Throughout the text, Marshall and Sanow offer "street results" which purport to show the "stopping power" and percentage of "one-shot stops" that particular handgun bullets have produced in actual shootings. On page 47 they write: "These street results are the heart and soul of this book on stopping power." Accurate, documented field data of bullet performance in actual shootings is a crucial adjunct to laboratory test results; unfortunately, valid information is very difficult to acquire. Their "field data" appears to be based on anecdotal "war stories" which are incomplete and unverified, as illustrated by the example below.
On page 121, Marshall and Sanow state: "The following five Glaser shootings come from Gene Wolberg, Senior Criminologist, San Diego Police Crime Lab." Mr. Wolberg, an author of this review, testified that only the third and fifth incidents described are fully documented and verifiable cases. Mr. Wolberg states he is only casually aware of the fourth incident and emphasizes that his second-hand information is undocumented. Mr. Wolberg denies all knowledge of the first two shooting reports Marshall and Sanow attribute to him. On pages 43 and 44, Marshall and Sanow discuss their data collection methodology:
"4. In order to be included in this study, I insisted on either having or at least being able to review some of the following: police reports, evidence technician reports, statements by the victim (if he survived), homicide reports, autopsy results, and photos. Whenever possible, I also talked to the emergency room doctors and attending physicians.
5. Recovered bullets were either personally examined or photographed by me, or I was provided with photographs of the bullets."
Mr. Wolberg never provided Marshall or Sanow any of the reports, test results, photos or evidence which they insist they inspect prior to including a shooting in their data base. As a result, the veracity of their entire data base is questionable. The verisimilitude of the author’s "street result" data is also in doubt since they violate basic principles of scientific research by not publishing their original data and by claiming "secrecy" when asked to identify their source documentation so that independent researchers who investigate wound ballistics could inspect their original information and verify their results.
