Hostage Situation...another question for our team of experts!

[ellis4538]

I don't know if there has been any research or not or if any medical info exists but I was wondering, what would happen if, during a hostage situation, someone, LEO, armed citizen or etc. decided, based on circumstances, to take a head shot with a pistol loaded with quality SD ammo.  Might the BG's reflexes, after being shot, cause his/her weapon to fire?  This might not be something they have even thought about/considered but it is possible IMO.

Thanks,

Richard

[tombogan03884]

I don't know if there has been any research or not or if any medical info exists but I was wondering, what would happen if, during a hostage situation, someone, LEO, armed citizen or etc. decided, based on circumstances, to take a head shot with a pistol loaded with quality SD ammo.  Might the BG's reflexes, after being shot, cause his/her weapon to fire?  This might not be something they have even thought about/considered but it is possible IMO.

Thanks,

Richard

That's why LEO and Other Agencies leave that type of shooting to specially trained "Precision marksmen".
I would suggest that the rest of us should do the same if left the option.

[MikeBjerum]

Through my limited experience in emergency medicine and questioning doctors based things I saw or heard of, it is not an exact science.  There is no way for anyone to know whether a body will go flacid or spasm in reaction to sudden trauma.  In trauma to the brain it depends on which part "dies" first.  In the case of heart or spinal injury, about the time you think it will all go one way our body surprises us and does something else.

There are others on here and monitoring that can give more detailed explanations for our own decission making, but I have almost always taught that we are to fight our way out in a calculated way.  Do not assume that if the bad guy says we will be let go if we cooperate that he will not kill us.  That being said, it makes a difference if you are gambling with your own life or others.  No simple answers.

[Rob Pincus]

Through my limited experience in emergency medicine and questioning doctors based things I saw or heard of, it is not an exact science.

That's the most important thing to realize.

-RJP

[Michael Bane]

Pistol ammunition — even good pistol ammunition — is not rifle ammunition, and human reactions are a crap shoot. In the absence of the kind of temporary and permanent wound channels created by supersonic rifle bullets, what happens during the shot is more subject to conjecture. I met a guy who took a .270 rifle round into his face from about a foot away. Instead of penetrating and doing what we all might expect a high power partition hunting bullet to do, the bullet entered low and "skated" (for lack of a better word) around his skull...lots of damage, but he lived to tell.

Michael B

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