Stopping power is the term often used to describe the capacity of a firearm to incapacitate an attacker when he is shot. For at least 40 years gun writers have been absorbed with the issue of which handgun has stopping power or superior stopping power. My conclusion from researching the subject and consulting physicians and other experts is that no ordinary firearm has dependable stopping power. 

Before proceeding to address this, it is important also to clarify that I am talking about real physical stopping power not mere psychological stopping power. Physical stopping power means that being hit made the assailant physically incapable of continuing his attack. Mere psychological stopping power is when the attacker says to himself, "oh God, I've been shot" and lies down to die or be taken to a hospital. [This is, incidentally, a rational reaction. 85% of people shot survive if they receive medical care.] Psychological stops are probably more likely if the hit was with a .45 ACP than with a .22 short, but can  happen with either or any caliber in between.Massad Ayoob has autopsy photos of an offender who tried to outrun two Illinois state officers who were armed with 15-shot 9 mms. The photos show the offender having been hit 37 times between his head and his crotch. But he only stopped running when he bled out.

Numerous comparable incidents may be cited. Of course advocates of the .45 ACPs will dismiss them all as just proving the 9 mms.' ineffectiveness. Well, I am aware of an incident in which an officer survived being shot in the forehead with a .45 because the slug bounced off it. 

Or, consider the following case from my career as a lawyer. The offender was a skinny man of ordinary size who was neither drunk nor on drugs. But he was very, very angrily engaged in a neighborhood dispute. When my client and other officers attempted to search him he drew a Llama .380 which he picked up again after one officer knocked it from his hand. Unbeknownst to anyone, when the Llama fell it struck a rock which actuated its Colt-type magazine release, ejecting the slide and rendering the weapon inoperative because of its magazine safety. My client shot him eight times in the torso with a .45 ACP (1911A1). My client then took cover because the offender was still standing, pointing the Llama and vainly pulling its trigger. Eventually he lay down and died, having bled out.

"Well," you say, "your client should have been using hollow points."

He was!

Massad cites the following incident: NYPD, having reason to believe that a certain store was going to be held up, planted a shotgun-armed officer in a concealed position in the store. When a robber entered the store and pointed a handgun at the proprietor, the officer appeared from hiding and ordered him to drop the gun. Instead the robber turned and pointed his gun at the officer from a sideways position. The officer fired and the 12 gauge slug entered the robber's body through the arm pit, transited his chest (missing the heart and lungs) and exited from his other armpit breaking his arm. The robber got back up and ran two blocks, stopping only when the pursuing officer tackled him from behind. Incidentally, the robber survived.

Of course the foregoing are exceptional instances. In the great majority of cases where criminals confront armed victims the criminals flee. And in the great majority of cases where you shoot an attacker he will either lie down or flee. But you must also be prepared for the exceptional case.

An account of conduct for which the Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded provides the ultimate refutation of the idea of physical stopping power. A WWII soldier stepped on a mine which blew his feet off. He nevertheless advanced on his stumps, killing Germans until he eventually died.

WWII also provides an ultimate proof of the concept of psychological stopping power. On autopsy, from one to three percent of deceased soldiers were determined not to have been wounded at all. They had apparently died just from the effects of psychological stress.

 "Knock-down" power is a term also sometimes used to describe a firearm's capacity to incapacitate an attacker. But, we know that no firearm has literal "knock down" power. Given Newton's Law about "equal and opposite reaction", if a firearm had power enough to knock someone down, discharging it would generate a recoil which would knock down the person firing it.

My conclusion that no handgun is powerful enough to physically stop an assailant comes from Col. Martin Fackler, M.D., a battle surgeon and world class expert who until his retirement headed the Armed Forces' Wound Ballistic Laboratory. He cites an instance in which a victim shot at short range with a shotgun had his heart shredded yet managed to run 60 feet before collapsing.

Now technically there is a place on the body where a bullet strike will immediately physically stop an assailant. A bullet that penetrates through the eye and into the brain will shut everything down immediately. Note that that is ANY bullet. A .22 will do it just as reliably as a .45. The problem is that no one is trained for that kind of shooting because it just isn't practical. The brain is a very small and difficult target especially since people engaged in violent confrontations are liable to be moving their heads around. If you strike the head area and do not penetrate the brain a terrible wound is likely, but not an immediately incapacitating wound.

So defensive gun training emphasizes shooting for "he center of mass." i.e. the torso. Well, you may ask, a shot in the torso can strike the heart and won't that immediately incapacitate the attacker?

 No, it will not! A person hit in the heart has roughly 30 seconds to live which is enough time to get off multiple aimed shots - and there are many incidents in which this has been done.

And, of course, many times shots to the torso miss the heart even though penetrating the lungs or other vital areas. That means that the shot inflicts a possibly mortal wound. Yet that may do you no good if he retains the capacity to inflict a mortal wound on you.

Col. Fackler cites the experience of hunters that often animals shot through the heart nevertheless remain able to run for hundreds of feet. Attesting to his own experience he writes: "I liive on a 90 acre farm. I lease 75 acres to a farmer who has about 30 breeding beef cows and one bull. Two years ago, coyotes killed two of his newborn calves. So I put my 6PPC benchrest rifle on a sandbag just inside the glass door of my glassed-in back porch. Happened to spot a coyote walking across the pasture, I opened the door and she stopped long enough for me to get off a shot. She ran for about 30 yards and then collapsed. It was a 35 lb female, shot in the heart at 230 yards.

"Some years ago I hit a deer just forward of its heart with a .30-06 165 gr. This is 4-5 times the energy of a potent handgun round. It  severed all the blood vessels from heart to brain, and left about a 2" exit hole. The deer still ran about 30-40 yards before collapsing.

"I was told some years ago that FBI had a training program of some manner, one focus of which was 'just because you're shot doesn't mean you're dead.' It was an effort to counteract by training the natural response to being hit, which is to collapse regardless of whether the wound is physically incapacitating or not."

The lesson here is embodied in current F.B.I. doctrine: forget about "one shot stops;" fire until your opponent falls - and if he gets back up, resume firing.