From: " Luiz Felipe "
Since some may be wondering about my comment on ammunition and
lawyers, I decided to post some explanation about the matter. Sorry
if this upsets any of you still further - I do think this is best as
a no-reply post.
A lot of research was put by military into how deep some bullet would
go after hitting flesh and bone - and not at all with good
intentions, but knowledge is as good or evil as we use it. For self
defense situations, the best ammunition is one that would stay inside
the person - not endangering anyone behind it and very often not seen
by the shooter.
Military would like the opposite, assuming anyone behind the enemy
would be enemy as well, but anyone trying to do as little damage as
possible can use that research - and I did choose my weapons with
care. I have lots of respect for life, human above all, and only
clear and specific threats to mine own or my family's would have me
shooting at someone else.
Actually, the military uses FMJ ammunition because of the Hague
Convention of 1899. That convention was essentially a contract between
the signatories not to use expanding or hollow-point ammunition in wars
between themselves (Declaration III).
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/dec99-03.asp
According to prejudices of the day, the wound characteristics of FMJ
ammunition was considered more "humane" on the battlefield.
We continue to adhere to the convention for several reasons.
We don't want to face expanding or hollow-point ammunition on the
battlefield, so refrain from introducing it ourselves. And logistically,
it's more effective to use one ammunition, even with known limitations,
in all situations; simplifies load out as well as training.
Over-penetration is not desirable in military ammunition for several
reasons, chiefly because the bullet that penetrates completely through
an enemy soldier might not stop him immediately or permanently. There is
little or no likelihood that a penetrating round will hit another enemy
soldier after passing through the first one, so that's not a
consideration at all.
What the military wants is stopping power; a round to knock the enemy
soldier to the ground and render him incapable of continuing the fight.
NATO doctrine states an incapacitating wound is more desirable than a
kill on the battlefield, because a kill removes one enemy soldier from
the battle, while a wound removes not only the wounded soldier, but
whoever comes to the wounded soldier's aid.
It doesn't seem to actually work in practice in most of the wars we
fought in the latter half of the 20th century and beyond, but it's still
doctrine.
Most of the research into ammunition and wound ballistics conducted by
the military is intended to find a bullet that meets the requirements of
the Hague Convention of 1899, but will still transfer most or all of its
kinetic energy to the "target", i.e. go in and not come back out.
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
[email protected]
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
