Originally Posted by
BehindBlueI's
1) Hole size =/= rate of bleed. The body can swell and cut off blood flow. It's designed to fight wounded but that capacity can obviously be overcome. Different areas of the body have different amounts of pressure behind them and different sizes of blood vessels and different tissue types that respond differently to injury. The body isn't a bucket where a bigger hole leaks faster. The body is more of a hydraulic system wrapped in sponge that can swell or contract.
2) Bullet selection matters. Most shootings involve shitty ammunition because most shootings are criminal on criminal and criminals *tend* to run shitty ammunition. If I want to know how WWB ball does, I'll consult my files.
3) Who lives and who dies is a function of two things. Shot placement and time lapse to medical treatment. Some would argue for three with 'will to live' being the third, and that's probably valid for many injuries as well.
4) My own case files contain hundreds of people shot. I have access to thousands of people shot. My (former) office got roughly 600 people shot a year. I rapidly learned that tracking caliber for purposes other than linking cases was useless. The variables of ammunition used, shot placement, distance to emergency services, etc. vastly overwhelmed any trend for calibers. It also doesn't tell you who's fighting determined attackers and who's engaged in assassination style shootings. Literally nobody carries a .32 for duty use here, but it's used in plenty of dope-rip shootings/assassinations. If you have 50 shootings with a .32 and 50 shootings with the .40, the most common duty round for most of the time I was a detective, is that a valid comparison? Does shooting someone then having immediate medical aid compare to shooting someone and leaving them in a car unreported match up or does that change the data?
No, a more valid comparison is when entire departments switch. Then you should have the variables controlled. Quality ammunition, same training level so (in theory) same level of good shot placement, same geographic area being policed so same access to medical care, etc. Do you see any statistically relevant change in how many officers win gun fights? The answer is...no, you don't. Or at least we haven't locally and nearly everyone has switched to 9mm except the state police.
Believe whatever you like. I used to be an arch-bishop in the Holy Church of the .45, carried a 1911 then a Sig P220, and still own more copies of the P220 then any other specific model. However after seeing countless people shot, dead or alive, and a modicum of research I've gotten over it. I will, and have, confront determined and deadly enemies with any of the common duty calibers because they all work and they all work in a measure so equal that the differences aren't even quite angels on pinheads.
And it might be, but not with the tech we have now. The current .380 cartridges can't "do it all": penetrate, expand, and be barrier blind. It's the smallest commonly used cartridge that can consistently break adult bones, though.