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What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns
The Atlantic ^ | 2/22/2018 | Heather Sher

Posted on 02/22/2018 7:59:14 PM PST by iowamark

As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before. In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver.

To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments. I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage...

The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different; they travel at higher velocity and are far more lethal. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than, and imparting more than three times the energy of, a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun. An AR-15 rifle outfitted with a magazine cartridge with 50 rounds allows many more lethal bullets to be delivered quickly without reloading...

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ar15; banglist; heather
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To: All
OK, honey, it's back to medical school. Pick the .223 out of the lineup and then give a detailed comparison of wound lethality compared to the other cartridges. You have 5 minutes to complete this exam.


21 posted on 02/22/2018 8:20:35 PM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: iowamark

The energy is about twice as much because the handgun ammo mass is much greater.


22 posted on 02/22/2018 8:21:09 PM PST by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: TigersEye

I remember after the Stockton school shooting the AK-47 was billed as the worst and most deadly firearm in existence! To prove their point the anti-gunners had a demonstration of it’s power.The set up watermelons and shot them. The AK rounds poked holes but did not blow the watermelon apart.
They finally shot the melon with a special soft nosed bullet from a different firearm, and the watermelon blew up real well.
So, on the nightly news reports it showed an AK-47 firing, then a cut to the watermelon blowing up, with no mention of a different firearm or cartridge.


23 posted on 02/22/2018 8:23:09 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Re-open the insane asylums, stop drugging the kids.)
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To: iowamark

Immaterial! The issue is not the round or the weapon!

The issue is the person using the weapon. Good guys/gals don’t randomly kill people - BAD GUYS/GALS do that!

We need a means to protect the good guys n’ gals FRom the bad guys n’ gals.

There are a number of actions that can be taken:

1. Eliminating “Gun FRee” zones throughout America.

2. Armed, properly trained guards in conspicuous and not so conspicuous locations!

3. Constitutional Carry throughout the USA would reinforce our seriousness in preventing mass shooting.

4. A major clampdown on psychosomatic drug use would have a positive benefit.

5. Putting God back in the classroom and in the public square would be a positive.

There are other measures that could be taken, but fer shure, fer shure, tighter gun laws won’t work!


24 posted on 02/22/2018 8:25:49 PM PST by Taxman (Replace the income tax with the FAIRtax and abolish the IRS!)
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To: Electric Graffiti

You mean like Julio Gonzalez, who could not get a gun to kill his girlfriend, so he used a gallon of gas and a match to burn down the Happyland Dance Club in New York City! 89 dead. Not a one of them shot.


25 posted on 02/22/2018 8:25:53 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Re-open the insane asylums, stop drugging the kids.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Ah, like NBC’s #FakeNews report about defective gas tanks on GM trucks?

If the glove doesn’t fit you have to rig it!


26 posted on 02/22/2018 8:28:00 PM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: iowamark

she should check out the autopsy reports on suicide bombing victims or people being run over by trucks by jihadists but that would ruin the narrative


27 posted on 02/22/2018 8:34:43 PM PST by Sarah Barracuda
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To: iowamark

If this Doc thinks a .223 is powerful what would he think of a 7.62 or a 30.06? Take away the AR15 and shooters will use an AK47, or BAR, or any of a dozen more powerful weapons.

Plus, the fact that this is the first time h has seen a 223 wound inspite of all his vast experience with gunshot wounds shows how rare it is that an AR15 is used in a crime.


28 posted on 02/22/2018 8:36:36 PM PST by tschatski
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Depends on the type of bullet. Many years ago a lunatic shot up a school playground in Canada. He hit a few dozen kids as I recall. Because he used FMJ rounds there were very few fatalities.

For tactical reasons, military arms are designed to wound rather than kill.

If this killer used a soft nosed or HP bullet the injuries would be much worse. If so, was that just the rounds he happened to get, or did he do it deliberately to kill? Also, where were the shots placed? Gruesome science.


29 posted on 02/22/2018 8:39:07 PM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: iowamark
With an AR-15, the shooter does not have to be particularly accurate. The victim does not have to be unlucky. If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a simple handgun shot injury. Handgun injuries to the middle of the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to a trauma center to receive our care.

With a Charleville, the shooter also doesn't have to be all that accurate. And if a .69 caliber Charleville slug hits you in the liver, you will also probably not survive.

30 posted on 02/22/2018 8:40:29 PM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: tschatski

The Virginia Tech shooter killed 32 people with two handguns. One fired .22 lr rounds the other fired 9mm. But I guess the corpses were in better condition from the doctor’s POV.


31 posted on 02/22/2018 8:40:36 PM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: TigersEye

Which one is the .223?
I openly admit being unschooled on weaponry.
I would still like to know.


32 posted on 02/22/2018 8:42:50 PM PST by lee martell
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

“You mean like Julio Gonzalez, who could not get a gun to kill his girlfriend, so he used a gallon of gas and a match to burn down the Happyland Dance Club in New York City! 89 dead. Not a one of them shot.”

Exactly. With the internet, mentally ill demoncrats like Cruz could look up 1000’s of different ways to commit mass murder besides using firearms.


33 posted on 02/22/2018 8:45:08 PM PST by Electric Graffiti (Obama voters killed America...Treat them accordingly.)
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To: iowamark

I have many friends with AR’s none of whom own the 50 round drum mentioned in the story. Too many feeding problems and over heating when it did feed properly. But the author was going for maximum effect. Bottom line is that if everyone had done their jobs no one would have died.


34 posted on 02/22/2018 8:46:07 PM PST by vigilence (Vigilence)
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To: DarthVader

I didn’t see anyone’s personal information released, unless I missed something.


35 posted on 02/22/2018 8:51:06 PM PST by HollyB
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To: TigersEye

Right

in 1998 a guy killed 89 people with $1.00 of gas and a match in the Happyland fire in the Bronx. A killer is going to kill.


36 posted on 02/22/2018 8:54:28 PM PST by tschatski
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To: lee martell

I’m guessing that the .223 is the smallest one on the left. The bullet diameter is just .003 inches larger than a .22 round. Of course the .223 has more powder behind it and is longer than a .22, so it packs a lot more punch.

Just guesses - but then comes a .270 then a .308 - both good for deer. I guess some use the .223 on deer as well, but I think the .223 is more for coyotes.

I’ve read where the .223 is a good military round as it often will just wound the enemy and typical ranges out in the jungle. If you kill one they let them lie. If you wound one it takes one or two more guys out of the fight to try to save him. That my just be an old wive’s tale though. Obviously deadly at short range in a school.

The point of course is that almost ALL rounds are deadly, and these people are idiots. Once you start banning the “deadliest” bullets, well...


37 posted on 02/22/2018 8:55:38 PM PST by 21twelve
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To: lee martell

It is the smallest cartridge in that pic. Do an image search on ‘rifle cartridges’ and you will find a lot of pics with the cartridges marked. Many with a lot more calibers in the pics.


38 posted on 02/22/2018 8:59:02 PM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: tschatski

Yep. You can run down a lot of people with a stolen truck and not spend a penny. And possibly get away.


39 posted on 02/22/2018 9:00:58 PM PST by TigersEye (13 Russian Facebook trolls ... and a Siberian partridge in a Russian Olive tree.)
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To: TigersEye

How about a .357 from Corbon or Buffalo Bore?

As for rifles.... .243, .270, 7mm or 308?

And then there is the poky old 45-70 that makes holes you can put your big fat thumb through

And slugs from a 12 Ga.

Another person who knows nothing but will not allow that to stop her from saying her piece.


40 posted on 02/22/2018 9:03:54 PM PST by old curmudgeon (There is no situation so terrible, so disgraceful, that the federal government can not make worse)
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