LEO's - 38spl is good for wounding?

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Casimer

New member
The other night I'd had dinner w/ three older gentlemen who'd been LEOs in Philadelphia after WWII into the 70's. We were discussing Philly's crime problem and ballistics came up.

One of them made a statement to the affect of - "a big reason that the 38spl was popular for so long was because you could either shoot to wound someone or shoot to kill them." (i.e. their 38spl loads were better at dehabilitating someone with less risk of fatal injuries). The other guys seemed to agree with this sentiment.

From what they'd described, it wasn't just police being 'outgunned' that pushed them towards more power and more capacity, but a change in the criminal culture that made police less willing to give criminals the 'benefit of the doubt' that the 38spl entailed.

Was this a common perspective among police towards the 38spl?

Has police doctrine changed since the 70's w/ regards to deliberately wounding someone vs shooting to kill?


* I don't want to start another thread on 38spl ballistics and comparisons to modern LE calibers. But I'd be interested to know whether police had seen value in the 38spl because it is less lethal.
 
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Phlip

New member
I seriously doubt the accuracy of your friend's statement and here is why.

The odds are he has never shot anyone much less several people which would have given him the chance to wound some and kill some at will.

Firearms training "back in the day" was probably at best, slow fire shooting at a target with no moving, drawing or "combat" style shooting.

Police firearms training today is probably much better than what it had been yet in actual gunfights, police have a very low hit percentage. Do you think the "old timers" were that much better that they could put their bullets right where they want them during the stress of a gun fight when the current cops with better training have trouble just getting a bullet into a bad guy when things go bad?
 
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DrLaw

New member
Totally agree

Those guys are reliving past dreams and not real life.

As said, the old police training for most places was pretty much give them a gun, a badge, stick and uniform and send them off. Bigger places had academies that they could send people to. Shooting was not 'combat' shooting, and if it was, it was the weaver stance, squating and holding the gun with one or two hands, depending on the instructors training. (See No Second Place Winner by Bill Jordan for the common stances)

Next, cops could shoot at escaping felons in the old days. Now, you can't.

The 'Shoot to wound' thing is strictly something from the movies and television. (The Lone Ranger).

Try this. Run about fifty yards with a holstered gun, have some 'cover' to get behind (a large box will work), draw a gun and try to hit a target about 50 feet away. Your chances are slim that you will hit it.

Now, draw a circle about 8 inches by 16 inches and try to hit it on your target after running. This would be a 'center mass' type of target. You might get lucky and hit it.

So just imagine how in the world you 'shoot to wound'. Come to think of it, it was probably somebody trying to explain his bad shooting to somebody else that he just 'shot to wound' and that started the ball rolling for other bad shots.

Today, they teach center mass shooting. Not legs, not arms, not head. Hit the person in the area of vital organs and hope you stop them.

The .38 Special started as a growth out of the .38 Smith & Wesson and .38 Colt cartridges. It was longer than both, holding more powder, thus meaning more power than had been the case in .38's before then. Recall that the former two cartridges were still being used in top-break revolvers. They just did not have much power, but for their day, they were considered sufficient.
The .38 Special though, was the big thing of its' day, in much the same way as the .357 became the big thing, then the .44 Special, and now the .500 Smith & Wesson. We look at the .500 Smith & Wesson today compared to the .38 Special as they looked at the .38 Special compared to the .38 Smith & Wesson then.

No, sorry to say that those old coppers are just having coffee and donut dreams about what wasn't true about the old days.

(How do I know? Been there, done that, and today, I am just a fossil cop having been one of the dinosaurs) :rolleyes:

The Doc is out now. :cool:
 
K

Keltyke

Moderator
I'm not believing it. The difference in wounding and killing is a fraction of an inch and a lot of luck. IF, as another poster said, you're good enough to hit a target about 2" x 2". If you shoot to wound, let's say a leg or arm, your bullet could strike a major artery and the perp could bleed to death.

The scene of someone getting "grazed" by a bullet but not being seriously injured is straight out of the old West movies.

I thought cops were always taught to shoot to kill. They're charged with protecting me and mine, I don't want them using halfway measures.
 
C

Colt46

New member
There's a perception LEO's are experts

Just because they carry one professionally doesn't mean they actually understand them at all. If they are from that era there is a very good chance that range time was mandatory or even yearly requalification.
 
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Smaug

New member
I think the 38s of those days were more apt to wound because they used regular lead round nose bullets. Not much expansion, and might pass right through the perp.

But I don't think police admins were thinking of this when they made duty guns 38s instead of 45s. I think they just wanted their officers to have an easy gun to shoot that was powerful enough and reliable enough.
 
W

WIN71

New member
Next, cops could shoot at escaping felons in the old days. Now, you can't
Click to expand...

Unless this California PC section doesn't apply to bullets overtaking escaping felons it's still legal at least. (subsection 3)
Individual departmental policies may differ.
196. Homicide is justifiable when committed by public officers and
those acting by their command in their aid and assistance, either--
1. In obedience to any judgment of a competent Court; or,
2. When necessarily committed in overcoming actual resistance to
the execution of some legal process, or in the discharge of any other
legal duty; or,
3. When necessarily committed in retaking felons who have been
rescued or have escaped, or when necessarily committed in arresting
persons charged with felony, and who are fleeing from justice or
resisting such arrest.
Click to expand...

those old coppers are just having coffee and donut dreams about what wasn't true about the old days.
Click to expand...
Yea, but the stories just keep getting better and better don't ya know.

Also learned the Weaver stance
 
R

RsqVet

New member
Not only is that thinking outdated but use of force doctrine has been refined somewhat.

Shoot to wound is a sure way to get yourself convicted of attempted murder. Either you are in fear or threat of your life and you shoot to stop that or you do not.

It is rare, rare, rare that you will ever see anyone in LE discussing "shoot to wound" and then only in the most bizzare of instances.
 
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Erik

New member
"Was this a common perspective among police towards the 38spl?"

No. As for why a couple of lod timers may have come to believe it: understand that in some locals, such as urban ones where the gun culture was not and is not what it is on other parts of the nation, administrators and union officials, a certain percentage of them being tied to the wrong side of the political equation 2A wise then as now, disseminated such (mis)information to mollify the troops who did not know any better. After a while, many such information efforts began/begin to pass as "facts."
 
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Erik

New member
"Has police doctrine changed since the 70's w/ regards to deliberately wounding someone vs shooting to kill?"

The landmark case, Tennessee v. Garner (USSC 1985), defined and continues to define the "modern" discussion surrounding law enforcement's use of deadly force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_v._Garner

http://supreme.justia.com/us/471/1/case.html

Graham v. Connor is the other USSC landmark case on force; non-deadly this time.

Combine the two and you've got the basis for modern use of force law and the policies and rationals stemming from it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._Connor

http://supreme.justia.com/us/490/386/case.html

As for shooting to wound: it does not pass the reasonableness standard set forth in Tennesse v. Garner and is forbidden.
 
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Magyar

New member
There was one ol'timer, Skeeter Skelton" who wrote about the miseries of the .38sp that were absolutely hilarious...One excerpt was his memory or absurdity of the bullets bouncing of the perp's car and glancing off all the windows to his astonishment! He might of stretched the truth a little for a good story, but not that much.....:D
 
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Rifleman 173

New member
Back in the early 1970s things were a bit different. There were some firearms advocates that DID try to preach wounding capabilities for some situations. There weren't many of them and most of them were disregarded because shooting to wound was much too hard to do in a realistic world. I remember one time when a shoot-to-wound stunt was tried but the hostage in the situation was killed instead of the bad guy being disabled. The police took a lot of heat over that one. Over all, most police agencies automatically assumed that if you had to shoot at people the officers should try to shoot to disable the bad guys as fast as possible which equates to possibly killing them. So officers were told that they were only allowed to shoot their guns in very critical situations and that no wounding shots nor warning shots were to ever be attempted. Warning shots were another biggie from the 1970s that were dumped with the other bad ideas. For many years police were allowed to use warning shots in an effort to get the suspects to stop running from them. Officers were actually taught, in some locations, to hold their pistols above their heads, fire the gun twice or three times in a vertical direction and to put a slight forward lean on the end of the barrel of the pistol so that "the bullets would drop harmlessly back to the ground somewhere in front of the officer." The best way to think of these shooting techniques is to think of them as fads that came and went with the pet rock, the rubic's cube and hula-hoops.
 
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Yankee Doodle

New member
As I was taught:

If a subject is engaging in conduct that endangers human life, and you have no other recourse, you shoot to bring that subject's actions to an immediate stop. You keep firing until there is no longer a threat to human life.
First and foremost, you end the threat.
Therefore, you do NOT shoot to wound, and you do NOT shoot to kill. You only shoot to STOP.
After this has been done, you have all the time in the world to sit down and throw up. Shooting someone can do that to you.
 
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Tom2

New member
And a myth that has apparently been passed on to the public. Not way too far from here, in bad neighborhoods, the observers or relatives in a bad area have expressed the POV that the police should just shoot the bad guy in the foot or periphery or something to stop an attack by their associate on the police. This is usually after someone goes after the police with a knife or hatchet or something like that and takes a hit dead center. The opinions of the casual observers are that if the perp has no big gun and does not get a good shot hitting an officer, that the perp is entitled to be shot in a less than lethal way or something. Odd attitudes.
 
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Dwight55

New member
Yeah, Tom2, . . . I remember a few years ago when a couple of LEO's who were in my ANG unit did a guy in, . . . that was the hue and cry from all his supporters.

The dude was an AWOL member of the guard and these officers knew him as such, . . . as well as the warrants that had been issued for other crimes.

Apparently he thought bringing a knife and a garbage can lid (held up like a shield) were enough for him to overcome two armed LEO's. Uhh, . . . yep, . . . he didn't do so well.

But it was all over the papers & the news that he should have been shot in the foot, . . . the hand, . . . the knee, . . .

I wonder if he would have stabbed the officers in the foot, . . . the hand, . . . or their knee???

May God bless,
Dwight
 
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prairieviper

New member
The other night I'd had dinner w/ three older gentlemen who'd been LEOs in Philadelphia after WWII into the 70's. We were discussing Philly's crime problem and ballistics came up.

One of them made a statement to the affect of - "a big reason that the 38spl was popular for so long was because you could either shoot to wound someone or shoot to kill them." (i.e. their 38spl loads were better at dehabilitating someone with less risk of fatal injuries). The other guys seemed to agree with this sentiment.
Click to expand...


I have never worked in Philly but I have been a law enforcement officer for over thirty years, and carried a revolver (S&W Model 66, .357 Magnum) and I have to say that I have never even heard of the "shoot to wound" or "shoot to kill" philosophy being taught or as a matter of policy. Shoot for center mass to stop the threat sums it up for most of us. Whether the bad guy lives or dies as a result is not relevant as the only goal is to stop the threat.

Are you sure that those old timers weren't pulling your leg and having a little fun at your expense?
:D
 
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Smaug

New member
That bit about 38s bouncing off windshields that Skelton talked about. I wonder if that was the basis for that one line in one of the Dirty Harry movies? (the one with the woman, Harry said something like: "A 38 is no good in this town, I've seen them bounce off windshields."

That, or it actually was documented to happen enough to make police change calibers.

Personally, I think police should be using 45 ACP w/185 gr hollow points. If they can't handle that recoil out of a modern auto pistol, they shouldn't be cops anyway.
 
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sasquatch

New member
Personally, I think police should be using 45 ACP w/185 gr hollow points. If they can't handle that recoil out of a modern auto pistol, they shouldn't be cops anyway.
Click to expand...

Some people are more sensitive to recoil than others......just the way it is.

If a cop shoots well with a 9mm or .40S&W, or a .38 for that matter, what is the difference? Just because someone can shoot a .45 ACP well doesn't make him/her a good cop. In fact, some of the cops I've seen who carry a .45 seem to think that they are unstoppable. Not a very smart mindset.
 
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