What makes a bullet lethal

Peter Rhee is a trauma surgeon who operated on victims of the shooting at a political event in Tucson, Arizona, in which six people were killed and 13 wounded in a hail of 9mm bullets. Rhee explained that the more massive the projectile, the more severe the wound. In fact, the. What makes the. When the. At that long distance, the. Slow-motion videos of ballistics tests clearly illustrate this difference. Watch the. Developed in the early s, the. The U. In the macabre world of terminal ballistics, the study of what happens when projectiles actually strike, much can be made of over-penetration: the phenomenon of bullets passing clean through their targets.

Rifle rounds have an elongated, oblong shape and so they often tumble. When they strike, the bullets rotate, and more of their surface hits the body. Bullets can also increase the surface area that transfers energy to targets by expanding, as in the case of hollow-point rounds. The wider bullet also creates a bigger cavity in whatever it passes through. Hollow points also create a larger temporary cavity.

The temporary cavity is the hole in the target that briefly expands after immediate impact, only to collapse a fraction of a second later.

In one case study of a year-old man struck in the chest by a. Though the patient survived and only had a small wound, he suffered extensive contusions throughout his lungs. Four ribs had essentially turned to dust. The damage was far too extensive. He died in our E. The white cosmetic, called ceruse , corroded the skin, caused the shakes, and in the cases of Kitty Fisher and Maria Duchess of Coventry, it killed.

When the lethal effects of lead became apparent it was even used as a method of murder. In Louisa Taylor obtained sugar of lead from a doctor to treat a fictitious skin complaint.

Her vomit was black and burned her throat. She pointed to Taylor and stated she had seen her pour a white powder into her medicine. After Tregillis died, Taylor was convicted of murder and hanged at Maidstone prison. With less haemoglobin the blood is less red, resulting in a pale complexion.

Also, the material normally being converted by the enzyme is now floating around in higher concentrations than normal. These haem precursors can weaken the walls of blood vessels in the brain causing fluid to accumulate.

The results can be anything from headaches and sleeplessness to hallucinations, depression, fits and coma. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of lead and exposure in infancy can result in permanent low IQ levels and behavioural problems due to damage to the brain.

Lead is also likely to damage nerves leading to numbness and general feelings of weakness. Lead harms reproduction, causing miscarriages and babies with low birth weight.

It also affects the kidneys as the organ attempts to remove it from the blood. It is often kidney failure that kills in cases of severe lead poisoning. The severity of the symptoms depends on the level of exposure. But, unlike other toxic substances that have a minimum threshold below which the body can manage without cause for concern, no safe level has been identified for lead.

As the damaging effects of lead have become undeniable, measures have been introduced to lessen our exposure to the element. We have made considerable progress since the days of ceruse make-up and lead-tainted sapa added to wine.

With all of these considerations in mind, a car is still generally more dangerous than a gun. Statistics bear out this fact.

According to the CDC , the annual rate of death due to motor vehicles in was deaths per million people. In comparison, the annual rate of death in due to guns was 40 deaths per million people suicide was not included in either statistic.

Eliminating all cars would save more lives than eliminating all guns. Oddly, many people who would never touch a gun have no problem cruising twenty miles per hour over the speed limit and endangering the lives of all around them. Just as odd, there is a vocal anti-gun political movement, but there is little in the way of an anti-car political movement the anti-car movements that do exist are more concerned with smog than public safety.

This discrepancy suggests that anti-gun politics is driven partly by uniformed emotionalism and ulterior motives instead of sound science. The emotionalism surrounding guns is the same reason why the latest shooting almost always makes the front page of the local newspaper, but the latest car crash rarely does. All fast-moving objects with mass are dangerous, including bullets, cars, motorcycles, trucks, trains, and airplanes.