It would be a boney-legged fellow indeed for whom a leg-shot would not more likely miss than hit a bone. Moreoever, 9mm has plenty of penetration and its kinetic energy is similar to that of .45 ACP. Your assertions are better suited to a JHP vs FMJ viewpoint rather than a 9mm vs 45 one.
Let me also say this (and it is not lawyer-bashing only an idea). As an engineer, I look at hard data every day and try to figure out what it means, if anything. It occurs to me, though, that a trial lawyer decides what conclusion he wants and then tries to make the data support it, even if there are other or even better conclusions that could be derived from it.
Your conclusions regarding 9mm vs 45 ACP are so clearly delineated and unambiguous that they are perceptibly different from the conclusions of any other person I have ever heard discussing the subject and they suggest that the difference in effectiveness between the two calibers is one of the more conspicuous phenomena in the universe. That you are the first person to detect this is then hard to explain.
Oh, I forgot to mention I'm an engineer, too...so now I'm right.
Seriously, prosecutors are not trial lawyers in that we have a conclusion, so we think of a way to make the facts fit. That's what a defense attorney does (and they will tell you this is what they do).
Prosecutors are essentially investigators who present the case that the evidence has lead them through. But enough of that.
A few points:
1. These are my observations. They are not my opinions, they are what I have seen. My observation is, the .45 causes much more devastating wounds. This is what I have seen with my eyes, not what I have read about from gelatin tests in a gun rag. My opinion is, use the most powerful caliber you can shoot well.
2. RE: hp v. fmj, my
observation is, handgun bullets rarely expand in human tissues. My opinion is, based on reading from the FBI's tactical firearms website, that they simply don't reach the velocity necessary to expnad, but that's just my opinion. All I know is, I've never seen them expand in human tissues and my buddies at the ME's office see it rarely or never.
3. My observation is, the 9mm has a very wide range of performance.
Sometimes it mimics .357 SIG, sometimes it mimics .380 ACP. My further observation (from looking at the shell casings at the crime scene) is that certain 9mm loading perform much better than others. My opinion is, therefore, that 9mm performance is very load-dependant. In other words, the loads with ballistics similar to a .357 perform like a .357. The ones that are closer to .380 ACP perform like .380 ACP.
As far as my data being unique....well, no its not among people who are actually in the business and pay attention. Most homicide detectives and ME's are not gun-nuts. But if you talk to them, go out to the crime scenes, go to the autopsies, and pay attention, certain patterns emerge. For example, I have never seen anyone walk away from being shot by a .40 S&W. I've seen some people who were shot by it and lived, but they were all disabled by the shot. Some healed up after a stay in the hospital. Some died. But all of them were stopped in their tracks. Now, I'm sure there are some folks who have been able to walk to ER after being shot by the .40, but I've never seen it and I doubt it happens much (it happens so much with the 9mm its common knowledge on the street).
Look, you can just call me a lawyer and ignore what I have to say. Fine by me. But after a decade of dealing with homicides and other firearms assaults as my daily job, I have a pretty accurate idea about how these calibers actually perform on the street. Muzzle energy and velocity can tell you something, but in some ways they are just numbers. A frangible 64gr 9mm load might have 540 lbs of muzzle energy and move at 1949 fps. On paper that eclipses a cheap Winchester White box .40 cal's 165 gr load's 330 lbs of muzzle energy at 949 fps (out of, say, a Glock 27). But I bet you've never met a man that the WWB load won't drop. And that frangible 9mm ammo, with all its muzzle energy and velocity, has a horrific failure rate. Penetration counts, and this stuf has none of it.
Now don't forget, I carry a 9mm. Why? I can hit with it better than anything else, and I use loads I have seen drop people dead right there. But I'm careful what I use. I know the caliber's limitations. It is NOT as good as a .40 or .45, and if I could shoot the .40 or .45 as well, I would carry it. (Actually, I shoot a 1911 in .45 as well as the G19, but then I have a choice to make: 15+1 shots or 8+1; I bought a G19 on a whim to test the plaform and shot it so well I kept it).
Oh, re: the bony leg thing. I don't know why, but most of the leg shots I've seen hit a bone. I don't know why, but they do. I've seen some grazing wounds, and a couple of through and through fleshwounds. But most hit bone. With most 9mm loads, they glance off and/or chip the bone, and the shooting victim runs away. With the .357/.40/.45/better 9mm loads, the bone shatters and shooting victim is disabled.
Anyway, I've posted all this in one form or another before. This is what i've seen.
The sad thing is that now I spend most of my time doing long-term investigations with the FBI on other crimes, so I don't see dead bodies every week and collect more data on this stuff (well, its not sad, but I do miss the homicide stuff). I did have a complicated drug-deal-gone-bad murder-conspiracy blah blah case recently. The winners of the major gun battle carried .40's and .45's btw. Guess what the losers had?
-David
