Some astounding facts on handgun Stopping Power:
[B]eing shot with a handgun is fatal only about 5% of the time, and result[s] in serious medical damage approximately 15% of the time. It has even been estimated that survival rates after being shot in the heart are roughly 50%.
Overpenetration — shooting through one target and hitting another — isn’t a problem — because hitting the intended target is so unlikely:
And according to NYPD SOP-9 (Standard Operating Procedure #9) data, in the year 2000, only 9% of shots fired by officers engaged in gunfights actually hit perpetrators. In the same year, there were a total of 129 “shooting incidents” (including non-gunfights, such as officers firing at aggressive dogs, unarmed or fleeing perpetrators, etc.), 471 total shots fired by officers, 367 shots fired at perpetrators, and 58 total hits on perpetrators by police. So when non-gunfight shooting data is added, the rate at which police hit what they aim at in real life situations is still only 15.8%.