit the femoral artery even if you did make a hit, and contrary to what you might have been told...folks don't always fall down when the pelvis is broken.
As I stated before, I've X-rayed folks with pelvic fractures who were still able to walk.