technical question related to the Poway synagogue attack

[old lady new shooter]

The rabbi put up his hands to shield his face, his right index finger was blown off and the left one is still touch and go after surgery. Does this mean that a person's hands would generally be sufficient to prevent a round from entering the part of the body the shooter was aiming for? Even from an AR-15?

 

[crestoncowboy]

No. In my experience no 2 bullets will travel the same path. Some deflect some flip and do more damage. The next may blow a clean hole. I have an acquaintance that was shot point blank in the back of the head and was left for dead. The bullet tunneled around his brain and never penetrated. He is fine other than random headaches. I wouldn't expect the same to happen to me.

Luck plays a role. I'd say 9 times in 10 in his situation, your hands would only serve to keep you from seeing your fate

 

[Jeff White]

No, your hands are not armor plate. What happened is a good example of the fact that it takes very little to deflect a high velocity round. Twigs, grass, plywood, glass, flesh and just about everything you name will deflect a bullet off it's path. Watch a video of a machine gun firing tracers in the dark. If the tracers are being fired close to the ground you will see a few make big direction changes from the direction the rest of them are moving. This is because twigs and blades of grass can deflect them.

Generally you want a slower and heavier bullet if you want to shoot through cover. This is why almost all police tactical units have moved away from pistol caliber sub machine guns and are now using 5.56mm carbines. The lighter and faster 5.56 round are more likely to deflect or break up going through interior walls and are less likely to injure someone in another part of the structure.

But you can't rely on that. Those same 7.62x51 machine gun rounds bouncing around in a video of tracers being fired will go through a 10 inch hardwood tree with enough velocity to kill someone hiding behind it. The rabbi was very lucky.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Thanks guys.

Based on my very rudimentary knowledge of what is needed to protect from a shot, I wouldn't have expected a couple of fingers to be enough... but they seemed to do the trick in this case, which is why I was confused and asked the question. Deflection!

So I think at least two miracles happened, one was that the bullet intended for the rabbi's face was deflected, the second was that the shooter's weapon jammed.

 

[rpenmanparker]

You aren’t studying a video. The hands could have just been on the way to the face. The bullet could have been wild. No reason to believe he actually deflected a bullet traveling toward his face with a hand in front of it. Could be, but there is no firm indication of that.

 

[Jeff White]

That’s a possibility too. But terminal performance is hard to predict. There have been documented instances of things like a bullet penetrating a steel helmet, traveling alongside the skull then exiting leaving the soldier with nothing more then a scalp wound.

One of the criteria for choosing a defensive handgun round is 13” of penetration. That’s not because the vital organs are 13” deep in most people. It’s to make certain that it gets to the vital organs through the arms, hands and whatever else might be in the way.

Given that the assailant used a .223/5.56 mm round I’m leaning in the direction of deflection absent any other evidence. I’ve seen 5.56 rounds keyhole after going through a Tactical Ted we had covered with old clothes. Went through the old coat and the plastic of the Tactical Ted and keyholed the plywood interior wall in the shoothouse.

 

[lemaymiami]

This also illustrates something that crime scene techs and homicide investigators see all the time... victims of gunshot wounds often show “defensive wounds” after an attack... That is they react to a threat by raising their arms and hands as rounds are fired their way. Occasionally they’ll deflect a round that way - but most times the bullet(s) will simply go right through a hand or arm then go on to penetrate the part of the body that was targeted.

 

[herrwalther]

Biological instinct. For centuries humans have used our arms and hands for offensive and defensive purposes. As such, during an attack we instinctively use them to guard our most sensitive areas: groin, head, abdomen. And this has lead to a law of probabilities when it comes to firearms. Your hand is not going to definitely save your life from a round fired toward your head. At best you have that abysmally small chance of the bullet deflecting or slowing down just enough it doesn't kill you.

 

[Zoogster]

Not the case in this situation, but using your hand to take a gun can also lead to such injuries, and would have a high chance of jamming or damaging the firearm.
I don't see a finger in the bore of a .22 caliber weapon, but for example a finger stuffed in a barrel would be a certain way to lose that finger but could bulge or damage the barrel or even cause an explosion and either one a good chance of interrupting the cycling resulting in a jam of the firearm. Sticking the end of most high pressure rifles in shallow water with the barrel full of air and the tip full of water often does the same thing, as does the end full of dirt or mud because a soldier or hunter let the end of the barrel go into the dirt before firing it.
Likewise fighting or grabbing near the action of many guns can cause the action not to cycle, resulting in the gun being a single shot, but perhaps causing injury to the hand grabbing it. The bolt carrier group on an AR prevented from moving freely would not stop the chambered round from firing, but could stop it from loading the next round.
Most semi auto handguns for example require the slide or a revolver cylinder to move to load the next round and a hand grabbing that strongly enough to prevent that prevents the firearm from continuing to fire.

Those do not appear to apply to this case and both victims were at range. High velocity light weight projectiles are readily deflected, and sometimes harder projectiles that actually have more penetration power deflect even more readily because there is less give when the projectile impacts an objects applying more energy to diverting the round. Iron or 'steel' core projectiles ricochet like crazy for the same reason, while a softer projectile deforms and takes more to deflect (though the new odd shape of the bullet can cause it to veer wildly off course in an unstable manner.)

I saw just two weeks ago two separate students that died stopping two different mass shootings, one in a high school and one in a university. Both kept the casualties so low (they were the only deaths) as to cause the shootings to be minor news, but with every indication that the shooter was not targeting them and was in that location to deal mass carnage to random victims.
We talk about the shooters, but should really be talking about the heros.
I mean that is a pretty honorable way to go and those that successfully protect others should be those elevated to celebrity status in the media. With notable mention for those that unsuccessfully tried as well.

 

[old lady new shooter]

I saw just two weeks ago two separate students that died stopping two different mass shootings, one in a high school and one in a university. Both kept the casualties so low (they were the only deaths) as to cause the shootings to be minor news, but with every indication that the shooter was not targeting them and was in that location to deal mass carnage to random victims.
We talk about the shooters, but should really be talking about the heros.
I mean that is a pretty honorable way to go and those that successfully protect others should be those elevated to celebrity status in the media.

Yes, these are the people we should be talking about. These young people, I don't have a sufficiently praiseworthy adjective to describe them. And Oscar Stewart, who rushed the Poway shooter, isn't too shabby either.