[BigO01]

Personally I don't think it makes a dimes worth of difference what you carry if you can't hit a small area and disable the centrel nervous system of an attacker .

After reading many many articles on this subject and having delt with a few dirtbags I have come to the following conclusions

1) your typical sumbag lowlife punk thinks he and peharps his buddies can hurt and or kill you for their pleasure and get away with it and when they see a gun they will squeel like a pig and run for their lives . This also applies to your average burglar/intruder

2) most of those that have guns usually don't have a clue how to do anything but yank on the trigger and in most cases they think that at the sight of a gun "or a knife even" you will give them what they want/lay down and die if they wish . They too will run away when when faced with an armed intended victim perhaps firing their gun as they do so .

3) there are the scum that intends to kill you from the start and even most of these will run when finding you're willing to put up a fight and kill them instead of laying down for them , any hit will make them disengage and run if they can

4) the few and far between true physco's that just don't care about life theirs or yours . These are the kinds of guys that those FBI agents ran into down in Florida 20 or so years ago .

Hitting them just center mass ain't gonna do you any good because they will have 1 minute or 30 seconds in which to keep firing and try to kill you and shredding their heart into a million pieces might be real cool but it ain't gonna stop them quick enough .

This is when you better understand you gotta make a spine/brain shot and make it fast or you die , pounding away center mass won't do you a bit of good if they've already taken a few hits there and haven't given up or ran .

[yankee2500]

When I took my ccw course the instructor is a local magistrate who had worked with ATF agents. He said a lot of the feds are training to make head shots because so many scumbags are starting to wear vests. John

[billy396]

In the .45, I carry Rem Golden sabers, in 9MM, I love the Hornady TAP ammo, same with the .40 - I think the law enforcement community have proven all 3 of the above loads as effective if shot placement is correct. The above post about center mass hits not killing fast enough is slightly doubtful-in most cases. I had a very good friend whose 15 year-old son was forced to kill 2 home invasion robbers with an old WWII PP .380 with old LRN bullets. 3 shots to the 1st BG and 2 shots to the 2nd did the job, killed them both with old lead round-nose .380's. Now I'd never rely on that, but it goes to show what you can do. BTW the 1st BG was hit groin, chest, neck below the chin, 2nd BG was hit stomach and chest. BG #1 bled out immediately, BG#2 took 10 minutes to die, but he had NO fight left in him. This was 2003 in Columbus, Ohio and Josh (the home defender) was never charged with any crime.

[supergus]

one thing some might forget is that FMJ's have a greater penetration. So what that means is if some whackjob breaks into your house or apartment and you (hopefully) shoot him, there's an increased chance that the FMJ bullet will exit the dirtball and very likely will go through an interior wall where your family is at. There's a good chance that it will even go through an exterior wall too, injuring an innocent bystander. JHP's have better expansion characteristics so they will open up more upon striking human tissue and creating a larger wound channel(yea for the good guys) while not as liikely to exit him and injure someone else. I use Speer Gold Dot 200gr. JHP +p in my defense handgun.

[BigO01]

Name one case where a handgun bullet went through one person and hurt a second person .

[chorst294]

Actually, we worked a murder where the drug dealer shot the prospective buyer with a .45acp fmj. It went in his arm, came out the side of his chest, entered his girlfriend sitting next to him and killed her. He survived. Very rare, but possible.

[NYPD13]

Speer Gold Dot 9mm 124gr Jhp +p. Stick With The Hollow Points. Over Penetration Of Fmj In A Lawyers Eyes Equals Negligence, Not Self Defense. Find Out What Your Local Police Use, They've Already Done The Research For You.

[supergus]

Originally Posted by BigO01

Name one case where a handgun bullet went through one person and hurt a second person .

Here's an excerpt from a NY Times article: "According to statistics released by the [NYPD] department, 15 innocent bystanders were struck by police officers using full metal jacket bullets during 1995 and 1996, the police said. Eight were hit directly, five were hit by bullets that had passed through other people, and two were hit by bullets that had passed through other objects."
The article continues: In that same period, 44 police officerswere struck by gun fire using the old ammunition(9mm 115 gr. FMJ) 21 were hit directly, 2 were struck by bullets that ricocheted and 17 were struck by bullets that had passed through other people."
That means that approx. 42-46% of these shootings were caused by an overpenetrating bullet that went through a human target and struck another human being.
The article is in the May 2008 issue of Combat Handguns, page 8, titled: Danger of Hardball Defense Ammo Alert.
Hope this shed some light on the argument of FMJ vs. JHP.

[NYPD13]

Thats Exactly Why The Nypd Switched To The Heavier 124gr Jhp. You Might Also Consider Frangible Ammo Like Air Marshals Use. Here's Some Great Ammo Designed For Personal Defense.1-speer Gold Dot. 2-federal Hydra Shok. 3-hornady Tap. 4-remington Golden Sabre. 5-corbon Dpx. 6-magtech First Defense. 7-magtech Guardian Gold. 8-pmc Starfire