After analyzing 677 shootings, a study carried out by the University of Pennsylvania found that people who carried guns were 4.5 times as likely to be shot and 4.2 times as likely to get killed compared with unarmed citizens.
Getting shot is expensive. According to the New York Times the average cost of a gunshot wound is $14,600 for emergency care and $35,400 for lifetime medical care resulting from the shooting. This does not include such as court costs, mental health care, unemployment, and other expenses.
The average speed of a bullet is around 1,700 mph. (2,500 feet per second). To put this into perspective, the speed of sound is around 761 mph or 1100 feet per second.
In most cases, the bullet will not pass through the victim's body cleanly. Instead, it will ricochet around inside the body as it glances off bone, causing even more damage.
Women who have been severely injured are 14% more likely to survive than similarly injured men. Scientists believe the difference may be due to the negative impact of male sex hormones on a traumatized immune system.
Researchers estimate that gun violence costs the American economy at least $229 billion every year, including $8.6 billion in direct expenses such as for emergency and medical care.
The odds of surviving a gunshot greatly depends on key factors such the location of the injury, the amount of blood lost, and how quickly the victim gets to the hospital. Generally, the chances that a person will survive a critical gunshot wound have increased by up to 40% over the last 20 years.
Each year, more than 32,000 people are killed by guns in the US. In fact, the total number is probably even higher because some gun-related deaths are left out of the CDC statistics.
When the victim is shot in the head, the bullet will travel through their brain faster than the speed at which their tissues tear. This means that the bullet is actually pushing tissues out of the way, stretching them beyond their breaking points.
Bulletproof vests are actually not bulletproof. Bullet-resistant is a more accurate expression. In extremely minute percentage of cases, the bullet (for example those with a serrated edge) can get through the vest.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for every person who dies from a gunshot wound, two others are wounded.
Being shot in the left side of the heart generally causes more bleeding than being shot in right side of the heart because the right side has lower blood pressure.
Bleeding out is one of the most common causes of death associated with gun violence, but it can be prevented by using special injectable sponges. These sponges expand once inside the wound, plugging the cavity left by the bullet in just 15 seconds.
If you get shot and get medical attention quickly enough, there is a 95% survival chance for you.
Surprisingly, the will to live has been frequently cited as one of the most important factors in the mortality of gunshot cases (as well as all sorts of other traumas).
In addition to local damage in tissue caused by direct impact, the bullet can also produce remote wounding and incapacitating effects in living targets through a hydraulic effect in their liquid-filled tissues. This phenomenon is known as hydrostatic shock or hydraulic shock.
A US Navy SEAL named Mike Day was knocked unconscious by a grenade and shot 27 times in a terrifying shoot-out in Iraq in 2007. Against all odds, he survived to tell his incredible story.
The main concern with gunshot wounds that involve the intestine or stomach is not bleeding, but infections that result from spillage of the contents of those organs.
There are two basic types of gunshot wounds – the entrance wound and the exit wound. The entrance wound is normally smaller and quite symmetrical in comparison to the exit wound, which tends to be larger and more destructive because the bullet reaches the end of its trajectory and has to force harder to push through the tissue.
Most of more than 32,000 gun-related deaths that happen in the US each year are by suicide.
People who are shot from the front to the back of the head often have a better chance than those shot from side to side. This is because a bullet traveling from front to back generally destroys just one of the brain's two hemispheres while a side-to-side shot usually damages both of them.
Aiming for limbs to create “flesh wounds” is a movie myth and not something that police or soldiers ever train to do.
A small percentage of gunshot deaths are due to a condition known as a “tension pneumothorax”, also known as a collapsed lung. The lungs have no muscles and they expand due to negative pressure inside of the pleural cavity, which means any type of hole can cause the condition.
In 2007, nearly 70% of all murders in the US were committed with a firearm.
The survival rate of a gunshot wound to the head is about 5%. However, only 3% of the survivals have a good quality of life afterward.
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