car airbag stops bullets?!

[old lady new shooter]

bearingarms reports on Seattle shootout

A law enforcement officer familiar with the case stated that the airbags that deployed during the wreck were made of kevlar, and that when crime scene investigators processed the car, they shook stopped rounds out of the airbags.

http://bearingarms.com/car-airbags-stopped-bullets-wild-seattle-police-shootout/

 

[psyopspec]

Objects in motion continue in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Gravity and friction being two pertinent forces, a bullet traveling through a car will shed momentum until it stops. Just so happens in this case that the airbag was where that happened, and the kevlar helped.

But that doesn't mean one should rely on airbags for a field expedient bullet stopper. The only reliable cover in a car remains the solid metal parts; namely the engine block and center of the hubs.

 

[Jeff White]

The rounds most likely went through the windshield first. Auto glass, especially windshields is a good barrier itself. Who knows how much velocity those rounds lost before they hit the airbags. The IIIA armor I wore on duty is nearly 1/2 inch thick. I don't think an airbag should be counted on to stop a round they are much thinner.

 

[Sunray]

Air bags aren't thick enough top stop any bullet. Soft body armour is composed on many layers of Kevlar not just one.
Lotta bullets won't penetrate windshield glass. Auto glass is heat treated and made to withstand impacts of a given nature.

 

[ironworkerwill]

I could see where an airbag could stop a bullet. The side curtain bags are just hanging as a bullet enters one side the whole while being dragged to a stop by the other side. Fixed Kevlar would be easier to defeat.

 

[230RN]

The hunters among us should be pointing out how many times they have found their bullets stopped by the animal's skin on the opposite side of the bullet entry. After expending most of its energy in the body of the animal, there's not enough left to actually break the skin on the opposite side, but to pull it away and expend its remaining energy that way.

Everything has to be "just right" for this to happen, but it does.

I see the bullets stopped by the air bags as a possibly similar situation.

 

[MutinousDoug]

Takata is facing massive recalls of their airbag inflators because the closure disk fragments have punctured the airbag material, injuring the occupants.
The closure disks are equivalent to beer cans in thickness and their fragments might weigh a few grams.
"Car airbag stops bullets"?Only if the bullet has been slowed to a non-lethal velocity beforehand.