I heard an interesting remark recently from someone with a fair bit of professional experience in firearms application. On the topic of shot placement, they brought up the throat/neck as a viable target for immediate incapacitation. I got the sense that they might even prefer it over the bead.
Some points that were mentioned:
- Head is more unpredictable due to skull. Exemplified with a bunch of wacky stories, the likes of which have occasionally come up on PF.
- Neck has major arteries and CNS relatively unprotected.
- That a shot to the throat, though not necessarily as lethal as a CNS hit, is correlated to an involuntary reaction of dropping weapons and reaching for the throat.
In the past, I've heard Southnarc and others advocate for the neck as a very viable target for empty hand strikes, with possibly more knockout potential than the head; so the idea doesn't seem entirely crazy.
Of course, there are a bunch of issues with the suggestion too:
- Neck may arguably be a smaller target than head/eyebox
- CNS vitals are smaller than those exposed at eyebox
- Arteries and throat are not the biological "off switch" the eyebox exposes
I couldn't find anything by searching, so I'd be curious to hear what the anatomically educated and doorkickers among us have to say about it.