The media just cannot get it right: "Special bullets" used in UK shooting

Steve Johnson
by Steve Johnson

I read this on the BBC News website:

‘Special bullets’ killed Menezes

Specialised bullets designed to kill instantly were used by the police marksmen who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, the Old Bailey has heard.

The bullets “immediately incapacitate” the victim and flatten, rather than pass through the other side of a body, the jury was told.

Of course these are simply hollow point bullets. The same type of bullet millions around the world use for hunting, self defense, policing and plinking every day.

The media just cannot get it right.

“The bullet flattens on impact and immediately incapacitates the target,” he told the court.

The British army invented JHPs (Jacked Hollow Points)

The hollow-point bullet, and the soft-nosed bullet, are sometimes also referred to as the dum-dum, so named after the British arsenal at Dum-Dum, near Calcutta, India, where it is said that jacketed, expanding bullets were first developed.

(From Wikipedia)

If you really want you can read the BBC article here.

Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson

I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!

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  • Tam Tam on Nov 30, 2008

    No, this is the BBC we are talking about. Anti-Police, Anti-Israel, Anti-America (just witness the amount of their journalists ending up in Al Jazeera).

    They would usually just call them Infidel American bullets

  • Josh j Josh j on May 18, 2009

    dum dum... I believe dum duming is cuting an x deep into soft lead ammo to make it expand on that axis.
    I have seen and tried it my self, however according to wiki you were right
    if you look at premium hollow points the jacket has slits to make the bullet mushroom or petal.

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