Ballistics FMJ vs Hollow Point Wound Diagram Jim Cirillo, a New York City cop who survived many gunfights, once wrote, “The only one-shot stops I ever saw were a .38 Special Super Vel hollow point and a 12 gauge slug. Both shots were to the brain.” Two other cops, Evan Marshall and Ed Sanow, authored three books examining one-shot stops from defensive handguns. Their work is shrouded in controversy for several reasons, but something that cannot be ignored is that they found multiple instances with every common defensive handgun cartridge where one-shot stops had occurred. Keep in mind their study was about one-shot stops, not one-shot kills. It is most important to recognize that Marshall and Sanow did not find a single cartridge that had not produced multiple one-shot stops. How could that be? How could small caliber, pipsqueak guns stop attacks? The answer is simple; pain and fear. Police officers know that pain compliance is an important tool. They are issued batons and peppe...