My (imperfect) understanding of the physics is bullets going faster than 2800+/- fps have a second shock wave in front of them (in front of the regular super sonic shock wave.) Above 3100+/- fps this second shock wave has enough energy to affect a target. If the target is mostly water (like an animal) the water in the target can not transmit the shock wave. The advance shock wave tries to vibrate the water in the taget faster than water is capable of vibrating. If the target is small (like a p-dog) the energy violently seperats the water into tiny droplets, tearing the solid part of the target apart in the process and throwing them in all directions. In a large target (like a human) there is only enough energy to cause a portion of the water in the body to try to seperate, and the rest of the body mass often absorbes the force of the part of the water that is expanding/exploding. If the expanding water bursts through on the far side on the body, it causes the "pink mist" snipers talk about.
Well, they can carry the plauge, along with a lot of other illinesses. In the same way humans can carry the plauge. But I don't think any p-dogs or humans in the world currently have the plauge.
dont get me wrong, i am all for shooting the litle pests. but i am not so sure how "painless"it would be. instant, yes, but painless? i dont know about that. i suppose it would be like a human killed by a direct hit from a 5" battleship gun projectile. unfortunatly, nobody will ever know how much or little pain there would be in something like that. if you were hit by one, you would be killed intantly. no doubt about that. only folks that make it to heaven (or i guess the other place) will ever know, and they aren't coming back anytime soon to tell us! we tell ourselves that it is painless, to make us feel better about what and how we kill things. but how many of us would vounteer to sit on a 5 inch gun to find out?!
