What if you need to fire in a very crowded area?

Simple. You don't shoot.
You'll be praised at your funeral.

AFS

Definitely a heavy HP bullet. I may take the shot, to center mass, if he was close enough to pretty much guarantee a hit with my skill level. My first option would be to somehow get a better angle. If it's possible (perhaps stairs and such) get high or get low, so if a bullet does penetrate and continue through, it may hit the ground behind him or fly above everyone else.

Good question though. I can't say I'm fully sure of my answer.

Let's hope, we never have to worry about this.

A.T.

Keep in mind that no matter what round you choose it could still possibly penetrate through the BG and hit someone behind. It could just as easily miss the intended target. Its probably best to find another way of dealing with the threat without shooting. However if your inaction could cost more lives to be lost then thats a decision that would have to be made at that time. Just keep in mind no matter how good your intentions are its the result of your actions that will be judged.

JohnKSa said:

Before you do anything you must weigh the possible danger your shots will cause against the danger you're trying to eliminate. If he's methodically killing people then it's likely your inaction is a greater threat to the bystanders than a stray round or two from your gun.

Click to expand...

Agreed. If possible - you would have to be very close - dropping to a knee and angling your shot upwards might help. ??

uhhhh...

...don't do it dude...

the op has posed a horns of dilema question.. there is no right answer.

in the circumstance posited, if you do decide to squeeze one off, you'd better pray to Mars that your bullet finds its mark and none other.

though given the choice of potentially taking one life unintendedly or watching multitudes of others to be taken, I'd rather beg forgiveness from one family for the death of one than have to explain to dozens of others the deaths of the many.

Gunfight at Budokan?

B yond said:

any round exiting your target WILL hit an innocent bystander.

Click to expand...

I can't think of any situation where that dense of a crowd would not be on one side or another of your self-defense incident. If someone attacking you is literally surrounded on all sides by people not involved in the situation, and you are too...is your only option really just drawing and firing?

Is this more of a "you enter into a fight" rather than a "self-defense" question? Mutual combat is not the same thing as defending yourself.

It certainly is an edge case, unless you habitually get into fights where there is an audience.

No bullet can be guaranteed not to "overpenetrate". Fluids and machined metals have strange interactions. Usually, but especially in this case, it is best to disengage. If there is no other option but to shoot, you roll the dice.

I can't think of any situation where that dense of a crowd would not be on one side or another of your self-defense incident. If someone attacking you is literally surrounded on all sides by people not involved in the situation, and you are too...is your only option really just drawing and firing?

Click to expand...

New York City subway car and a someone justs gets up and starts shooting at random. Limited room to run. People at all sides etc. And gunman is looking at you next.

Crowded parade and someone just tried to steal your wallet. You scream at him, he is high and pulls a knife/gun etc.

Movie theater lobby during a busy premier and you accidentially spill popcorn on someone who gets mad and escalates the situation, you cant diffuse it and he pulls a weapon.

Just the first few that came to my head. All involve irrational/high people but not out of the realm of possibility.

"...Simple. You don't shoot..." Exactly. You are entirely responsible for where ever shot goes. Hit a bystander will get you sued, as a minimum. Killing one makes you guilty of manslaughter. Even with a through and through. The ammo used doesn't matter.

What is the best round to minimize the possibility of [overpenetration]?

Click to expand...

Bad news; any round that can penetrate enough to stop an attack is going to have the possibility of overpenetration. Conversely, any round guaranteed not to overpenetrate will almost certainly lack the velocity and/or energy to stop the threat.

I can't give an answer on the scenario, too many variables. I know what I'd like to think I'd do - rise to the occasion, take as careful aim as time would allow, and drop the "shooter" with one well-placed shot to the melon. Enjoy the ticker tape parades and parties at the Playboy mansion that inevitably follow... Real life rarely turns out with cinematic perfection, so if there's an exit nearby and I can remove myself from the equation, well I'll probably be doing that. My first responsibility is to my family, and it would do them no good if I died trying to be a hero or got sent up 20 to life for accidentally killing a bystander.

This would be a bad situation to be in,and I would have to be feeling that there is NO other way possible and any other alternative is unacceptable.
My "plan" has been to crouch down and /or shoot as upward as possible. if the attacker is close enough , an upward shot wouldnt be hard to do .
If he/she is farther away,and not even crouching down would give a high enough angle, then i need to close that distance.

For a heavily packed place- like in a bus full of people- frangible rounds might be best. Anyway, I think you are in very deep doodoo.

Another problem is when you must end the threat with a brain stem shot. Suicide bombers come to mind. Any quality self defense ammo will almost certainly overpenetrate on a brain stem shot. Before anyone pooh-poohs this as a far fetched scenario, it has indeed happened in several instances in Israel. One case that I can recall is of a woman in a grocery store who killed a suicide bomber with her concealed handgun with a brain stem shot. He was immediately incapacitated and unable to set off his bomb.

If you want to stop someone from pulling the trigger RIGHT NOW, a well placed brain stem shot is the only way to do it with a handgun. If you don't have the skill to pull it off, then you'd better have good running shoes. Bottom line is that we should all work at having the skill to do it on demand. You will always overpenetrate, so you'd better make sure you really need to shoot.

Let's hope, we never have to worry about this.

Click to expand...

I agree, hope for the best. However we must also prepare for the very worst (such as the situation in the OP’s question).

There are an infinite number of scenarios that could culminate in the defensive use of a firearm. It is simply impossible to devise concrete plans for each one of them. One must consider as many general possibilities as he can and develop a good mental pathway for instinctive reasoning should a shoot / no shoot situation arise.

For this question, I believe that there is no right answer. It is worth consideration.

Shoot down, into his foot.

You don't return fire into a crowd of innocents. You either retreat or attack. (Anti Terrorist teams practice this drill using punching bags as innocents and the officer running the drill has to push his way through the punching bags (think in terms of dozens of punching bags all hung next to each other) using his weak hand and then engage subject at arms length.

One possibility is to hit the deck and fire upward. Ricochets may result, or possibly a long ballistic hit, so it's very situational.

Sometimes just crouching down may be enough.

Keep the down-range area in mind.

Bottom line: What's at stake? Sometimes you take the shot, sometimes you take the bullet.

Aim for the pelvic region.

I've been taught exactly what the Lone Haranguer said-- drop to a knee, so your trajectory beyond your target is up and, hopefully, over everybody else's head. As he said, though, you'd have to be really close, and as others are saying, I guess there's a lot of scenarios in which that would still be too dangerous...

It'd be a very tough call no matter what.

I've been taught exactly what the Lone Haranguer said-- drop to a knee, so your trajectory beyond your target is up and, hopefully, over everybody else's head. As he said, though, you'd have to be really close, and as others are saying, I guess there's a lot of scenarios in which that would still be too dangerous...

Click to expand...

But you are still responsible for that bullet comming down if you miss.

There is tremendous number of variables that could exist in the OP's post. But I had a hard time imagining an active shooter walking through a crowd with a bunch of people standing around behind him. When people hear shots, they usually tend to scatter and get down. So if the BG is walking through the crowd shooting, the sea of humanity will likely part behind him and the problem may solve itself.

But if the BG is focusing his attention on you and hasn’t fired yet, the crowd behind him will likely be oblivious to the potential threat and just be going about their business. You could yell, “He’s got a gun. Everybody down!” But sheep aren’t that good at following directions. I suppose you could fire a shot in safe direction (if there is one) and that would cause the crowd to drop and make it safer to shoot the BG. But firing a warning shot opens a huge can of legal worms. All of the witnesses are going to focus their attention on you while you are now trying to shoot someone they hadn’t noticed before. You and the crowd might be alive, but your legal nightmares would be extensive.

The idea of kneeling or lying prone sounds like a potential solution. But keep in mind, bones can deflect bullets sending them the wrong direction again. It seems to me that if the place is that crowded, running through the crowd could remove you from the line of sight pretty quick giving you a chance to escape or come up with cover and a plan.

Tough situation.