Headscratchers / Lethal Weapon 3

• What the HECK happened to Delores!? She was at the beginning, showed up again briefly later, and then she was dropped from the story line all together. What happened?
  • She had nothing to do with the story whatsoever, other than the possibility of creating wacky misunderstandings or some sort of comic relief that Leo would be there for anyway. And considering Murtaugh was stuck in a Heroic BSoD, followed by an enraged He's Back!, there was absolutely no way she'd fit without being anticlimatic and a tired gag.

• So Lorna survives getting shot with Hollywood "cop killer" bullets by putting on two ballistic vests, even though they just easily punched through a solid steel bulldozer blade? That makes no sense even if you forgot that earlier in the movie, Riggs demonstrated the ammunition by shooting clean through a free-hanging vest. In case you're not following, that's two layers it went through in that scene, yet the same two layers somehow stopped the bullets cold at the end. Wait, what?
  • On top of that, she has offered evidence (in the form of various scars) that she's just as reckless as Riggs; she isn't the type to wear even one ballistic vest, never mind two. Even if she were, how would she manage to stand up, much less participate in a gunfight? Just one of those would be pretty freakin' heavy.
    • So let's run through those scars. One was from a knife attack (to the arm), another from being dragged down a road (same arm). There's not really any armour that'll protect you from those injuries to that area. Next up, a shot right through the shoulder. That's fine, she could well have been wearing a vest but that's designed to protect the vital organs, not parts moving away from the torso. Then there's a shotgun to the side of the abdomen, 12 gauge buckshot. Maybe she wore a vest but took a bunch of handgun rounds first, weakening the plates, then the shotgun penetrated through? Or she was forced to discard it for mobility reasons or something. Maybe she had to take it off to provide protection to an unarmed civilian or VIP after rescuing them. So there's enough room to speculate that she probably takes ballistic penetration seriously, even if Riggs didn't when he was shot nearly to death in the previous movie. And even if she hadn't before, certainly the wounds (particularly the shotgun blast) would make her take it seriously thereafter. Doubly so when the people they're going up against are known to carry armour piercing bullets, she's gonna carry as much plates as she physically can.
  • We don't get a good view of the vests she wearing, it's possible she had a trauma plate in one of them, and that's what stopped the bullet. And bulletproof vests are pretty heavy, but the real problem is the bulk: vests are about two inches thick. Putting on two of them would make her look like a blimp.
  • Bearing in mind the dismaying level of gun-related ignorance on display across the entire series, it's unlikely the writer knew trauma plates were even a thing, let alone made sure a character was using one without calling any attention to it in-story.
    • Likely true, but didn't we also see Riggs pull a trauma plate, with a hole in it, from the vest he demonstrated the bullet on at the shooting range?
  • If I remember correctly from the script, IMDB or somewhere, the idea was that the cop killers penetrated both plates but were sufficiently slowed down by those that by the time they reached her body, they only went superficially (skin deep if you will) into her chest, avoiding vital organ damage but still risking her life through bleedout and she would have died if not for prompt medical attention (which she gets).
    • Even allowing for the use of two ballistics vests, Riggs demonstrated earlier in the movie with his Beretta 92, which is chambered in 9mm. Jack Travis on the other hand uses a Smith & Wesson Model 29 (aka, the Dirty Harry gun) which is chambered in .44 Magnum, a round that's 3x as powerful as standard 9mm. Which means Jack's gun loaded with armor piercing rounds should have pentrated both of Lorna's vests, her lungs, and out the back of her vests as well.

• If Travis just walked away from a stakeout, like Cpt Murphy said, why would he still have access to suspects in custody (Billy Phelps), except to advance the plot?
  • He's almost certainly not supposed to, but just did a version of the Bavarian Fire Drill where he walked into and around a busy police station with his old badge and ID (almost certainly not returned when he walked off the job) worn prominently, just generally looking and acting like he had business there and knew where he was going. In other words, he simply counted on looking like a cop who was supposed to be there and no one finding his presence unusual. The desk sergeant, who almost certainly doesn't have instant recall of every cop who is or isn't no longer on the force, presumably didn't recognise him as no longer a cop and assumed he was from a different precinct there to question Billy on another matter. He could also have had some level of help from "old friends" or corrupt officers on his payroll on the inside.