What Bullets Do to Bodies

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Early in my medical training, I learned that it is not the bullet that kills you, but the damage from the bullet. A handgun bullet enters the body in a straight line. Like a knife, it damages the organs and tissues directly in its path, and then it either exits the body or is stopped by bone, tissue or skin.

This is in contrast to bullets from an assault rifle. They are three times the speed of handgun bullets. Once they enter the body, they fragment and explode, pulverizing bones, tearing blood vessels and liquefying organs.

This is what was happening to my patient, whose heart quickly stopped beating. We performed an emergency thoracotomy — splitting open his chest in an attempt to clamp off bleeding and restart his heart. Blood poured out of his chest cavity. The bullet had disintegrated his spleen and torn his aorta. Four ribs had essentially turned to dust. The damage was far too extensive. He died in our E.R. He was 15.

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This was the kind of damage inflicted upon victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando and other mass shootings including Newtown, San Bernardino and Aurora. Trauma doctors and nurses who treated patients in these tragedies and medical examiners who investigated the aftermath, all commented on the unbelievable devastation resulting from the bullet wounds. Indeed, this is the intended consequence of assault rifles. They are designed to be weapons of war. The bullets they discharge don’t follow a straight line through the body; they fragment and explode, destroying as much living tissue as possible.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/opinion/virginia-baseball-shooting-gun-shot-wounds.html?

Worth repeating: "Indeed, this is the intended consequence of assault rifles. They are designed to be weapons of war." Tell me again why civilians need weapons of war? Why are these lethal weapons -- whose only designed purpose is to kill and maim other humans -- allowed on our streets?

The answer, of course, is that the NRA/ILA/GOA right-wing gun lobby want to sell more guns for their corporate gun manufacturer masters, and garner more gun culture members in the process. These are evil people with an evil agenda, and they must be held in check by sensible gun regulations, including ridding our streets of assault rifles.