[BlueTrain]

Wow, what a post! Among other things, it tends to make you think about exactly what you are trying to do, which is to shoot another human being, presumably with the intent to kill them. One cannot assume otherwise.

There are some interesting parallels with being stabbed with a knife or sword and there have also been some well written studies about that. The chief problem, which also applies to being shot, is that people often refuse to conform to our expectations with regards to injury. All the same, it is an easy matter to inflict a fatal wound. The problem is the difficulty of producing a quickly disabling wound. There are plenty of instances to prove both points and they are regularly reported in the paper, though not necessarily accurately.

Some of statements in the first post suggest that a full metal jacket would be the preferred load and in some instances it undoubtedly would be. There are plenty of people here who would agree the a .45 auto with a full metal jacket would take care of any problem they would care to tackle with a pistol, so they see no problem. Of course, at the same time, the problem is nothing like so simple as the illustrations suggest and besides, the target really goes all the way to the ground. And people don't always wear form fitting garments.

I'd like to also suggest a couple of things about headshots. It may be true that the skull is difficult to penetrate and a bullet will likely be deflected. But it is also true that a hit to the top of the head will almost certainly cause the person to drop like a rock. It is unlikely to be fatal even though it will be an awful looking wound and the individual is very likely to quickly recover enough to get up again almost right away. Nonetheless, such a hit is likely to cause such a reaction. And a person's head is almost always in view even when nothing else is.