Hollow-point bullets OK’d for post police - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Hollow-point bullets OK’d for post police

The Army’s provost marshal has approved the use of jacketed hollow-point bullets for law enforcement officers on Army installations in the U.S., a decision that comes after a gunman opened fire at the Pentagon in March and a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood in November, and almost a year to the day after the fatal shootings at Camp Liberty, Iraq.

The rounds are said to be more lethal and carry less risk for bystanders because they lose velocity on impact. The new policy, issued May 10, asserts installation police “require the tools necessary to secure our posts, camps, and stations from both internal and external active shooter threats.”

With hollow tips and several lines of weakness, these rounds deform and fragment upon striking a hard-tissue target. Mushrooming into a larger diameter, the rounds create a larger wound cavity but penetrates only up to 13 inches versus ball ammo, which penetrates up to 24 inches.

A 2009 study of hollow-point-related head wounds in the journal Military Medicine found that these would create tough wounds to treat. They found embolisms and bullet fragments in the path of the bullet. Without exit wounds, kinetic energy is transferred to the body, causing more damage. This ammo is barred from combat and allowed on overseas posts only on a nation-by-nation basis. Bullets that expand or flatten are banned by the Hague Convention of 1899, one of the first international statements of the laws of war.

Although it is controversial to some, hollow-point ammo is in wide use by law enforcement agencies around the country and on some Army posts. For instance, Army Criminal Investigation Command has used it since 1998. The new policy expands the standard to all Army law enforcement personnel.

In addition to CID, military police, special reaction team personnel, and Department of the Army civilian police and security guards are authorized to get it. The agencies will have to maintain a reserve of ball ammunition, but personnel will not be allowed to carry both at once.

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