Do you think I have a reading comprehension problem? The point of the article was to point out the extreme severity of damage that is inflicted by high powered weapons!
I take it that you have no idea in Hell what that means.
I do!
The pictures used in the NY Times article are comparing a rifle wound, to a wound caused by a handgun! :gaah: Left, an X-ray of a leg showing a bullet wound delivered by an assault rifle used in combat. Right, an X-ray of a leg that sustained a bullet wound from a low-energy bullet, inflicted by a weapon like a handgun in Philadelphia.Creditvia Dr. Jeremy W. Cannon This is the caption under the first picture.
Forget about the differences in muzzle energy, or even terminal ballistics: it's the nature of the projectile, that matters the most.
Military rounds are normally Full metal jacket. This is done for a bunch of reasons:
1. less damage to the rounds during rough transport.
2. better penetration capability
3. better ability to defeat body armor
4. less lethality
:shocked: What did I just say?? :shocked:
That's right: LESS lethality!
It's better to wound your enemy; than it is to kill them. It requires more manpower to move a wounded soldier; than it does to drag out a body.
Full metal jacket bullets will usually just pass right through a target: leaving a caliber-sized hole (Assuming that it only passes through soft tissue.
Modern expanding sporting rounds will "mushroom" to approximately double their unfired diameter, and expend all of their terminal energy into the target.
Why?
Because as a hunter: you want the game animal down... NOW!! A quick and humane kill requires far more damage from the projectile.
Hollow-point rounds are specifically forbidden in military conflicts: they cause too much damage.
From the article: Civilian owners of military-style weapons can also buy soft-nosed or hollow-point ammunition, often used for hunting, that lacks a full metal jacket and can expand and fragment on impact. Such bullets, which can cause wider wound channels, are proscribed in most military use.
In a home defense situation: you would want even LESS penetration. They make frangible rounds like "Mag-Safes"; that are specifically designed to break apart inside the target. It reduces the chances of shooting through a wall, and injuring someone in another room.
It's all about having the right round for the right job! nojoke
A quote from the article by
Dr. Martin Schreiber, Oregon Health & Science University.
He was an Army reservist who served in Iraq in 2005 and in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2014.
What makes injuries from these rifles so deadly, he said, is that the bullets travel so fast. Those from an M16 or AR-15 can depart the muzzle at a velocity of more than 3,000 feet per second, while bullets from many common handguns move at less than half or a third that speed. The result: “The energy imparted to a human body by a high velocity weapon is exponentially greater” than that from a handgun.
“You will see multiple organs shattered. The exit wounds can be a foot wide.”
“I’ve seen people with entire quadrants of their abdomens destroyed.”
Dr. Jeffrey Kerby, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
He was formerly an Air Force surgeon.
Dr. Kerby will never forget the first victim of a high velocity bullet wound he treated when he was serving in the Southern Philippines 16 years ago. The soldier had been shot in the outer thigh. His first thought was that the wound did not look so bad. There was just a tiny hole where the bullet went in. Then he looked where the bullet had exited. The man’s inner thigh, he said, “was completely blown out.”
Later he came to expect the telltale pattern. “You will typically see a small penetrating wound. Then you roll the patient over and you see a huge exit wound.”
The high energy bullet creates a blast wave around the bullet. And the yaw can contribute to the larger exit wound. Striking bone can also cause bone fragments that radiate outward, cutting tissue in each fragment’s path.
“Then the bullet starts tumbling, causing more and more destruction.” Even a bullet that misses bone can result in surprising damage; as the blast wave travels through the body, it pushes tissues and organs aside in a temporary cavity larger than the bullet itself. They bounce back once the bullet passes. Organs are damaged, blood vessels rip and many victims bleed to death before they reach a hospital. Those who survive long enough are whisked to operating rooms, but often the injuries cannot be repaired.
“If they are shot in the torso, there often is not a whole lot we can do,” he said.
With a handgun, the bullets mostly damage tissues and organs in their direct path. Eventually, the bullets may be slowed and stopped by the body. Emergency surgery often can save handgun victims.
The only high powered rifle I ever owned was a bolt action .243 Winchester Model 670. I used it to shoot coyotes and I usually used 100 grain bullets and sometimes 80 grain bullets. It had a very flat trajectory, especially with the 80 grain bullets. Either bullet would do an unbelievable number on a coyote. I never felt the need to have a semi-auto gun for hunting. One thing that a bolt action will do is to make you keenly aware of getting your best shot. If you missed, it wasn't often you got a second chance nearly as good as the first. To me, that is where the "sport" comes in for hunting. Hunters now have camo that is nearly perfect, spotting scopes, binoculars and range finders that further tip the scales in the hunters advantage. The hunters advantage grows greater and greater as technology advances. That also translates to the murderers advantage as well.