Isn’t it helpful when a criminal makes a cop’s work so much easier?
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy . . .
(Of interest is that after taking a shotgun blast at point-blank range to the leg, the crook was still able to run across the street and hide. So much for the Hollywood portrayal of a shotgun as a fearsome weapon that’ll blow a man clean off his feet!)
Peter
It is helpful when the bad guys take care of shooting themselves. Very considerate, I thought.
To be fair to the shotgun, though, we don’t know what gauge of shotgun (my mother’s old .410 has less power in most loadings than a .38spl), nor where on the leg, nor at what angle. There’s a huge difference between a contact wound through the thigh with a 12 gauge on the one hand, and giving yourself a “racing stripe” with a .410 dove load on the other.
I’ve hunted a couple dozen hogs and deer with a 12 gauge, and probably a hundred or more coyotes as well. With one exception, I’ve never had a mammal struck with buckshot or slugs in the thorax at close range (out to 15 yards) that got more than 10 or 15 yards after the shot. There was one pig, though, that wasn’t impressed, and he made it about 120 yards before piling up. Hits behind the diaphragm, or at a distance where the buckshot only delivered a percentage of payload? Same follow-up as any other caliber.
There are NO magic wands, as you point out. Shotgun is still my favorite at close range, though, and my only choice when I go fishing in wilderness Alaska in the fall. I suppose my .458 Lott would work too, but I hate to expose it to the kicking-about that my gear seems to accumulate up there.
FormerFlyer
WARNING! SARCASM ALERT! After giving this a lot of thought, I have come to a conclusion. Now, it's sort of "edgy" but I think it will work. The best way to avoid sustaining a gunshot wound, self-inflicted or otherwise, while robbing others, is to resist the temptation to attempt to take things that aren't yours. This may not be a popular approach, but I think it bears investigating…
It also makes a huge difference what load of 12 gauge one is shooting. I remember reading a story of self defense (or in this case, failed self defense) where both criminal and victim were armed with 12 gauges. Criminal used 00 buck and victim used #7 bird shot. Victim managed to shoot the criminal twice with his gun, once to the face and once to the chest, IIRC. Criminal lived, with the loss of an eye and some scarring. The victim died from a blast to the chest/neck area.