“You don’t need more than 10 rounds to stop a threat!” I’ve heard this claim from many who have never trained for, nor been in, a firefight. My only experience in a firefight was a combat situation which is different and similar. I was in a fairly secure bunker with plenty of other shooters and a place to retreat to if things got too bad. That place was full of ammo. But even so, in one particular attack I ran out of ammo. I can’t tell you how bad that feels. I had more than one brother throw me mags. I vowed to never be in that situation again.
I also have a friend who had 3 thugs invade his home. In the firefight that ensued he expended more than 50 rounds to neutralize and scare these threats away. You can’t tell him he only needs 10 rounds! He is extensively trained and considered an expert shot.
These examples are the exception, not the rule I would agree but how do you know your encounter will be a rule and not an exception?
Being a good shooter means you will be able to make a solid vital zone hit with most shots in a gunfight. I can’t tell you how much of a lie this is! Sometimes we categorize a “good” shooter as something that it’s not. Standing and shooting a paper or steel target is not a firefight. Even a run and gun competition is not the same as being shot at. In a real firefight because of fear and adrenaline you don’t take as much time with each shot as you normally would. There are some wasted rounds. There is something called a “determined” attacker. Regardless of how many rounds you pump into them, they refuse to back down.
There is a famous example of Lance Thomas, a watchmaker in California who survived four shootouts in his shop between 1989 and 1991. In the second of these fights, Lance was attacked by three armed men. They started the fight by shooting Lance four times with a .25 ACP pistol. Lance returned fire with a Ruger Security-Six .357 magnum. He hit the first suspect with five out of six shots, dropping him. But the other two guys stuck around and kept shooting. Lance emptied two more revolvers before the fight was over, with a second suspect dead and the third retreating outside to a waiting getaway car.
In total, Lance connected with 11 of the 17 shots he fired in that fight. By most gunfight standards, that could be considered phenomenal accuracy. And yet, if he only had those first six shots, he would likely not have survived the encounter. Accuracy is often the deciding factor in these incidents, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that more than a handful of rounds will be necessary in addition to accurate shooting.
Shot placement is important but there is no substitute for having more ammo. Facing multiple attackers or a determined attacker forces you to shoot better and have more ammo. Either more ammo or additional guns.
Lance Thomas had the foresight to place multiple revolvers within arm’s reach of his workbench. If, like most people, you only carry a single handgun, you’ll need to train to get maximum effectiveness out of each round.
“It’ll only take one shot if you use magnum ammo”. Or a 45. Or 44. Fill in the blank with the caliber of your choice. Knowing that bad guys have an annoying habit of stubbornly shrugging off bullets from time to time, some people are convinced that the solution is not more bullets, but bigger ones.
We’ll set aside for a moment the fact that magnum loads and big bore calibers are more difficult to shoot quickly and accurately under stress. Let’s once again assume for the sake of argument that the hypothetical armed citizen always hits his intended target in a timely manner. Surely a handful of slugs from the mighty [insert your favorite caliber] will stop any miscreant, no matter how determined. Right?
In a shootout with a armed bank robber, Sergeant Timothy Gramins fired 33 rounds of .45 ACP over the course of 56 seconds. Even with no drugs or alcohol in his system, the suspect was able to keep firing at the officer after sustaining six hits to vital organs in addition to 8 non-vital hits. It wasn’t until Gramins fired a series of shots that struck the suspect’s head that he was taken out of the fight.
This type of situation is not typical of armed encounters involving private citizens, but for our purposes the moral of the story isn’t about the tactics used or overall number of shots fired, but the amount of damage the suspect was able to absorb. Half a dozen rounds from what is normally considered a “big caliber” hit some pretty important stuff inside this bad guy, but he was able to keep throwing bullets back at the cop.
If you read about enough shootings, you’ll find numerous odd examples of people taking rounds to the chest and face from all kinds of big bore handguns (as well as rifles, buckshot, and shotgun slugs) that don’t result in immediate incapacitation. It’s not that caliber is inconsequential, but bullets do weird and unpredictable things. And handgun bullets in particular can’t be counted on to do what you want them to do the first time, regardless of what number is etched on the headstamp.
When some anti-gunner comes at you with magazine minimums ask them if that is what they would want to deal with in a gunfight? Limiting magazine round count will not stop mass shooters who usually plan. How many stories have your heard about a mass shooter that was stopped and they found many rounds in his back pack or bag? Even if you limit magazines that only means you have to buy more!
The reality of needing more magazines and ammo is there because you are not sure what you are going to go up against. Larger capacities are what the criminals will have, laws or not. Know that laws about magazine capacity are just knee-jerk ideas that only hurt the law abiding citizen.
Semper Paratus
Check 6
Burn
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