Riomouse911
Member
I’ve been on scene where people have taken numerous torso shots to the chest and abdomen from centerfire handguns and survived on several occasions, lung shots and all. I personally escorted a murder witness who took a 12 gauge slug straight through the guts from front-porch-range and lived to testify against the guys who killed his buddy and tried to kill him (He was pretty much disemboweled, but lived for years afterwards).Do you mean just one chest hit? From the front? I wouldn't have trouble believing that people occasionally survive that. Both lungs perforated by two shots, or a shot from the side with a deep penetrating round would probably prove fatal in most cases, that's my guess. Maybe even with pointy 9mm FMJ.
A good friend of mine took two .357 Mag JHP rounds through the side/back (under the side panel of his vest) that punctured a kidney and all sorts of intestine (one bullet bounced off his lumbar spine without damaging the cord). Bob said it felt like someone stuck an air hose in his guts at 150 psi… but he was still able to move and get out of the way before he fell as his partners fired back.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-21-me-773-story.html?_amp=true
After 30 years and counting responding to and reading reports from shooting scenes; I can state from experience that some people can be surprisingly tough as often as others can be surprisingly soft. Counting on any handgun to be the right-now, end all fight stopper isn’t always a winning decision.
May we never have to test these theories out ourselves.
Stay safe.