[NotJim]

Just a note on shooting from inside a pocket:

I would do that ONLY under the most exigent circumstances.

Even very ordinary fabrics can do wild things to a projectile's trajectory. A bullet striking fabric, especially loose fabric at a low angle, can be slowed, stopped, or most likely redirected by the fabric in unpredictable ways.

There's a video floating around of an Iranian insurgent who is shot-up by American forces while attempting to launch an RPG at them. In the video, the path of one of the bullets that struck the unfortunate fellow can be clearly seen as it passes out of his back (having entered from the front) and is redirected by his shirt, straight downwards into the pavement, where it strikes with enough force to produce a bright incandescence. I have a copy of the clip somewhere, will dig it up on request.

I have seen a hanging wool blanket stop a (ricocheted) bullet that was moving fast enough to be thoroughly deadly. How do I know its speed? I don't really, but the spent bullet (140 gr FMJ .38) wound up lying on the ground beneath the blanket. It had produced a permanent conical stretch-zone in the old wool blanket that was about 8 inches deep. Curious how much impact was required for that effect, and while the slug was still hot, I fired it at the same blanket from a 'wrist-rocket' slingshot. The slingshot, as anyone who'd ever used one would know, launched that bullet at potentially-lethal velocity. It was stopped repeatedly by the blanket without leaving any mark whatsoever.

On the other hand, a friend was hit by his own .22LR ricochet, and had a wounded collarbone and a jacket with multiple holes to show for it. After bouncing off his clavicle and downwards, the bullet had passed through the wrinkles of his thin nylon jacket, making a string of a half-dozen holes. Strange.

Curtains, sheets, blankets, pants-legs, jackets, skirts... I regard them all as wild variables when it comes to a bullet's path. It may pass through and it may... whatever.