Let's bash all the fantasy information on the movie screen. This should be fun, but also educational because people learn visually, and we need to separate fantasy from reality.

I'll start with cover, pistols can shoot through doors, drywall, refrigerator doors, car doors, etc. Rifles are even better at it. So all this hiding behind the interior wall corner is not cover, it is concealment.

So in a car, the engine is good and the tires and windshield do a fair job of stopping bullets.

Look around your house and see where you have cover. A great habit to be in is know your surroundings: cover, concealment and exits. If trouble starts you will already know where to run, hide and escape.

Let's start with "registered handguns". I've seen this one going back to the 1960's and its still popular today.

There are actually some places where a handgun has to be registered, but its EXCEEDINGLY RARE!!!

Oldschool wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:54 pm So in a car, the engine is good and the tires and windshield do a fair job of stopping bullets.

I wouldn't count on a windshield much. Most handgun bullets made today are specifically designed to defeat windshields and still meet minimum soft tissue penetration. It will slow the bullet, but that bullet will still be quite lethal after going through the window. That is speaking of common combat pistol cartridges, obviously very small cartridges won't pull that off.

FrontSight wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 1:04 pm

Oldschool wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:54 pm So in a car, the engine is good and the tires and windshield do a fair job of stopping bullets.

I wouldn't count on a windshield much. Most handgun bullets made today are specifically designed to defeat windshields and still meet minimum soft tissue penetration. It will slow the bullet, but that bullet will still be quite lethal after going through the window. That is speaking of common combat pistol cartridges, obviously very small cartridges won't pull that off.

I have a lot of experience and training with this and your statement doesn't match my experience.

The angles deflect many rounds, the ones that do make it through have lost most of the energy and are usually broken into small pieces. Until bullets start to pass through an existing hole in the glass intact, they neither fly straight, stay intact or can penetrate reliably. If you have to shoot from inside to out, the technique is to use the first rounds to give you a port to fire through.

There are many videos on YouTube that demonstrate this. Do you have a source that says different?

Guns don't make noise every time you touch them. This one bugs the shit out of me.

Guns actually require reloading. And aiming.

Head shots on zombies are harder than they appear.

I hate it when you hear them click off or mention the safety on a Glock. Or show the front of a revolver with no ammo in it.

Oldschool wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 1:46 pm
There are many videos on YouTube that demonstrate this. Do you have a source that says different?

FBI's standard requirements. For common combat cartridges the factories adhere to the FBI's protocol's on ballistics performance. I have done a bit of shooting through autoglass, and I agree it does tear the hell out of bullets. But to meet FBI specs, they require 12" of penetration after going through auto glass.
https://brassfetcher.com/FBI%20Ammuniti ... tocol.html

You have your experience, I have mine. I personally wouldn't count on auto glass. I'd clearly use if it that's all I had, but I would be seeking actual cover.

That link actually says that bullets have to be specifically designed to go through auto glass and of the ones specifically designed for the FBI tests not all performed well.

Not trying to debate it, but I think the training community agrees that it is better than what is beside, behind or above you.

The unlimited shooting spree without reloading really bugs me. I count rounds fired sometimes. Just in case I run into Dirty Harry.

Hiding behind walls or desks and see the bullets not go through is also a big one.

I don't watch cops shows on TV for that very reason.

Many of the shoot outs are a joke, it's like all the pistols have extended 30 round mags. And how easy they make it look to shoot out tires on a speeding vehicle. Older movies and TV are even worse, few ever aimed they just pointed the pistol usually at the level of their lower lungs and pulled the trigger and the bad guy went down. It's often obvious when they're carrying a rubber stage gun, it doesn't sit right on their hip and doesn't hold the holster in a downward position.

I was rereading an old-ish Travis McGee novel a couple weeks ago, in which John D. MacDonald wrote something along the lines of McGee "listening while someone fired his fifty-six shooter in a tee-vee western."

I almost laughed out loud at the "Fifty-six shooter" comment.

tonguengroover wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:42 pm The unlimited shooting spree without reloading really bugs me.

Do you ever sit back and try to figure out how much all that ammo would weigh?

The machine guns with zero recoil are a laugh, especially when rappelling from a helicopter. They would be spinning like a top!

On defensive rounds vs. automotive glass - the testing is all performed at a 90 degree angle. When they say that it will penetrate glass, they mean the side windows or a vertical rear. They do not have to test against 30-45 degree inclined glass, where deflection is much more likely. I'm curious now, how much it deflects.

I can't get over how nobody wears ear protection but never has any problems with hearing after shooting.

The utter reliability of the one-shot stop.

I worked for a company that made bullet resistant materials for a few years. I was active with R&D and was the marksman that shot in all the customer demos.

Laminate Glass does a number on traditional bullets, they flatten and fragment. I have only shot up a few cars, but hundreds of windows.

A lot of people assume If the bullet goes through it is lethal, but when we shot a clear balistic dummies, penetration was often just an inch or two, not pleasant, but survivable.

The FBI test is only 1/4", flat and perpendicular as you mentioned. Real world that is easier than best case scenario. It is laminate glass so same construction as the windshield, not the typical side or rear.

The original armor piercing pistol ammo from the 80's was LAPD swat trying to develop something so the MP5 could defeat windshields. All the news media did was educate criminals that cops were vests and create a market for them.

Even rifles lose a lot going through laminate glass.

Couple things come to mind. Distance, velocity, construction of the bullet and angle of impact.
Certainly the new car bodies offer practically no resistance to a decent caliber bullet.

Got any data on .357 mag which is what I'm carrying a lot lately.

wings wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 7:36 am I can't get over how nobody wears ear protection but never has any problems with hearing after shooting.

VERY good one. I wear hearing protection RELIGIOUSLY, and I still have Tinitis. And guns going off indoors is REALLY loud, to the point of permanent hearing damage from just one or two shots.

I always used to tell people. If you use an AR or a magnum revolver, after the first shot indoors, everyone will be deaf and blind. I also joke that my Python comes with a built in flash-bang grenade.

When I worked as a paramedic, I saw first hand people who were hit by bullets that went through windshields. One of which was the most impressive display of shooting under stress I ever saw in that job.

A guy was trying to run down a motorcycle CHP officer with his car. Cop snapped up his 4006, and fired two rounds through the windshield. When I got there I found the patient VERY dead. One round went through the left eye socket, and the second round went through the left carotid artery. The head bullet didn't exit, but the carotid bullet did (although I couldn't inspect it since it was a crime scene).

I recall another crime scene where two people were murdered with a .45 ACP, through the windshield. Unknown weapon, there were 12 cases on the ground and two dead people in the car each with multiple shots to the upper torso and one was hit in the throat. Again all I did was declare them dead, and then I had to exit the crime scene.

Thanks FrontSight, I'll take that to heart.

We were always able to punch through with multiple shots by compromising the windshield so I am not surprised by the 12 rounds, but 2 rounds of 40 S&W being that effective is impressive.

It bugs me when the guns and shell cases don't match. It is bad enough when the casings are obviously crimped blanks but in the Matrix when Neo is shooting two Scorpion pistols and it shows piles of 5.56 brass hitting the floor it sucks my brain out of the story every time.

Here's a personal favorite of mine.

Scantily clad hottie is running around in a skin tight leopard suit all day. And when the shooting starts, she somehow whips out a Desert Eagle. STOP...Where did that come fro... Or where have you been hiding thaa.... Wait, do I really want to know?

While on the subject of the Desert Eagle... Can that thing just go away? I mean let's be honest. No one has ever taken that gun seriously as defensive weapon. NO ONE would ever carry that massive POS unless they feel they have to prove something.

I hate the desert eagle, everyone I know who had one, had trouble getting it to run and sold it.

So I guess the moral to the story is don't try and stand in front a car speeding at you and try to stop it with a pistol round. Like in cop shows.