What an AR-15 rifle bullet can do to a human body?

Any weapon can kill, but each weapon kills in its own way, writes Wired magazine.

Фото: Depositphotos

Let's compare what the AR-15 rifle and the 9-mm caliber gun do to the human body.

“In one case, the hole looks like a grenade exploded inside,” explains Peter Lee, a trauma specialist at the University of Arizona, “in another, it looks like a bad stab wound.”

The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. It was used by killers in Sandy Hook, Aurora, San Bernardino, Orlando and Parkland.

One can argue about weapon policy for a long time - in the end, the very notion of an “assault rifle” causes controversy - but in physics everything is much more definite. So let's talk about the physical aspect.

A bullet with more energy does more damage. The kinetic energy of a bullet is equal to the product of half its mass per square of speed. Compared to the AR-15 bullet, the pistol bullet flies slowly - no matter how absurd it sounds. It can be stopped by a thick femur bone. It can pass through the body and get stuck in the skin, which is surprisingly elastic.

The bullet from AR-15 acts on the human body quite differently. It is relatively small, but flies out of the barrel at three times faster than a pistol bullet. She has enough energy to shatter three inches (eight centimeters) of the femur.

“Crushing, in this case, means“ turning to dust, ”says Donald Jenkins, a trauma specialist from the Center for Medical Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio. If it gets into the liver, the liver then "looks like jelly, which was dropped on the floor."

The exit from it often looks like a disgusting torn hole the size of an orange.

High-speed bullets are capable of damaging the flesh a few centimeters from the place where they pass through the body, both due to the fact that they tear the tissues and due to the so-called cavitation effect. If you chat with your finger in the water, it will ripple. The bullet from AR-15 acts on the body in the same way, only with much more serious consequences. For example, even if a bullet passes by an important blood vessel — say, the femoral artery — cavitation can still break it, and a person will die from blood loss. In addition, torn and crumpled tissues around the wound may die off. Therefore, according to Lee, if a wound from a pistol bullet often requires only one operation, then after a bullet from an AR-15 it may take from three to ten operations.

The damage that each individual bullet inflicts is compounded by the ease of shooting from the AR-15. This rifle shoots almost no recoil.

“She practically does not move when fired. You can sit and pop out of it — bang bang bang bang bang bang bang — with the speed of a finger, ”said Ernest Moore, a trauma specialist from the Denver City Hospital and editor of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Surgery, the latest issue of which was about the effects of gun violence .

Of course, guns also kill a lot of people. It is they who are “responsible” for most of the deaths from firearms in America. However, individually, each pistol bullet is not as deadly as the bullet from AR-15.

As he wrote ForumDailyThe National Rifle Association (NRA) called the AR-15 "the most popular rifle in America," and believes that more than 8 of millions of Americans own this brand of weapon.

NRA said that "AR-15 has become very popular" due to its "settings, adaptation, reliability and accuracy." This type of weapon is also versatile and can be used for “sport shooting, hunting and self-defense,” the NRA said, adding the ability to “personalize” many components of a rifle ”is one of the things that makes it so unique.”

This type of weapon is increasingly becoming the main weapon of mass execution in the United States. Here is a list of mass executions in the USA over the past 35 years using the AR-15 rifle:

• 24 February 1984 of the Year: 28 year old Tyrone Mitchell used the AR-15, shotgun Stoeger 12 caliber and shotgun Winchester 12 caliber to kill two and injure 12 people in 49th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, after which he shot himself.
• 7 October 2007 of the year. 20-year-old Tyler Peterson used AR-15, killing six and wounding one person in an apartment in Crandon, Wisconsin, and then shot himself.
• 20 June 2012 of the Year: 24-year-old James Egan Holmes used a rifle Smith and Wesson AR-15 С-15 caliber with 100 round magazine, shotgun Remington with 12 gauges and two semi-automatic pistols Glock 40 caliber killing 12 and injuring 58 people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.
• 14 December 2012 of the Year: 20-year-old Adam Lanza used an AR-15 rifle in style Bushmaster 223 caliber killing an 27 man, including his mother, 20 students and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, after which he shot himself.
• 7 June 2013 of the Year: 23-year-old John Zawahri used an AR-15 rifle and revolver Remington 0,44 caliber, killing five people and wounding three in a house in Santa Monica, California, after which he shot himself.
• 19 March 2015 of the Year: 24-year-old Justin Fowler used AR-15, killing one person and wounding two on a street in Little Water, New York, after which he shot himself.
• 31 May 2015 of the Year: 36-year-old Jeffrey Scott Pitts used an 0,45 caliber pistol and AR-15, killing two and wounding two in a store in Conyers, Georgia, after which he shot himself.
• October 31 2015 of the Year: 33-year-old Noah Jacob Harfam used the AR-15, a 0,357 caliber revolver and a semi-automatic 9 mm pistol to kill three people in a street in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and then shot himself.
• 2 December 2015 of the year: Said Farouk and Tashifa Malik, 28 and 27 years, used two rifles Remington 223 caliber, AR-15 and two 9 mm pistols, killing a 14 man and injuring a 21 man in San Bernardino, California, then shooting themselves.
• 12 June 2016 of the Year: 29-year-old Omar Mateen used an AR-15 rifle (Sig Sauer MCX) and 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol Glockby killing a 49 man and injuring 50 visitors to a nightclub in Orlando, after which he shot himself.
• October 1 2017 of the Year: 64-year-old Stephen Paddock used an arsenal of weapons, including AR-15, by shooting a 58 man and injuring hundreds at a music festival in Las Vegas, after which he shot himself.
• November 5 2017 of the year. 26-year-old Devin Kelly used a gun Ruger in AR-15 style, killing 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
• 14 February 2018 of the year. Police say that 19-year-old Nicholas Cruz used the AR-15 rifle, killing at least the 17 man in Stoneman douglas high school in Parkland, Broward County, Florida.

Recall, during the shooting on June 28 Editorial Office of the newspaper Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, 5 people died. 38-year-old local resident Jarrod Ramos arranged the shooting.

Translation: Inosmi.ru

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