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Where's the best place on your body to get shot? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
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Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast Stuff you Should Know. That's what it's called.
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Speaker 1: How's it going, Chuck? It's going great, Josh? How are you?
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Speaker 1: I'm doing pretty good. Good. Before we get started, Josh,
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Speaker 1: I'd like to say a couple of words if I may. Okay, Uh,
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Speaker 1: this is uh. We say this how Stuff you Should
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Speaker 1: Know is just named to uh iTunes two thousand eight
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Speaker 1: Best of two thousand eight podcasts, And we say this
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Speaker 1: as a thank you to the fans, ay and as
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Speaker 1: a thank you to our producer Jerry. This is not
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Speaker 1: a pad on our back. Our producer Jerry works tirelessly
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Speaker 1: to edit, to provide the music, makes the sound quality
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Speaker 1: everyone talks about. How great. Yes, everything we say is wrong.
0:50
Speaker 1: Jerry has to go back um figure out the right
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Speaker 1: answer right and edit it so that it sounds like
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Speaker 1: we know what we're talking about. Essentially, so Jerry's work
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Speaker 1: and the fans that sin is a big, big reason
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Speaker 1: why we were named best of two thousand eight and
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Speaker 1: something we're really proud of. So we just want to
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Speaker 1: say thank you and let's get on with it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: let's how about gun death. How about that for a segue. Well,
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Speaker 1: Jerry's crying now, so I think a gun death is
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Speaker 1: a good way to go. Okay, all right, So um
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Speaker 1: wow that was really something that was great. Um, I'm
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Speaker 1: for Clint, are you? Yeah, Well I've never seen you
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Speaker 1: get choked up? Okay, alright, alright, so gun death, gun death,
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Speaker 1: basically chuck. There's a new study that was released though
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Speaker 1: I think about four hours ago. Really yeah, less than
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Speaker 1: that actually, um, And it found that states that have
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Speaker 1: lax handgun laws. There's actually ten of them that have
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Speaker 1: really lacks handgun laws, and I believe George is one
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Speaker 1: of them. See, we're one of those states. You can
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Speaker 1: come down and buy like fifty guns if you want,
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Speaker 1: and then take them to New York and sell them. Yeah. Well,
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Speaker 1: states like ours actually have a higher in stince per
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Speaker 1: capita of UM handgun related deaths, actually seventy more. So
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Speaker 1: that's not altogether shocking, No, it's not. And what's even
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Speaker 1: less shocking is that these statistics are found in the US.
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Speaker 1: Because you can make a pretty good case that, um,
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Speaker 1: the US is a gun culture. Yeah, you want some numbers, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm flying in with the stats as we speak. Uh,
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Speaker 1: United States in two thousand seven, there were a total
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Speaker 1: of two hundred and seventy million guns. Yes, and that
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Speaker 1: is ninety guns for every hundred people. Right, And just
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Speaker 1: to put that in perspective, India, which is kind of
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Speaker 1: surprised me, actually the second most armed nations. Well think
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Speaker 1: think about this. India also has like a billion people
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Speaker 1: living there. We have a quarter of the population have
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Speaker 1: been India, right. Uh So, having said that, India has
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Speaker 1: a forty five million compared to our two seventy and
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Speaker 1: there's second in the most heavily armed nation on the planet.
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Speaker 1: So there you go. Yeah, um so that's that's a
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Speaker 1: lot of guns. We had a lot of guns for people.
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Speaker 1: You know. Um, I spent some time when I was
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Speaker 1: in high school. I lived in kenne Saw, Georgia, and
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Speaker 1: kenne Saw actually has a law on the books that
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Speaker 1: says you have to own a gun if you live
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Speaker 1: in kenne Saw. That was probably passed right around the
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Speaker 1: time you were growing up there, right, I think it
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Speaker 1: was pasted a few years before because I heard of it. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'd heard of it when you know, before we came
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Speaker 1: down and I don't know gun guy, but apparently crime
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Speaker 1: dropped quite a bit. And it did. And it also
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Speaker 1: it also was an end run around any debate over
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Speaker 1: gun control. They just said, no, forget it, We're going
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Speaker 1: the exact opposite way of gun control. Everybody has to
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Speaker 1: have a gun. And clearly, you know, the police didn't
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Speaker 1: enter your house in search, which would have been stupid
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Speaker 1: to do in kenne Saw because everybody's armed. So it
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Speaker 1: wasn't very heavily enforced law, but it's a it was
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Speaker 1: a significant one. Everybody in Kennethan knew it, you know.
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Speaker 1: But we're not talking about gun control today. No, that's
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Speaker 1: not what this podcast is all about. Just to set up, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: what we're talking about is, uh, where do you want
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Speaker 1: to get shot? What isn't that what we're talking about?
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Speaker 1: The best place to get shot? Oh? Yes, yes, yes,
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Speaker 1: actually yes, um. And and the reason we were talking
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Speaker 1: about guns is because there's so many of them, it's
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Speaker 1: pretty you know, you have a pretty high likelihood in
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Speaker 1: the US to get shot. So as a service of
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Speaker 1: you know, a public service of how stuff works, we're
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Speaker 1: here to advise you on the best place to take
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Speaker 1: a bullet if you do get shot, as if you
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Speaker 1: can control that, oh THEO. There are a couple of
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Speaker 1: things you could do. Sure, I mean you're in a
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Speaker 1: grocery store and and it goes down. You know, the
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Speaker 1: stuff is the fan, that kind of thing. Now you'll
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Speaker 1: know what to do or um. An example I used
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Speaker 1: is um if an angry loan shark is like, I
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Speaker 1: got a bullet here with your name on it. Where
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Speaker 1: you want to take it? Now you'll know? Okay, So, um,
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Speaker 1: let's let's first kind of describe what happens when you
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Speaker 1: get shot, right, Because an understanding of this called wound ballistics.
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Speaker 1: It's the field of study of, you know, what a
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Speaker 1: bullet does to bone and tissue organ Once you understand that,
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Speaker 1: you can figure out pretty easily where the best place
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Speaker 1: to get shot is. Um. Okay, So, wound ballistics, Chuck, yes.
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Speaker 1: Kinetic energy, Josh, Yes. Bullets entire purpose on this planet
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Speaker 1: is to take the energy that it has when it's
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Speaker 1: shot out of a gun and transfer it to your body, right,
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Speaker 1: which is determined by its weight and velocity in trajectory.
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Speaker 1: In trajectory, yes, So you take all these things together
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Speaker 1: and actually you can predict pretty well the kind of
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Speaker 1: damage that's going to be done. Um, if you are
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Speaker 1: shot in a bone, a bone is going to absorb
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Speaker 1: most of that kinetic energy, if not all, which sounds
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Speaker 1: like a good thing. It's not, it's not. It means
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Speaker 1: your bone is just totally shattered, right, which causes essentially
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Speaker 1: a mini shrapnel explosion inside your body. Yeah, and the
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Speaker 1: bone fragments actually end up doing I don't know about
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Speaker 1: as much, but does a lot of damage to your organs.
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Speaker 1: And then they've been known to travel all sorts of
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Speaker 1: crazy places too. Yeah. Bullets, Uh, the another big JFK
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Speaker 1: magic bullet theory sounds crazy and I'm not citing one
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Speaker 1: way or the other, but bullets have been known to
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Speaker 1: do weird, weird things once they hit objects. Didn't wasn't
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Speaker 1: it that that Texas senator didn't It supposedly hit his
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Speaker 1: elbow and travel up his arm and then go out
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Speaker 1: and then hit JFK in the face or something. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And my my brother in Lawn, he's in the Marine Corps,
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Speaker 1: told me a story one time about a firing range
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Speaker 1: accident where a fellow marine was shot and it like
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Speaker 1: went in his shoulder and traveled across his chest and
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Speaker 1: then down the arm and like out the tip of
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Speaker 1: his finger. Wow, just tumbling. It's just nuts. Yeah yeah.
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Speaker 1: So okay, so these things are deadly and unpredictable, which
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Speaker 1: is a really bad. Yeah. Um okay, so that's what
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Speaker 1: happens when you when when bones hit that kinetic energy
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Speaker 1: is transferred, the bone with shatters and it's bad. And ultimately,
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Speaker 1: here's a little side note, um getting shot through and
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Speaker 1: through and in and out. It's actually it's actually good, right.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you you may bleed death, but you're probably
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Speaker 1: gonna bleed to death anyway if it hits some sort
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Speaker 1: of vital organ um or major artery. But the bullet wasn't.
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Speaker 1: It didn't manage to transfer all of its energy, which
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Speaker 1: is why it kept traveling. If it stays in your body,
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Speaker 1: all that energy was transferred to your bone um soft tissue,
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Speaker 1: which actually doesn't it doesn't um, it doesn't crush the
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Speaker 1: kind of wound that a bone sustains as a crushing wound,
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Speaker 1: crushing penetration um soft tissue or organs, that kind of
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Speaker 1: thing that actually suffers a cavitation. This is screwed up, right,
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Speaker 1: This is actually this kind of surprised me. When a
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Speaker 1: bullet passes through you through tissue, it creates a cavity
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Speaker 1: that can be up to thirty times as wide as
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Speaker 1: the bullet itself. And yeah, and it's it's created by
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Speaker 1: the shock waves, right, and then the path closes behind
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Speaker 1: the bullet. It's like a split second opening this gulf
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Speaker 1: in your soft tissue. Um, and then it closes behind.
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Speaker 1: But that that damnage is already done. That shockwave has
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Speaker 1: already just trashed all that soft tissue. Um. So that's
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Speaker 1: that's bad too, right, which sort of brings us to
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Speaker 1: these specialty bullets. Yeah, they are especially made to do
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Speaker 1: maximum harm. We're talking about uh, full metal jacket bullets
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Speaker 1: and then yeah, good movie too. And the hollow points
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Speaker 1: which are designed to fragment after impact or hollow points
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Speaker 1: are soft and they actually flatten and spread out and
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Speaker 1: create a wider area wider than that yeah, because you know,
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Speaker 1: if you have a little pointy bullet, it's not going
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Speaker 1: to make as as much, it's not gonna have as
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Speaker 1: much of a wide of a track or create a cavity.
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Speaker 1: So I just call those people killing bullets exactly. I mean,
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Speaker 1: these things are designed to to most efficiently transfer their energy,
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Speaker 1: all of it to the human body. Um. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: so so now we kind of understand what a bullet
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Speaker 1: can do, right, Um now the body, right, the human body,
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Speaker 1: So bone can shatter. Yes, so you want to kind
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Speaker 1: of you don't. You don't want to get shot in
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Speaker 1: a place that's real bony, especially if it's a bone
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Speaker 1: that's near a vital organ. Right your ribs, Yeah, your
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Speaker 1: chest is just out of the question. You've got you've
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Speaker 1: got lungs in there, You've got heart. I think the
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Speaker 1: liver's in there somewhere. I mean, you've got a bunch
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Speaker 1: of really important stuff in there. Yeah. Between your waist
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Speaker 1: and your neck is a lot of organs going on.
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Speaker 1: And if all of a sudden you have rigged rib
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Speaker 1: fragments flying all over the place. Then and also getting
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Speaker 1: shot in the spine not a great place. Um, probably
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Speaker 1: lifelong paralysis, if not death. Um, not not a good spot.
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Speaker 1: Your head is a terrible spot too. Yeah. I know
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Speaker 1: the guy that did you interview him or yeah? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: his name is Ed size More. Yeah, he said, you know,
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Speaker 1: you'd rather get shot in the brain then in the heart.
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Speaker 1: He said he'd rather get shot in the heart than
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Speaker 1: the brain, right, because you can repair a heart. There's
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Speaker 1: artificial hearts, there's no artificial brain. Although he also pointed
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Speaker 1: out that, um, there are plenty of people who uh
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Speaker 1: survive um, gunshot wounds of their brains from I think
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty something to nineteen ninety three. Uh, it's pretty
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Speaker 1: it was. It wasn't that scientific. Um, I'm sorry. It
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Speaker 1: was two to nine sixty six percent of the people
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Speaker 1: who came into Cook County General Hospital in Chicago with
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Speaker 1: gunshot wounds to their brain lived. So it's not necessarily
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Speaker 1: fatal to get shot in the brain, but you can
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Speaker 1: be messed up for the rest of your life. Sure,
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Speaker 1: brain damage, and that's not kind of fun either. No,
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Speaker 1: So you want to stay away from the head. You
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Speaker 1: want to stay away from the torso the spine. Um.
10:40
Speaker 1: And I think really ultimately, every single one of our
10:42
Speaker 1: listeners is like, yeah, really, what what a huge surprise?
10:45
Speaker 1: What an enlightning podcast. Okay, so let's go to the
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Speaker 1: arms and legs and smarties. Huh did any of you
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Speaker 1: say arms or legs, because if so, you'd be wrong. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: But my first thought was maybe to get shot in
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Speaker 1: the leg would be a good place because in the movies,
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Speaker 1: they just tie bandana around it and limp off. Yeah
11:00
Speaker 1: did you did you ever see? Uh? I think it
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Speaker 1: was Rambo. I think it was First Blood Part two
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Speaker 1: might have been three. Um where he gets shot in
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Speaker 1: the side, through and through wound and he's done in
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Speaker 1: like some sewer or something, and he pours like gasoline
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Speaker 1: or or sterno into it and then lights it on
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Speaker 1: fire with a torch to motorize the wound shot and
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Speaker 1: it just shoots through like the side of his body
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Speaker 1: and he screams and everything. It's awesome. It was pretty good.
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Speaker 1: You just I just got a glimpse into twelve year
11:29
Speaker 1: old Josh. Yeah, yeah, I think I was even younger
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Speaker 1: than that. But yeah, that was good stuff. Um okay,
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Speaker 1: So but again, had he had he chosen wisely, he
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Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten shot in the side again close to
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Speaker 1: internal organs. But let's get back to the arms and legs. No,
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Speaker 1: because major major arteries, the femeral and the brachial arteries
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Speaker 1: run through the leg and the arm, respectively, So these
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Speaker 1: are huge arteries. They're they're responsible for all the blood
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Speaker 1: flow to your extremities, which is pretty important because without it,
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Speaker 1: they would freeze off when it got you know, down
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Speaker 1: to thirty five degrees um. And if you get shot
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Speaker 1: in any one of these, if these things become severed, um,
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Speaker 1: you'll bleed out in about two or three minutes. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Once I read the part about the femoral artery, it recalled.
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Speaker 1: And you know I've heard a lot on the news
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Speaker 1: about people getting shot in the leg and dying, and
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Speaker 1: that's the reason. It can be a very deadly place
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Speaker 1: to get shot. So what are we left with? Well, uh,
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Speaker 1: by my account, the head, the chest, the arms, and
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Speaker 1: legs are out, so I would just say the feet
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Speaker 1: in the hands, that is right. It's probably the best
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Speaker 1: place to right. And also somebody out there who may say, well,
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Speaker 1: what about the pubic region the hip? No, no, um,
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Speaker 1: there is a nerve bundle your hip. That is by
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Speaker 1: again Ed Sizemore is reckoning. Um. The most painful place
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Speaker 1: to get shot. The nerve bundle right there would just
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Speaker 1: shoot pain throughout your body in the most efficient manner possible.
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Speaker 1: So not the pelviace either, but yes, a hand or
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Speaker 1: a foot, well, there's all kinds of bones though, So
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Speaker 1: it is true this is the thing you know there
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Speaker 1: you would suffer some terrible, terrible crushing injuries. Um, you
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Speaker 1: may never use your hand or foot that you got
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Speaker 1: shot in again. Number one, you have another one. Okay,
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Speaker 1: so let's say you you get even you know, your
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Speaker 1: your foot just completely disabled. Um. There are such things
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Speaker 1: as crutches, wheelchairs. You can drag your foot along behind
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Speaker 1: you with your good foot, your hand. You'll never work
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Speaker 1: with your you know whatever hand you got shot in again.
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Speaker 1: But think about the drummer from def Leppard. He droned
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Speaker 1: with only one arm. Okay, so I mean there's exactly yes,
13:32
Speaker 1: um is that his name? Next one? Um? So, so yes,
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Speaker 1: it would hurt, but think about how thin your hand
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Speaker 1: and feet are. It could go right through it. Hopefully
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Speaker 1: we'll go right through. And also those bones that are
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Speaker 1: getting shattered as that you know, high high, high speed,
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Speaker 1: hollow point bullet and rushrooms into it and it goes
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Speaker 1: out the other end. Um. There, it's very unlikely those
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Speaker 1: those fragments will travel to a vital organ. Right, So
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Speaker 1: is it there far enough away? Well? I guess just
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Speaker 1: makes sense because whenever you hear about stories about army
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Speaker 1: dudes in various wars, you want to get sent home.
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Speaker 1: They shoot themselves in the foot. That's just a common
14:11
Speaker 1: way to do it to get sent home. Yeah, at
14:13
Speaker 1: the very least Stewie and Brian did right from the
14:16
Speaker 1: family guy. Yeah it didn't work though, Yeah yeah, so yeah,
14:20
Speaker 1: hand or foot that's the way to go, agreed. I
14:22
Speaker 1: would if someone came running at me with a gun,
14:24
Speaker 1: I would lie down and stick up my arms and
14:27
Speaker 1: legs and and my hands in front of my face. Actually,
14:29
Speaker 1: you you would be right in lying down. Mr Sizemore
14:32
Speaker 1: told me, you know, if you get down on the ground,
14:34
Speaker 1: you're presenting a smaller target. His number one advice to
14:39
Speaker 1: any civilian UM who is being shot at run run.
14:45
Speaker 1: I believe he may have said run, like hell yeah, yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: I would do this too. That's another good idea too.
14:51
Speaker 1: I mean, most people can't shoot to say their lives. Yeah,
14:53
Speaker 1: um so yeah, but you know you could just as
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Speaker 1: easily run into a bullet. That that's true. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: number one, run number two laid down on the ground.
15:02
Speaker 1: Do you have a choice? Hand? Foot? Yeah? Exactly. So
15:07
Speaker 1: you know that brings us to right listener mail listener mail. Okay,
15:15
Speaker 1: so who do who do we have one from there? Buddy?
15:17
Speaker 1: This week we have um one from one Coral Clark
15:21
Speaker 1: from San Jose, California's Great Need. And this we've already
15:25
Speaker 1: talked about the jelly bean thing ad nauseam, the booger
15:28
Speaker 1: flavored beans. Hopefully this one will put it to rest,
15:30
Speaker 1: because this is sort of a correction upon a correction
15:33
Speaker 1: that we've already done. So in one of our podcasts
15:36
Speaker 1: we talked about booger flavor jelly beans. Josh doubted I
15:39
Speaker 1: had had them, and no, they weren't just real boogers
15:43
Speaker 1: that I've had, and someone confirmed. But now Coral writes
15:47
Speaker 1: in and says back to booger flavor jelly beans jellybellies.
15:51
Speaker 1: While it is true that the trade name Jellybelly does
15:53
Speaker 1: not market these unusually flavored sweets, the company that manufactures
15:57
Speaker 1: them goalets is commissioned to make Bertie Potts Every Flavor
16:01
Speaker 1: beans of Harry Potter fan which I know you mentioned
16:04
Speaker 1: in our podcast. Uh while, when I tore the California factory,
16:07
Speaker 1: they did confirm that they manufactured Bertie Potts Every Flavor
16:11
Speaker 1: beans and their factories using the same process as for jellybellies,
16:15
Speaker 1: except they did not always use all natural flavors, bringing
16:18
Speaker 1: you flavors alike dirt, bacon, spaghetti, earwax, and vomit. I
16:23
Speaker 1: could go for bacon or spaghetti. Yeah, but I don't
16:25
Speaker 1: know why those would be gross. Well, I agree, but
16:28
Speaker 1: I mean it's a really little tiny capsules of bacon
16:31
Speaker 1: and spaghetti that's kind of nights actually. Uh so uh.
16:36
Speaker 1: He goes on to say, I think you also mentioned
16:38
Speaker 1: bean boozled beans, where the black bean might be a
16:41
Speaker 1: liquorice or a skunk spray flavor, and the company Gullets
16:44
Speaker 1: produces those as well, So it's fantastic. Coral Clark, right,
16:48
Speaker 1: Coral Clark, greatest name ever. Thank you very much for
16:51
Speaker 1: writing in. Thanks for the mail, and anybody else who
16:54
Speaker 1: wants to point out a point, or revise another point,
16:57
Speaker 1: or just say hi or whatever, send us up an
17:00
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
17:04
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
17:09
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M brought
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