Walt Sherrill
Member
The Ellifritz study is arguably the best we've got -- and the shortcomings of the study have been addressed by a number of critics. Some of the criticisms are due to definitions (which most of the critics apparently didn't bother to read closely) and to the fact that there are relatively few shootings that are well documented. It took Ellifritz 10 YEARS to accumulate this data! Some of it has to do with Ellifritz's terms. Some of the criticism shows that the critics haven't really read his explanations and summation.
Areas of criticism or concern: with the Ellifritz study you don't know 1) whether the shooter was skilled or effective in his or her defensive actions, 2) whether he or she had been involved in self-defense situations before or had ever fired rounds when under threat, etc., 3) whether the person being shot at was close or far, 4) whether the "thug" in question was experienced or naive, and put off by the defender having a weapon, 5) whether the gun being used had a long or short barrel, or 6) whether the ammo was self-defense or ball. Ellifritz makes the point that those who can accurately fire a gun more rapidly may use more rounds than needed -- and that skews the "effectiveness" measures (like rounds to incapacitation), but I'm not going to say they should not have fired those extra rounds.
Had Ellifritz been able to break all of those extra categories out, given the relatively small number of incidents recorded for some calibers, I think coming to any conclusions would be hard. Some of the numbers already are so small that their statistical value can arguably be questioned if the data were further subdivided.
I applaud Ellifritz's efforts. If you didn't read his comments and his explanations of why he did it the way he did, please do so. I'm very impressed with what he's done, and I think it tells us as much, maybe more, than tests using ballistic gelatin... Do I suggest we ignore tests done using FBI Ballistic Gelatin? No. But I don't think we should ignore Ellifritz's work either. Together, these two types of data start to give us something meaningful.
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Areas of criticism or concern: with the Ellifritz study you don't know 1) whether the shooter was skilled or effective in his or her defensive actions, 2) whether he or she had been involved in self-defense situations before or had ever fired rounds when under threat, etc., 3) whether the person being shot at was close or far, 4) whether the "thug" in question was experienced or naive, and put off by the defender having a weapon, 5) whether the gun being used had a long or short barrel, or 6) whether the ammo was self-defense or ball. Ellifritz makes the point that those who can accurately fire a gun more rapidly may use more rounds than needed -- and that skews the "effectiveness" measures (like rounds to incapacitation), but I'm not going to say they should not have fired those extra rounds.
Had Ellifritz been able to break all of those extra categories out, given the relatively small number of incidents recorded for some calibers, I think coming to any conclusions would be hard. Some of the numbers already are so small that their statistical value can arguably be questioned if the data were further subdivided.
I applaud Ellifritz's efforts. If you didn't read his comments and his explanations of why he did it the way he did, please do so. I'm very impressed with what he's done, and I think it tells us as much, maybe more, than tests using ballistic gelatin... Do I suggest we ignore tests done using FBI Ballistic Gelatin? No. But I don't think we should ignore Ellifritz's work either. Together, these two types of data start to give us something meaningful.
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