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Old June 14, 2007, 06:55 PM   #25
44 AMP
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Join Date: March 11, 2006
Location: Upper US
Posts: 28,617
Personal experience

I have seen lots of animals shot, even shot a few, and I have seen a couple of people shot.

Hollywood movies (and it's clone, TV) are all about drama. Action is drama, and it is what sells. They exaggerate EVERYTHING! Since each new film needs to go just a little bit further, in order to hold audience attention (and thus make money), everything keeps getting more and more graphic, and violent.

Look at the films from the 30s, people who got shot fell down, maybe knocking stuff over. No blood (or very little). Now part of that was just good taste, or a requirement by the censors, but part of it was actual representation of what really happened when a person got shot.

Today, not only are the images as graphic as can be possible, but they are often repeated over and over. Every see any movies where the hero kicks the bad guy three times in a row while jumping over him? And then they show it again from three different angles! All for dramatic effect! Real sword fights are not four and a half minutes of both fighters banging their swords together while jumping on and over every piece of furniture in the room! All done for dramatic effect!

As far as real gunshot effects, as most here have said, most common is just dropping like a puppet with its strings cut, or like a "sack of potatoes".

Sometimes a falling forward or even a flying backward happens, but rarely. And it does not happen because of the energy dump from the bullet impact, at least not directly. It happens (when is does happen, which is rarely) by the nervous system "short circuiting" and causing the body to spasm. It is the person's own muscles that "blow them off their feet", when this actually happens. And as I said, it happens, rarely.

Blood can most certainly pour or spurt from a wound. Seeping is more common, but if a major vein is hit, it will pour from the wound, and can form a arc of a few inches as long as the person is vertical. Hit an artery and blood will spurt, and continue as long as the heart keeps up the pressure. Arterial blood can spurt for several feet, and keeps doing it until the pressure drops.

The popular image of the hero taking a bullet in the shoulder and a few minutes later climbing a ladder and then kicking the bad guy's butt in hand to hand combat is pretty much B.S. It can happen, under exactly the right conditions, but I wouldn't count on it.

I saw a 280lb man hit in the shin by a .357 Mag (160gr SWC) and blood poured out. He stayed on his feet for about 60 seconds, leaning in a doorway, and then slumped down, light headed due to blood loss, and the realization he had been shot. This was an accidental shooting, not a fight, so there were no adrenalin charged emotions involved. This guy cetainly wouldn't have been able to kick any one's butt after being shot, in the shin!

Want to know just how well the bullet energy will blow someone off their feet? Shoot something dead. See how much it moves. That is how much the bullet impact will blow them off their feet. Just a twitch, if that.

Don't believe anything you see in the movies or on TV. None of it. Not guns, bullets, wounds, medicine, police, legal proceedings, or even the basic laws of physics. It just isn't the truth. Even (or especially) when they say it is!
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