CSI: Miami Antigun hit

Network TV... doesn't matter which | 11/4/2003 | Swordmaker - Vanity

[Swordmaker]

Last night on CSI: Miami, one of the mysterous deaths being investigated on the program was solved when the "brilliant Scientists" came to the conclusion that a young divorcee' had not been murdered by her ex-husband (who was found looting her house while her dead body lay on her bed after a hurricane and arrested for the crime) but rather by a bullet that had been fired by the victim herself - days or weeks before she was killed!!!

It seems, so they "reasoned," that the young divorcee' had purchased a 9mm semi-automatic handgun to protect herself from her violent ex-husband.

Wanting to become proficient with her newly acquired weapon she practiced dilligently in her backyard ( ignoring the prohibition from discharging firearms in a residential neighborhood, like Network TVs view of all firearm owners), firing into a barrel of sand.

Being a neatnick at heart, the young woman fished the expended bullets out of the barrel and tossed them into a coffee can for safekeeping... or perhaps recycling. .. along with the several hundred bullets she had already fired in her backyard without the neighbors calling the police to report gunfire.

Then comes the hurricane.

The ex-husband is arguing with his ex-wife in her bedroom... about what, we don't know... at the peak of the argument, the coffee can of expended bullets is knocked over by the high winds of the hurricane spilling them over the patio.

One of these bullets, according to the "brilliant" forensic investigator, is picked up by the hurricane force winds, accelerated by the winds to "450 to 500 feet per second," and hurled through an unprotected glass window pane, into the bedroom, across the room, all the way through the hapless gunowner's neck, killing her instantly. Thus an inanimate bullet succeeds in killing the person who fired it days or weeks before!

This bullet must have been taken lessons from Arlen Specter.

The unspoken message of CSI:Miami to all people contemplating buying a firearm? Even when the gun is locked away in its hermetically sealed gunsafe, with a government approved trigger lock safeguarding its lethal lever of death, perhaps not even in the same room or building, a gun can kill you.

That'll show her not to buy one of those damn dangerous guns!

[Swordmaker]

They present this as "What really happened" with their patented slow motion, super-magnified, graphically gory, action sequences that end with blood spurting out of the victims neck opposite the entrance wound.

No one says, "That's idiotic."

[Bogey78O]

Uh, someone needs to tell them their physics suck. 400ft/sec is over 270 miles/hr. Faster than any hurricane has ever gusted.

Plus a 9mm has a velocity starting around 880ft/sec (on the low end) when fired. 400 ft/sec wouldn't be as damaging.

[Bogey78O]

For further reference a pellet gun is about 400-500 ft/sec.

While a Category 5 hurricane has winds of 183ft/sec.

[APFel]

So... if this is the case, and an unfired bullet struck a woman after toppling out of a coffee can, killing her... Wouldn't pebbles, rocks and other debris be killing people in the hundreds during a hurricane?

I just think these goons are running out of prots.

[supercat]

Uh, someone needs to tell them their physics suck. 400ft/sec is over 270 miles/hr. Faster than any hurricane has ever gusted.

Yes, but if the bullet was in a heavier container, and if the two objects, together with a third even larger object, had a mutually perfectly elastic collision with a stationary object, then the kinetic energy of the larger objects could get transfered to the bullet.

For a demonstration of this principle, drop a tennis ball and basketball together with the tennis ball on top. If you do it right, the tennis ball will bounce to a much greater height than that from which it was originally dropped. If you can manage a 3-way stack, the results will be more impressive still.

Of course, to suggest that some bullets in a coffee can would have such perfect chance collisions is absurd, but it could at least theoretically be arranged.

[Swordmaker]

Wouldn't pebbles, rocks and other debris be killing people in the hundreds during a hurricane?

No! NO! NO!... you have to understand... pebbles, rocks, and debris are policitally correct! They are NATURAL... innocent, part of nature.

Bullets are EVIL!!! They are only designed by evil gun makers to KILL KILL KILL!

This bullet was only fulfilling its intended purpose.

[Swordmaker]

Of course, to suggest that some bullets in a coffee can would have such perfect chance collisions is absurd, but it could at least theoretically be arranged.

Actually, they showed this particular bullet drop to the ground... lay there a bit, levitate itself off the ground about a half an inch from the force of wind, wiggle a little bit, kind of gets itself oriented properly, and THEN shoot off to achieve its ultimate destiny... to KILL! it was laughable.

[APFel]

I meant to say they are running out of plots, not prots (what IS a prot? Who knows).

I stopped watching CSI when the plots got too weak and contrived. This episode sounds like a perfect example as to why I turned it off. I think the writers need to enroll in a creative writing class at the local community college.

[Swordmaker]

prots (what IS a prot? Who knows).

It will be a four letter slur--- the other being catt--- used by the liberals against one segment, the protestants. of those crazed Christ lovers after they succeed in outlawing Christianity sometime in the future.

It will be used like this: "There goes another one of those damn prots! Quick! Shoot!"

[Bogey78O]

I forgot about that. It didn't enter my mind because of the absurdity of it.

[PISANO]

This 'dramatization' just proves that we need a few MORE laws to regulate behaviour so that ALL of US can be SAFE. One new law that would protect MANY of us is to ban all firearm OWNERS from their HOMES during a HURRICANE. That would solve this problem. < /sarcasm >

[diotima]

Ping!

[cinFLA]

CSI does't take liberty with the facts; they throw the facts away and make up their own physics inorder to make the show. Believe NOTHING about this show.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Yes, but if the bullet was in a heavier container, and if the two objects, together with a third even larger object, had a mutually perfectly elastic collision with a stationary object, then the kinetic energy of the larger objects could get transfered to the bullet.

The K.E. of a stationary object is exactly -zero-. Thus, there is none to transfer.

In any case, it's OK, writers aren't physicists, and it's OK for them to portray something totally outside the bounds of physics, as long as the message the portrayal is supporting is "good". < /major sarcasm>

[FreedomPoster]

>>I think the writers need to enroll in a creative writing class at the local community college.


They should take H.S. physics while they're at it.

[stevio]

Stooopid.

[xsrdx]

Actually, they showed this particular bullet drop to the ground... lay there a bit, levitate itself off the ground about a half an inch from the force of wind, wiggle a little bit, kind of gets itself oriented properly, and THEN shoot off to achieve its ultimate destiny... to KILL! it was laughable.

That's just stupid. I never watch "Miami", but the Vegas show seems a bit less over the top.