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stroo wrote:One of the four safety rules that I was taught and which I teach to anyone I take shooting the first time is "know your target and what's behind your target." That covers both pass throughs and missed shots.

I think we were all taught that but, you may or may not have luxury of the "what's behind" part in a defensive shoot. Hunting, yes; target shooting, yes; plinking, yes. In a slit second life/death decision- a slight MAYBE.

And yes you will be liable for any bullet you shoot that hits an innocent bystander whether it goes through the person you are shooting at or misses the person you are shooting. You are responsible for every bullet you shoot!

I'd take the chance of being sued over a pass through... over being dead, any day. What are you going to do if you are under fire in a crowded area? I'm not getting shot dead waiting and hoping for traffic to clear behind him. The reality (as ugly as it is) if you don't shoot and then get shot, you also allow lots of others to potentially get killed as well. If the situation permits an extra second, I suppose I may drop to a knee and shoot "up" at him. effectively clearing the are behind with height, although that presents another set of possibilities and potential problems.

It's not an easy scenario, nor is it completely black and white.

I think you boys missed my point... it was that you would need to change over to very anemic ammo or caliber to prevent a pass through... not that what any of us carry is anemic (quite the opposite, as you both pointed out)

I don't buy into the pass through argument at all. I have read a number of articles over the years that cited gunfight data from LEO and ABC agencies that all gave a relatively low number of percentage of hits. So if statistically speaking more shots miss than hit, you can't worry about a hit that may pass through. And if you still do, you'd have to shoot a really anemic load or caliber to guarantee no exit... and to get there you would still have to be a supreme operator to guarantee no misses... oh wait, even our very best can miss under that kind of pressure with a moving target!

Bottom line is that you should not worry about a pass through, but since a miss won't stop an attacker and is a real liability, train to minimize that possibility instead.

Way more folks get struck by lightning each year than people that have to worry about preforming perfectly under pressure in a life/death situation and then have a round pass through the intended target into another person.

And lets say all that falls into line and you can see it develop in front of you... would you NOT shoot/stop an active shooter because you might catch someone else on the pass through??? (also realizing that a pass through would have exhausted much /most of it's energy going through the first person- so the chances of it doing major damage to the 2nd is diminished considerably)