Cardiac Injury Caused by a Celebratory Bullet
- Thread starter PT111
- Start date
NEWEST LAWYER APPROVED SAFETY DEVICE!!!!
Howz about they make all the ghetto guns so they will not fire until pointed up at 90* to earth? Would be real easy to install a pendulum trigger disconnect bar!
The world be safer not only on fireworks related holidays but everyday!
Brent
Howz about they make all the ghetto guns so they will not fire until pointed up at 90* to earth? Would be real easy to install a pendulum trigger disconnect bar!
The world be safer not only on fireworks related holidays but everyday!
Brent
Holy crap Batman, I didn't intend to get this thread so far into the physics part... 2 bits of clarification:
1. I might have misspoke in my opening sentence, but I did redeem myself at the end of my first post. I didn't mean to say that no one has ever died from it, didn't mean to say it's safe. The Mythbuster's experiment showed the Terminal Velocity of the bullets to be 39 meters per second in their wind tube (roughly 117 fps) so I did had my facts wrong. Bullet falling at a little above 70mph? Probably hurt a little.
2. I did say that a bullet fired at a non-vertical angle will kill. I used 45* as an example (cause my puny brain thinks at that level), but any trajectory that allows the bullet to retain it's original speed will suffice.
The main point? DON'T BE STUPID ON THE 4TH AND FIRE YOUR WEAPON INTO THE AIR.
1. I might have misspoke in my opening sentence, but I did redeem myself at the end of my first post. I didn't mean to say that no one has ever died from it, didn't mean to say it's safe. The Mythbuster's experiment showed the Terminal Velocity of the bullets to be 39 meters per second in their wind tube (roughly 117 fps) so I did had my facts wrong. Bullet falling at a little above 70mph? Probably hurt a little.
2. I did say that a bullet fired at a non-vertical angle will kill. I used 45* as an example (cause my puny brain thinks at that level), but any trajectory that allows the bullet to retain it's original speed will suffice.
The main point? DON'T BE STUPID ON THE 4TH AND FIRE YOUR WEAPON INTO THE AIR.
In addition to the danger of personal injury that bullets fired into the air can cause is the danger of property damage.
In New Orleans, where I used to live, I read articles that the Times Picayune (local paper) published almost every year about the hundreds of roofs which needed repair due to holes caused by bullets fired on New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. It keep many roofers in business.
In New Orleans, where I used to live, I read articles that the Times Picayune (local paper) published almost every year about the hundreds of roofs which needed repair due to holes caused by bullets fired on New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. It keep many roofers in business.
This thread has pitted physics arguments and Mythbusters against a case report in a respected medical journal, Annals of Thoracic Surgery. In the case reported, a falling bullet caused enough damage that only the efforts of a very well-equipped and -staffed hospital saved his life, with means that can aptly be termed heroic: they opened his chest, stuck their fingers in the holes in his heart, worked for 15 minutes to get the heart restarted, put him on heart/lung bypass, then patched the heart and went on to the abdomen where the bullet still had enough force, after descending through the thoracic cavity, to lacerate the stomach and damage the spleen badly enough to make its removal the most prudent course.
The journal article went on, as medical papers do, to discuss similar cases that have been discussed in other journal articles.
Sorry guys, MythBusters and high school physics classes don't cut it. You argued that what actually happened couldn't happen. Extremely dangerous injuries that could easily have been fatal were documented by skilled physicians.
I am only thankful that no one defended the practice of firing into the air as a means of celebration.
The journal article went on, as medical papers do, to discuss similar cases that have been discussed in other journal articles.
Sorry guys, MythBusters and high school physics classes don't cut it. You argued that what actually happened couldn't happen. Extremely dangerous injuries that could easily have been fatal were documented by skilled physicians.
I am only thankful that no one defended the practice of firing into the air as a means of celebration.
Brian Pfleuger
Moderator Emeritus
There's an important difference.
A "falling bullet" as discussed herein, is one fired STRAIGHT UP, completely, perfectly, 100% vertical, perfectly parallel, as it were, to the force of gravity.
Bullets "fired into the air" is completely, totally, 100% different. No one has argued that firing a bullet at some unknown angle in God only knows what direction will not produce a fatal wound.
No offense, but a bullet fired absolutely straight up is what I was referring to as a high school physics problem, an oversimplified scenario, and one that is about as likely as the zombie hordes that are a forbidden topic on TFL.
The original post was about celebratory gunfire, not about someone using elaborate stands and measuring devices to fire a bullet exactly straight up. (If you want to argue physics, would the act of pulling the trigger move the barrel ever so slightly off vertical and spoil the experiment?) Really shooting into the air can hurt and kill, and you don't really disagree with that, I know. I was trying to point out - apparently ineffectively - that the original post and the journal article it referenced involved real-life gunfire and the real-life danger that it poses.