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About fifteen years ago I read a book summarizing research into the effects of different types and calibers of handguns and handgun ammunition. (Long story sho

by dkarl 16y ago

About fifteen years ago I read a book summarizing research into the effects of different types and calibers of handguns and handgun ammunition. (Long story short: Clinton was trying to ban semiautomatic handguns or something, so my dad developed a sudden interest in buying a gun, and he borrowed some books from a friend who was quite an enthusiast.) The study was a survey of thousands of police reports on shootings, and it was done by a law enforcement guy to help law enforcement departments make an intelligent decision about what kinds of guns and ammo to standardize on. He provided a lot of statistics and made some recommendations, but the overriding theme and message of the book was that the result of shooting someone, or being shot, is unpredictable no matter what kind of weapon is involved. Some examples: A fatal bullet through the heart can leave a guy up and shooting for over ten seconds -- obviously an eternity for a law enforcement officer in a point-blank shootout. A guy can get shot and not know it. Police officers are trained to check themselves carefully when any shots are fired, because it has happened that officers thought they were unharmed, went home, laid down to rest, and bled to death. A guy can be in a shootout and THINK he got shot, and it turns out there's not a mark on him. They get knocked over, feel intense pain, cry out, etc. There were enough of these cases that the researchers were able to find some involving officers who were previously decorated for valor and had in fact been shot before. A guy can get shot multiple times with a powerful weapon and get lucky, or he can get shot with a tiny weapon and get unlucky. I still remember the story used to illustrate this: a fight between roommates got ugly, and one guy shot the other six times in the chest with a .45. The second guy went to his attic, found his great-grandfather's Civil War-era relic small caliber revolver (something like a .22), went back downstairs, and shot his roommate through the heart, killing him. Forty-eight hours later, his desire for medical care overcame his aversion to getting caught, and he walked into an emergency room. He recovered completely. The book had a lot of complicated reasoning about the trade-offs involved in choosing handguns and ammunition and made some strong recommendations, but I don't remember any of the specifics. I just remember the author stressing over and over again not to expect any particular result when you shoot somebody.

G_Wen 16y ago
http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf Here's a PDF analyzing the effectiveness of firearms. It was written in 1989 so it is a bit out of date. Perhaps someone with more experience with firearms can check to see if the article is still relevant. It does confirm that "Even if the heart is instantly destroyed, there is sufficient oxygen in the brain to support full and complete voluntary action for 10-15 seconds".
- archon 16y ago
  All I can offer is another anecdote, not a more recent study, but in the self-defense courses I've taken over the past couple years, my instructor has stressed that a shooting is always a gamble. "The only way to ensure instantaneous incapacitation is to destroy enough important brain matter. Do you want to aim at a 2-inch square target on your opponent's fast-moving head, or do you want to take your chances aiming for center mass?" So I don't know if this instructor is an oddball or if he represents the current popularly held wisdom, but this instructor at least acknowledges that the effects of gunshot wounds are extremely unpredictable, which lines up with that study.
- jarin 16y ago
  So there might be something to the idea that you stay conscious for a bit after getting beheaded?
  - archon 16y ago
    Supposedly, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier[1], who was beheaded during the French Revolution, asked his assistant to quickly retrieve his head after the blade fell and count how long he could blink his eyes. The head blinked in the range of 12-15 times. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier
giardini 16y ago
I cannot help but believe that, in the story of the roommates' fight, the calibers of the handguns involved has been inadvertently swapped. The story then becomes much more credible. Most civil war revolvers are .36 and .44 (very close to .45) and one shot to the heart would easily be fatal. It is not unheard of for someone to suffer multiple .22 shots to the chest yet suffer little injury. However it _is_ simply unheard of for someone to suffer six .45 shots to the chest yet walk around for days.
- dkarl 16y ago
  It's pretty credible when you consider that the author picked the most vivid example he could find out of thousands of police and FBI reports to illustrate his point. Part of his point was that virtually nothing is unheard of.
  - giardini 16y ago
    I hate to do this, but... Citation? Source? You read the book "about fifteen years ago". Knowing something about guns (in particular .45's and .22's) and the fallibility of human memory, it is reasonable to remain skeptical.
    - dkarl 16y ago
      Your reaction is exactly the kind of thinking the author was trying to remedy. You should not be surprised at something that bizarre happening once in thousands of shootings. There are so many variables at play (what the person is wearing, their body composition, what exactly the bullet strikes in their body, at what angle, and so on) that trying to predict what happens based on the caliber of the gun is like trying to predict the relative performance of two computer programs based on what language they're implemented in. Sure, there are strong theoretical reasons for favoring one language or handgun over another, and you could easily discern patterns over a reasonable number of sufficiently similar cases, but there are so many other variables that in any particular case all you can offer is a statistically justified guess that could easily turn out to be wrong because of information you weren't given. If I told you Python beat C on six straight performance tests, you probably wouldn't be surprised; you'd just surmise that all six tests involved tasks for which Python has highly optimized libraries. Or you might guess that the Python programmers in all six tests were more skilled than their C counterparts. That would happen by chance from time to time. So why couldn't other variables in the roommate story align to create an outcome that would not be expected based solely on the caliber of the weapon? It could and does happen; that was the author's message. Maybe the second roommate was a huge guy wearing a thick jacket, and each of the bullets struck his ribcage at a lucky angle (after being slowed down by several inches of jacket, fat, and muscle.)

by dkarl 16y ago

G_Wen 16y ago

http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf http://www.firearmstactical.com/pdf/fbi-hwfe.pdf Here's a PDF analyzing the effectiveness of firearms. It was written in 1989 so it is a bit out of date. Perhaps someone with more experience with firearms can check to see if the article is still relevant. It does confirm that "Even if the heart is instantly destroyed, there is sufficient oxygen in the brain to support full and complete voluntary action for 10-15 seconds".

archon 16y ago
All I can offer is another anecdote, not a more recent study, but in the self-defense courses I've taken over the past couple years, my instructor has stressed that a shooting is always a gamble. "The only way to ensure instantaneous incapacitation is to destroy enough important brain matter. Do you want to aim at a 2-inch square target on your opponent's fast-moving head, or do you want to take your chances aiming for center mass?" So I don't know if this instructor is an oddball or if he represents the current popularly held wisdom, but this instructor at least acknowledges that the effects of gunshot wounds are extremely unpredictable, which lines up with that study.
jarin 16y ago
So there might be something to the idea that you stay conscious for a bit after getting beheaded?
- archon 16y ago
  Supposedly, the chemist Antoine Lavoisier[1], who was beheaded during the French Revolution, asked his assistant to quickly retrieve his head after the blade fell and count how long he could blink his eyes. The head blinked in the range of 12-15 times. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier

giardini 16y ago

I cannot help but believe that, in the story of the roommates' fight, the calibers of the handguns involved has been inadvertently swapped. The story then becomes much more credible. Most civil war revolvers are .36 and .44 (very close to .45) and one shot to the heart would easily be fatal. It is not unheard of for someone to suffer multiple .22 shots to the chest yet suffer little injury. However it _is_ simply unheard of for someone to suffer six .45 shots to the chest yet walk around for days.

dkarl 16y ago
It's pretty credible when you consider that the author picked the most vivid example he could find out of thousands of police and FBI reports to illustrate his point. Part of his point was that virtually nothing is unheard of.
- giardini 16y ago
  I hate to do this, but... Citation? Source? You read the book "about fifteen years ago". Knowing something about guns (in particular .45's and .22's) and the fallibility of human memory, it is reasonable to remain skeptical.
  - dkarl 16y ago
    Your reaction is exactly the kind of thinking the author was trying to remedy. You should not be surprised at something that bizarre happening once in thousands of shootings. There are so many variables at play (what the person is wearing, their body composition, what exactly the bullet strikes in their body, at what angle, and so on) that trying to predict what happens based on the caliber of the gun is like trying to predict the relative performance of two computer programs based on what language they're implemented in. Sure, there are strong theoretical reasons for favoring one language or handgun over another, and you could easily discern patterns over a reasonable number of sufficiently similar cases, but there are so many other variables that in any particular case all you can offer is a statistically justified guess that could easily turn out to be wrong because of information you weren't given. If I told you Python beat C on six straight performance tests, you probably wouldn't be surprised; you'd just surmise that all six tests involved tasks for which Python has highly optimized libraries. Or you might guess that the Python programmers in all six tests were more skilled than their C counterparts. That would happen by chance from time to time. So why couldn't other variables in the roommate story align to create an outcome that would not be expected based solely on the caliber of the weapon? It could and does happen; that was the author's message. Maybe the second roommate was a huge guy wearing a thick jacket, and each of the bullets struck his ribcage at a lucky angle (after being slowed down by several inches of jacket, fat, and muscle.)