The myth of knockdown power continues...

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FAST FRANK - "... I'm pretty sure that a grown man will in fact end up on the ground right after catching a pistol round in the chest while wearing a vest."
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The two bank robbers, wearing vests, who instigated the infamous "North Hollywood BofA Shootout," certainly did not, and they were both hit all over their torsos multiple times with 9mm, .38 Special, and 12 ga. 00 buckshot.

L.W.
 
Neighbor lady is Deputy. She took a round from a Bad Guy in the body armor. Went down like a rag doll. She got a few weeks off to recover, mostly from turning yellow and purple in the affected area. Other officer saw her go down and made Bad Guy look like a colander.
 
Say I accidentally bumped your flat screen TV with my elbow, and it wobbled for a second and then fell on the floor.
I'm pretty sure you would jump up and demand payment...
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Well, you certainly were the cause of the TV ending up on the ground and so you would certainly be responsible for the damage. Just as a person who shoots another is responsible for their ending up on the ground even though the bullet didn't violently throw them to the ground.
Would you accept my argument that the amount of pressure applied by my elbow was not enough to take your TV off it's feet and throw it violently to the floor, therefore I could not have knocked down your TV?
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No, I would not, and the reason is that, as I pointed out before when talking about bullets, the fact that your elbow couldn't throw the TV violently to the floor does not mean you couldn't be responsible for it's ending up on the floor.

It is simply not reasonable to assume that the only way someone can end up on the ground is by being knocked violently down. Although a bullet can't throw a person violently to the ground, it can certainly be the reason that a person ends up on the ground. In the same way, the fact that the TV wasn't knocked violently to the ground doesn't absolve the person who lightly bumped the TV of responsibility for the TV hitting the ground.

There are many ways a person (or a TV) can end up on the ground without being "knocked down".
That's semantics at it's best.
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Words mean things. That's what makes them useful. If words are used incorrectly, then the wrong meaning is conveyed and that is a problem.
 
I'm pretty sure that a grown man will in fact end up on the ground right after catching a pistol round in the chest while wearing a vest.
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Too much evidence that doesn't support that. People aren't knocked down from being shot, especially with a service pistol round. They get shot and then they fall down.

What they do in response to being shot sometimes gives the impression that they were "knocked" down. Sometimes not. They may convulse and fling themselves backward, or they may convulse and fall forward. Sometimes they just drop like a marionette with its strings cut. Sometimes they give no outward indication that anything has happened at all.

It depends greatly on the recipient's state of mind. A few 250-pound bruisers have fallen to the ground, crying like little children after being shot in the arm with a .22 and a few 97-pound weaklings have taken multiple torso hits with a .357 and still had to be physically subdued.

When one of the "Top Gun" defensive instructors...can't remember offhand which one, but it may have been Awerbuck...was asked what we should expect a man to do when he is shot. The answer was simple and straightforward.

"You should expect him to continue doing whatever he was doing before he was shot."
 
Does anyone else remeber the way Rich Davies demonstrated his the new wearable body armor? He would borrow an officers sidearm and s use it to demonstrate the stopping power of his vest. He eventually used everything from 38 Specials up to 44 Magnums, stayed on his feet and continued with the lecture. As I recall he was not using a plate, just Kevlar so maybe this is apples and kumquats.
 
Some of you just don't understand. It all depends on who is shooting the gun, or in some cases what the shooter is wearing! Clearly any gun fired by Bruce Willis or the Arnold knocks folks right off their feet. And if you dress in camo, carry at least three concealed weapons, and look REALLY tough, your first round will knock the bad guy at least a few feet back and onto his back. And as any video game players know, it never takes more than one round to kill the bad guy. Just point your gun in the general direction and pull the trigger.
 
And that brings me back to knockdown power.

I'm pretty sure that a grown man will in fact end up on the ground right after catching a pistol round in the chest while wearing a vest. The energy transfer is still going to be massive and painful, and it just might turn a man's lights off for a little while. It's absolutely going to knock the wind out of him. Probably break some ribs too.
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Wow, no. What you describe may happen, though I don't know of any cases of anyone being rendered unconscious after being shot in the chest whilst wearing a ballistic vest, so no turning off of any lights.

http://iacp.dupont.com/SurvivorClub/Search

Too many officers get shot and don't even know it. Some do get their breaths knock out of them and some may suffer a broken rib or two, but that doesn't mean they are going to be taken to the ground via the impact. Heck, people not wearing vests don't always even go to the ground when shot in the chest.
 
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It's only in the movies that people go flying through the air when hit with a shotgun, or a 45. In real life they fall down, "if you hit them in the right spot", or stagger off.
A 12 gauge is still a messy thing to be shot with, Especially with 00 buck. it can paint an ugly picture.
 
Thanks for all the replies - I forgot how to find my own thread. I know someone who was hit w/ a pistol round in a soft vest - think it broke a rib, he went down, puked, crapped his pants, & passed out, apparently. The question was specifically about a 9mm round transferring its energy into a SAPI plate - which, given the plate is specifically engineered to stop .30"-06 AP rounds, should certainly stop a 9x19mm NATO.
 
Maybe that 8 gauge in that cowboy movie. Or a 50 cal. Not much else. so many misconceptions about guns, most people don't even know the have been shot, unless it's in the head, or heart.
 
gym said:
It's only in the movies that people go flying through the air when hit with a shotgun, or a 45. In real life they fall down, "if you hit them in the right spot", or stagger off.
A 12 gauge is still a messy thing to be shot with, Especially with 00 buck. it can paint an ugly picture.
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How true.

Two of my former fellow officers have taken rounds to their vests and not known that it occurred until after the fight was over.

In one instance, one of them even stated to me later that same day that he thought that he'd pulled a muscle during the struggle only to be surprised to find a hole (thankfully not a complete 'perf' :) ) in his soft armor upon opening his shirt to check for the cause of the pain.

I got the impression that he found all of the ensuing paperwork far more painful. :evil:
 
Thank you for this thread. I'm learning alot.

I always thought my 9mm M&P would make a decent house gun and when I'm home it lives on the shelf of my nightstand.

Now I realize that if I have a home invasion and they are wearing vests...which is getting more and more common....I do not even have stopping power.

I guess I need to look into a shotgun or something else, altho I'm not familiar with long guns and dont like the idea of trying to handle a longer weapon in the closer confines of a home. (I dont have to worry about who or what is on the other side of walls or outside tho).
 
I saw a 175-200 hog get hit with a 240 grain .44 mag round of medium load from about 40 yards.....thrice. It didn't go down for about a minute after being hit the 3rd time. It just lost control of it's functions. No head shots, all to the body.

NOW, I personally know of an incident where an undercover cop was shot in the chest back in '88 from about one foot away with a .38 caliber round discharged from a snub nose. He was wearing a vest at the time. The round did not penetrate the vest, but it knocked him right on his ass! The chest bruising was also pretty substantial.
 
It didn't knock him down. He might have fallen down, but a shot from a .38 did not knock him down.

There is a very significant difference between a psychological reaction and a physiological reaction.
 
This is important, because the antis use the fact that what's his name was wearing body armor in the Colorado movie theater shooting as a complete refutation of CCW's effectiveness.
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My understanding is that he was wearing some sort of tactical vest with pockets to hold magazines, not armor of any sort. And if he were, would it protect the pelvis?
 
It didn't knock him down. He might have fallen down, but a shot from a .38 did not knock him down.

There is a very significant difference between a psychological reaction and a physiological reaction.
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Most people are forgetting, in the physiological reaction side, that we have automatic withdrawal actions for self defense pre-programmed for millions of years. Certainly these can be trained against to a degree, but they are involuntarily present. The projectile may present a thousand ft-lbs to the chest, but the muscles probably present 10-40 times that to the systems trying to escape the threat just from the involuntary reflex, then collapse from shock.
 
Backpacker 33 is correct ,I have never been shot but I have been flung around in a F-5 Tornado and banged up and down on the ground,The mind cannot take the overload of fear and control a Humans reflex actions to a extreme life threatning moment,I was struck in the back of the head and Face with what I do not Know but adrenal glands took over and for me I was injured but continued to react to the enviroment,and something greater took Over. That I believe was a God that determined it was not My wifes or 2 year old sons time as well as My bodys reaction to survival..the one thing I recall the most was that everything seemed in slo-mo it really did...
 
I can punch a person below the belt right in his second brain and he's going to fall to the ground crying out in agony...does that mean I have more stopping power than a 9mm round? Your arguments have all just been defeated. :neener:
 
The man is in combat. If he believes that the 9mm will do that God bless his soul. It might get him through an up close encounter. How can a bunch of Monday morning generals bash what the man says? He is there ready to die for your right to write the bull manure. You all might be great mathematicians but your respect for our fighting men leaves much to be desired.

You can bet this much if I heard this conversation about any soldier by a bunch of civilians who lack the guts to serve I would just piss all over their legs.
 
I don't know if this thread needs to die or not, but the last three posts need to be deleted for good taste if nothing else. :scrutiny:
 
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