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Saturday, March 13, 2010

The use of Less than Lethal Ammo

Hi FerFAL,

What is your opinion concerning the use of 12 gauge rubber bullets or buckshot for home defense ? A cop told me it's very painful at close range. Wouldn't it be appropriate to kick burglars out of you home without the risk to go to jail ? It could be fired from a coach gun, which is easier to move arround with than a regular shotgun.

I'm sorry I went ballistic about peak oil on your blog but people don't seem to understand the basic principles of thermodynamics. Our only hope is nuclear fusion I guess.

....

I figured that the answer to my question about rubber bullets was in your book but I'm still some pages away from the shotgun topic.

Did you ever get robbed by teenagers or children, and would you have used LTL rounds on them ?

Bye,
Etienne

For self defense, specially if someone broke into your home as you said, use lead ammo, dont use LTL! Having said that I think that LTL plastic buckshot or bean bags can be more useful than people think.
It gives you a very serious yet non lethal (if used properly) alternative.
I think a perfect example could be seen recently in Chile.
Also during the Argentine riots of 2001, the gun store I frequent run out of LTL pretty fast, mostly store owners rushing to get ready in case looters went after their store as they saw happening to others on TV.
While the use of LTL in the hands of civilians is mostly a niche situation, it can occur and it could have been put to good use both in Argentina back then and in Chile.

Now, this niche situation is peculiar: You’d be dealing with desperate people, you’d have a defendable position not easily overrun and you should have the time to deploy it.
What I do is keep my Mossberg 12 ga. shotgun loaded with a first round of NÂș1 birdshot, the largest bird shot pellet available.
At inside the house range it blows a big ugly hole into a body. Yes, I know what they say about bird shot being for birds, the problem with that little saying is the way it conflicts with the reality of 12 ga of any kind being used at across the room range.
The following 4 rounds are 00 buckshot and with a total capacity of 6, it leaves what is commonly reffered as a “hole”, one empty space to load a round from the stock shell carrier. That’s where I keep the LTL round.
Lets say you have looters walking your way, you are behind an improvised barricade you made with your neighbors or you are watching from a top floor window, or some other position that gives you some security and tactical advantage in the encounter.
“Share your food with us. “
“No I cant. “
“Do it or we’ll take it by force. “
“I would recommend that.”
The looters come forward and you drop a couple with a LTL round.
This could end up two ways:
a) They leave b) They don’t and you have to pump the shotgun again, this time drop them for good.
Again, this situation is pretty peculiar, more typical of disasters when there’s a period of lawlessness, but at least in my opinion, it is worth considering in your armed self defense plans.

The advantages are many: You don’t take a life, which you should care even if it’s a looter or someone that would likely kill you to get what he/she wants.
You don’t have a corpse to deal with.
You don’t risk murder charges when order is restored. You DO risk a lawsuit none the less, poor mister looter will say he was picking up daisys when you just shot him for fun. Again, better than a murder trial and any judge and jury with half a brain will see that you decided to load a lethal weapon with a LTL ammo, that alone talks about how you are a caring human being that will do absolutely everything he can before taking the gravest decision.
Finally, if you DO end up using lethal ammo, the LTL wounds or spend shell will be again proof that you tried to do everything you could before taking another man’s life.
This is at least, my opinion regarding LTL ammo and what I do myself. I’d highly recommend plastic buckshot for these situations, used at more than 10 yards away, shooting to the floor and looking for the pattern to bounce and spread, hitting as many looters as possible. That’s the operation procedure described in my box of Less Than Lethal Fabricaciones Militares buckshot.

PS: Guys, I’m doing my best to answer all emails, either personally or through the blog, I do get a lot of it and its sometimes hard to do so but it’s a blog after all and the interaction with readers ( at least to me) is important. Please be patient and give me some time, send your question again if I somehow missed it. It may take a couple of weeks but I do answer.

FerFAL

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

salt rounds no longer allowed in NY according to my dealer.

:(

Joseph said...

I believe...but don't quote me on this...that use of LTL rounds in the US is legally considered to be on a par with use of regular ammo.

Anonymous said...

I'd say the niche situations are even more niche, a normal shot via shotgun or any type of gun, that ricochets close to the person your trying to warn. Is pretty damn intimidating. A lot of countries that can't afford rubber bullets do this.

But definitely the intimidation factor of being 'shot' would make one rethink ones attack. Only later would they realize it was a non lethal round.

For looters in Chile, who are just taking advantage of the situation. And can intimidate people with knives or even a pistol to hand over their belongings. Shooting them with lethal ammo is entirely unnecessary and is actually foolish, you didn't handle the situation properly. The more civilized one is the less he should resort to violence. You risk revenge attacks if you kill anyone in addition to jail time. You will need to justify killing someone in a court of law, remember that. In such a situation you aren't alone in your house and its not your word against the perps, in a public situation like that there are alot of witnesses and the police will find out what really happened, not the story you tell yourself to justify your actions.

Incidentally this supports the use of magazine fed weapons, seeing as one can easily switch between non-lethal rounds and lethal rounds. Which would reflect the period in a conflict where intimidation ends and fighting for your life begins.

Etienne said...

Thank you for the quick answer !

Police forces use LTL ammo against looters, so why shouldn't we ?

Rubber buckshot rounds are said to be louder than reguler rounds for an additionnal fear factor, anyone can confirm this ?

APX said...

Anonymous said "Only later would they realize it was a non lethal round."

That point is key, because the attacker could be carring too.

A few weeks ago, here in Argentina a guy with his family found a roadblock used to rob the ones who stoped.

This guy stoped to remove the roadblock but he made a warning shot to the air before, the robbers instantly killed him.

In the time you pump your shotgun a guy can hit you.

My 2 cents.

Anonymous said...

No need for scare tactics.

Any 'warning' shot must be done behind cover. Whether with rubber or metal bullets. It is incredibly obvious that if you fire at someone they will fire back, if they have a gun. But do they want to shoot their way in? Not really, the just want to get away to safety.

What your talking about is specific situation the variables of which we just don't know. In anycase, I doubt the guy was behind cover when he got shot anyway.

Fredo said...

"For looters in Chile, who are just taking advantage of the situation. And can intimidate people with knives or even a pistol to hand over their belongings. Shooting them with lethal ammo is entirely unnecessary and is actually foolish, you didn't handle the situation properly."

Huh - so killing someone who is threatening to harm or kill you with a knife or a pistol is foolish. That has got to be the most idiotic comment I have seen in quite a while. Do you expect everyone to just hand over all their personal belongings to the looters? Or are the looters just poor, mis-understood individuals who really don't deserve getting the consequences of their choices?

"The more civilized one is the less he should resort to violence."

So police and military obviously aren't very civilized since all of their actions are based on the threat or realization of violence.

"You risk revenge attacks if you kill anyone in addition to jail time."

So I should be more concerned about some potential future threat than the person standing in front of me, threatening me?

"You will need to justify killing someone in a court of law, remember that. In such a situation you aren't alone in your house and its not your word against the perps, in a public situation like that there are alot of witnesses and the police will find out what really happened, not the story you tell yourself to justify your actions."

Witnesses go both ways. If someone is threatening me in front of numerous witnesses, my defense for killing him just got a whole lot easier.

Self defense in the US (excluding libtard areas such as California and Chicago) is pretty simple - did the person have a reasonable reason to feel at risk for death or serious bodily harm. If, God forbid, I am ever in such a situation, I will defend myself to the utmost extent possible, and that will not be using non-lethal ammo.

Canis Lupus said...

A guy in Chile :

"I've fired 500 of the 2,000 rounds of ammunition I've got," says Mr Orellana, who works for the Ministry of Public Works, showing off his gun licence.

"I fire over their heads to scare them off, and so far, it's worked."

Lawlessness after quake in Chile fishing village

Maybe if he used LTL rounds to shoot people, it would have been more efficient.

One could think that if Mr Orellana killed a dozen looters, maybe he would'nt have shot 500 rounds because people would have spread the word about the danger of looting in this area. But then he must have lived with it...