Why don't cops die when people shoot them?

An explanation.

1. Vests and penetration
2. Ammunition and wound channels
3. Shot placement

Police, especially when in riot gear, wear bullet proof vests. Almost every vest will effectively stop dozens of handgun rounds before failing. The force may cause bruising or slight organ damage but If a bullet doesn't penetrate then it can't kill the target.

3A rated armor is standard for beat cops; It will not stop a rifle round.

However, most shootings involve handguns as they are easier to conceal and more portable.

Rifle bullets are sometimes smaller than handgun bullets but rifle cartridges always have much more gunpowder. This means rifle rounds are significantly faster than pistol rounds. This affects both penetration and size of wound.

Target practice from a glock 9mm handgun at 20 yards. If this were a person wearing a vest they would probably live.

The standard rule is to shoot for the legs or the head if a target is armored. However those are much harder shots.

Additionally there are different types of ammo primarily FMJ (full metal jacket) and (JHP) or hollow points. A cheap training round, fmj is basically just a slug that goes straight through the target. A hollow point expands on impact creating a larger wound (see pic 3)

A wound channel is the tissue damage to the body when the bullet hits the target. Here is an example diagram of a wound channel created by a jacketed hollow point 5.56 round.

Compare these wound channel diagrams. 9mm and. 45acp are both handgun rounds. The 5.56 and larger are rifle rounds. The chart also includes 12 gauge #00 buckshot.

Notice how small the wound cavity of the handgun rounds is compared to other rounds.

The human body is mostly water so it's quite elastic. When shot, the tissue and skin moves out of the way then returns back to its original position. Rifle rounds however are fast enough to tear because the tissue isn't elastic enough to stretch against a shot ~2200 fps or faster

Going back to the 'legs or head' rule, a handgun bullet through the thigh will hurt but it won't kill unless it severs the femoral artery.

Aiming a handgun requires great practice. Hitting a target in the head is not something as simple as a video game. Thinking about shot placement and wound channels this explains many police do not die after being shot.