People Kill People. But the Bullets Seem to Matter. - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/27/upshot/deadly-bullets-guns.html Article is a few days old, but thought it might make for an interesting discussion.

I don't even know where to begin. There's almost no accurate information in this article at all.

That is the core argument of this piece though, is it not? They're driving at the point that higher caliber guns are correlated with more fatal shootings, which may have had an impact on overall homicide rates. What about it is inaccurate?

The whole article is just stuffed full of misconceptions and misunderstandings. There's no substance to any of it. It's presenting the idea that some bullets are deadlier than others as if that's a new concept. If that was a new concept, there wouldn't be literally hundreds of different calibers on the market. But it's also trying to suggest that the trend toward "larger bullets" is recent. It isn't, and bullet diameter doesn't determine lethality, either.

The article doesn't make much sense at all. Aside from their terrible knowledge of firearms history the data doesn't prove that bigger bullets are more deadly, it proves that more criminals use larger caliber hand guns to commit crimes. Shot placement is everything when it comes to someone surviving a gun shot or dieing. A .38 super, which uses the same bullet diameter as a 9mm has as much energy at the muzzle as a .45 acp, and will hit harder because it's traveling at a much higher velocity. Big calibers as a choice for criminals falls along the lines of "bigger is better", and up until the development of bonded hollow points that was indeed the case. But now you have 9mm rounds that expand to the same diameter as a .45 and hot harder because they're traveling much faster. You're avarage gangbanger isn't going to drop $25 on some decent hollow points when you can buy a box of FMJ for half the price, and when it comes to FMJ .45 will perform better, but not by much.

(Following up on previous post to quote a couple things) The article states that people started purchasing more, not that it was invented first, right? Source? Is it the most common because it's super cheap? Do you think the higher caliber is a factor here as well?

This is a Facepunch gun thread - do you seriously think there will be a discussion?

.45 has been a staple since its invention. It took 9mm a long time to dislodge .45 in the US market. Smaller cartridges (never .22, but .25, .32, .380) enjoyed popularity from the 20s through the 90s because people tended to want the smallest possible firearm to fit comfortably in pockets. When baggy clothes became popular, suddenly you could conceal a larger gun. I don't have access to hard data, but I can promise you .22 was never the leading caliber in crime. It's the most common because it's super cheap, yeah. The caliber has nothing to do with it. Criminals expect to have to lob their gun into a ditch after using it, so they are going to find the cheapest possible thing that works. Today it happens to be the Hi-Point, which happens to be .45 because it's a simple blowback action. In the 80s and 90s it was the Bryco/Jennings/Raven .25s. From the 50 to the 60s it was .32 revolvers and .380 palm pistols. In the 30s and 40s it was compact .38s.

I think this makes a fine case for why each caliber is more common, but it doesn't seem to actually address the correlation of fatality rates. Yes, the data shows a greater volume of these ammunitions used in crime, but it also shows the larger calibers have a higher mortality rate in addition to volume of use. You claim that its really about design, but there is still a clear correlation with fatality and caliber based on the presented data. The 9mm is more widely used for sure, but it also caries a 20% higher fatality rate vs the .380. The same is true for the other examples. How do you explain this?

I was looking at the chart wrong, my apologies. It does show that .45 has a higher (+10%) lethality rate in their sample. I would infer this to be a property of .45 FMJ's tendency to tumble and disintegrate, spewing fragments of its jacket throughout the wound channel. Additionally, .45's accuracy drops off harshly at range, which may skew the results, as a 9mm is more likely to hit but inflict a nonlethal injury, whereas at the same distance a shot taken with a .45 might miss entirely and would not be counted at all. The chart also doesn't say whether it's only looking at single GSW incidents or if it includes situations where someone has been shot multiple times as a fatality. Regardless, lethality is not simply a factor of bullet diameter. Note that .32 is more lethal than .38 and .380 and almost as lethal as .40 in this sample.

Never go full tudd. https://sleeplessthought.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/alg-robertdowneyjr-jpg.jpg

"Bigger bullets kill things better" I mean any person can figure that out just by looking at them, this is just automatically obvious That isn't to say they're factually across the board more deadly, or that large means its better. Every individual caliber has its place use in guns. At the end of the day, they're all high speed rocks being thrown by compressed gas. You could even argue that higher calibers could, in specific cases, be less deadly, because they could punch clean through instead of landing inside your body, possibly breaking apart. Regardless, if you're a criminal and WANT to KILL, you're going to go with the biggest bullet you can get, because logic will nearly always take the simplistic route

Cue criminals buying muskets and whatnot cos bigger bullet make people deader Even as someone who doesn't own guns, this is a rather half-arsed analysis. Bullet velocity and design also matter a considerable amount in lethality.

By the logic of this article, the bullets fired by AR-15 type weapons should be largely non-lethal based on diameter alone.

And in practicality, they are more often than not illegal for hunting because of how small they are.

Yeah man, me and my squad be rockin 75 cals all day and aint no one fuckin with us. Here's a pic of us fuckin up some crips: https://i0.wp.com/militaryhistorynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Butler_Lady_Quatre_Bras_1815.jpg

There is a common fudd-lore myth / urban legend going "The .223/5.56 is designed to wound" That myth exists because people went from firing the full sized battle rifle round (7.62x51mm) to 5.56, and some soldiers validated it by hypothesizing that it is better to wound the enemy, because then instead of just removing one combatant by killing them, you effectively remove two because you wound one and it takes another to tend to him.

Have you considered that their academic source might be more accurate than what you think is true?

Worth considering is how common/popular HP and other expanding munitions are vs FMJ and the likes with each calibre. As far as I understand it, they are increasingly so the larger the calibre. Also, something that chart doesn't account for is how many of these fatalities are from execution-style shots at close range against a victim who isn't running away or shooting back - ie unaware or otherwise incapacitated - and whether the calibre of a firearm might have any relation to how it is used.

Also the article literally directly states that criminals on the black market are paying MORE for high caliber weapons. Did you just ignore that completely? .45 hi-points might be cheap legally but the black market demand makes them expensive.

The article also makes that statement generally, and doesn't break it down by make & model. In any case, it only confirms that there's a larger demand for weapons of those calibres (because black-marketeers will exploit that demand) due to a perception that firearms of greater calibre are more dependable - It doesn't establish a correlation between this perception, and their actual lethality. But because Hi-Points are the cheapest ones available, it's reasonable to assume they'll be the cheapest .45s available on the black-market - quite possibly even cheaper than many of the more trusted 9mm designs. Why shell out for a 9mm Beretta or FN if Johnny 1200 guns is selling a .45 Hi-Point for half the price?

No it doesn't? That graph clearly shows that larger calibers are used in far more lethal than non-lethal shootings. It doesn't necessarily prove that bigger bullets are more deadly, but it does support that idea. It definitely doesn't prove that criminals are using larger caliber hand guns to commit more crimes, did you even look at the graphs? Most of the gun crime (in boston) is being done with 9mm rounds. Kind of looks like you're working from the base assumption the researchers don't know how to interpret data.

Half assed doesn't even being to cover it. Basically no research was done other than looking at blended data and then drawing conclusions not based on reality much less based on the metrics themselves. If they were actually trying to prove or conclude anything of worth other than political handwringing they would have looked at the literal metric fuckton-mountain of data from mexican sources. There's also zero granularity on types of crimes committed and the aim of those crimes which absolutely matters. The NYT literally published a junior high :thinking: piece.

https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/230446/beb4e77d-f187-43cc-96fa-685beaf1f4c4/image.png Chicago's Most Popular Crime Guns — A Visual Analysis

...This isn't about 'academic sources', these are basic facts. Let's take a couple examples. If all the shooters in Boston had used the types of guns in circulation with the biggest bullets, the homicide rate could have been 43 percent higher, the researchers calculated recently, even with the same people committing exactly the same crimes. Here's the thing: I read through the study, and its sample pool was assaults involving firearms where one or more parties sustained gunshot wounds. So it's not comparing crimes and determining that if X caliber was used, the event was Y more likely to result in a homicide- it was comparing gunshot wounds, and concluding that bigger bullets make you more dead, which is not very surprising. Do you see the difference? If their research is comparing people struck with 9mm versus people struck by .45, it's not going to take into account people who weren't hit by .45s because of the round's higher recoil and lower capacity, so it's not going to give us an accurate picture of how the calibers used affect the outcome of crime. The logic here could just as legitimately be used to argue that if every criminal was armed with a single-shot muzzle-loaded .75-caliber musket, Boston's homicide rate would go through the roof, because a Minie ball is highly likely to kill you if it hits. Over recent decades, the size of bullets fired by the typical handgun has increased. Changes in design have made it easier to fire big bullets from concealable weapons, and manufacturers have marketed more powerful guns as better tools for self-defense. The most popular calibers for defensive handguns are 9mm and .380, displacing .38 Special (comparable to 9mm), .357 Magnum, and .45. Concealed carry has also risen while open carry has dropped considerably, leading a push for smaller handguns in lighter calibers. And advances in gun technology caused a new generation of weapons to hit the market — and eventually the streets. The newer guns, which started to become common in the 1990s, were semi-automatic. Lorcin, Bryco, Jennings, Phoenix, and AMT, the 'Ring of Fire' manufacturers, were making guns in the 70s and 80s. These were predominantly semi-automatic handguns in .32 and .380. They represented 'gun technology' literally from the 1900s- straight blowback semi-automatic. And instead of buying guns that fired smaller bullets, people started purchasing ones that fired rounds that were 9 millimeters wide, about 0.35 inches, then 0.40 and 0.45 inches. .45 was the American Standard since World War fuckin' One. It was the most popular civilian handgun caliber following WW2, while 9mm had a stigma of being considered too weak. They can't even get the chronology straight. .40 didn't exist until the early-90s. “In general, the criminals who are using guns in crime do want the higher-caliber, more lethal weapons, and want the newest and sexiest,” said Roseanna Ander, the founding executive director of the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago. “But there is a big markup, and they sometimes can’t get them.” This is highlighting a significant point that has been glossed over: Criminals going after high-caliber handguns doesn't mean they're more effective. Criminals are not soldiers. Most have little to no experience with firearms. A .44 Magnum is a hell of a lot more imposing-looking than a 9mm, but it's objectively an inferior choice if you want to kill someone. Bigger rounds can have their drawbacks for shooters, particularly when loaded into compact handguns. Because the bigger ammunition tends to fire with more explosive power, the .40- and .45-caliber handguns that some Boston criminals were using can have strong recoil that can make them hard to handle or to aim subsequent shots. The trade-off between caliber and aim is, in part, why the F.B.I. and many police departments carry 9-millimeter guns rather than larger alternatives. But accuracy seemed a less important consideration for the Boston criminals in the data the researchers examined. Unlike police shootings, most of the shootings in the sample involved a single bullet wound. ?????????????? They get so close, in recognizing that larger calibers have tradeoffs that make a significant difference in how these firearms are used, and then say it doesn't matter because 'most of the shootings in the sample involved a single bullet wound'. Oh, so most of the victims received a single bullet wound, therefore... the respective likelihood of each caliber to actually hit and inflict a wound doesn't matter? The fuck is that supposed to mean? Comparing the respective lethality of different calibers is valid, useful, and legitimate research. Trying to then springboard into proselytizing about how gun deaths could be reduced is where this turns into bullshit, and it's a perfect example of how gun research tends to be misused by people with an agenda to push.

I found this helpful graph comparing muzzle velocity and force between various calibers: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/240966/070b37f9-3bba-4464-8a28-58070712573f/pistol-caliber-chart-ammo-and-gun-collector-handgun-cartridge-comparison-download.jpg Posting it in case anyone would like some actual numbers instead of wild assertions.

I'm working from the assumption that they didn't account other factors such as the types of encounters and the ranges they're used at. 9mm is by far the cheapest of the big 3 self defense calibers. They have the least recoil of the 3, offer the greatest capacity for a given side, and have the greatest variety of ammunition available. If your goal is a drive by it's the perfect choice, which means you're going to spray and not care vs. aim and be accurate. Even the largest of .45's have more kick than most micro 9mm's, and generally have significantly less capacity. That means if you want your rounds to do damage you have to either get up close and personal or take your time to aim. Anyone who has spent an appreciable amount of time with firearms can tell you this, and it's no secret that 9mm is going to rule the day as far as pistol calibers used in crime. However, fundamentally when it comes to handgun calibers they all act pretty much the same as far as actual damage to the human body when we compare apples to apples. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/105/f5b220e0-1339-4f44-a141-7675945bf3c4/9_40_45One_04-1.jpg This means that there are outside factors that the researchers either neglected to include or intentionally left out. Given the quality of the article I'm inclined to believe that latter.