A thing seems to be going around calling hollow point bullets "safety rounds", saying that Kyle Rittenhouse's self-defense claim would be better if he'd had HPs instead of full metal jacket ammunition in his gun. This was brought up by the prosecution (which seemed to believe that HPs are incendiary and explode on impact, which is... very dumb), so I get why people are talking about it.
But it's wrong on at least 3 counts:
- Never personally heard anyone call HPs "safety rounds". and they are only really "safer" in the sense that they are designed to break apart on impact, which means that it's less likely for the bullet to pass through a target and hit anything behind it.
However, bullets that break apart in the body are worse for the person who got shot, by quite a lot.
Not that anyone would want to be shot ever, but if you are, you'd much prefer FMJs to HPs, because the former is likely to go clean through or, if not, could be pulled out of you by a doctor. Shards of a bullet cannot be easily removed and they do much more damage.
It used to be a talking point for anti-gun people to make them illegal because they are more harmful. Now they seem to have flipped just for this specific case. - Hollow points are not at all common for the standard calibres you'll normally see with AR-15s - 5.56 and .223. It's unlikely that any sporting goods store or gun store you find will even have any in stock, and if they do, they will be several times more expensive.
Right now, looking online, .223 HP seems to be basically out of stock everywhere and if you did find some, it would be $1.25/rd. vs. FMJs, which are in stock various places and cost more like $0.70/rd.
So... I'd be willing to bet price and literal unavailability played the biggest role in ammunition choice here. - It doesn't matter either way. Both types of ammunition are dangerous. Neither should be fired from a gun outside of a training context, except in defense. And self-defense is a question of whether or not the person firing the weapon was in immediate danger, which I think it should be clear that KR was.
The FMJ issue may play a role in a reckless endangerment charge, but I don't see how it's relevant to self-defense.