Cases where .22 WAS fatal

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

B yond

Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2006
Messages
1,270
Not to beat a dead horse, but I'm curious about the lethality of a .22. I'm hoping the wealth of expertise at THR can point me towards some news reports, police reports, coroner's cases, or even just reputable stories where a .22 was in fact lethal. I'm particularly interested in what type of .22 it was (short, LR, Mag, etc.) and where it entered and exited the body.

TIV
 
I saw a 'Dr. G Medical Examiner' episode last year that involved a 22.

Seems a guy had this really old 22 revolver sitting on an ironing board, it fell off...discharged into his forehead.

Ironically it didn't penetrate his brain, just worked it's way around the space between the skull/brain (meninges?) and lodged in the back. It was fatal, really unusual case.

I can personally verify another shooting. 3 years ago a man had just cashed his payroll check and was walking down a sidewalk off a main intersection where I lived. Guy comes up, shoots him twice in the head with a 22, dead.

22 is no joke. Can be very lethal. Look at the velocities, they're like miniature 357 magnums.
 
Any bullet can kill. The reason we don't consider .22lr a good self defense caliber is because its much less likely to rapidly incapacitate an attacker than larger rounds. It can still be fatal but your attacker dying hours or days later doesn't keep him from killing you.
 
Late 1970s MN not far from me. A 14yr old shot another youth with a .22 rifle (I think bolt action) The shooter was in his own home in a upstairs window (in town) and the victim was slightly younger. (maybe 12??)
IIRC the child was walking away and bullet hit back of head about half way down.
No reason just a messed up kid.
 
I've heard that .22 rifles are pretty common in deer poaching because they're cheap enough to throw away should the need arise.
 
If you've ever watched "forensic files" or any of the other Tru/Court TV shows like my girlfriend and I do... Most of the gun related homicides are due to a .22
 
"The First 48" on cable has a LOT of murders done with .22s. Gangers and streetkids love 'em because they don't make much noise or kick hard so they're easy to hit your target with. Also the ammo is cheap. A friend of mine who is ex-army and ex-LEO has seen a lot of deaths caused by .22. He considers it the most lethal round available.
 
One of the scariest comments I got from a friend of mine was, "So how do you like your new Ruger? (10/22)...." I answer that I loved it and talked a bit about it. He responds, "O', I thought they were like bb guns. My brother and I used to joke about shooting each other with them." I was like :eek: "UHHHHHHH NO! A .22 is not ANYTHING like a bb (I think he was thinking airsoft) gun. They will kill a person just as easily as a larger caliber."
 
I've worked in the trauma bay before, just for my own interest to see if I liked trauma or not as a possible career path.

I remember seeing some radiographs from 2 different people, shot by .22s. The bullets did not break through the skull or breastbone of either men. The skull hits, however, were worrisome because of the possibility of the development of an intracranial bleed, which is fatal.

The man who was shot in the chest just had the bullets removed, and was stitched up when it was determined that he had no other injuries or internal bleeding.

At any rate, they can be lethal, but it's pretty much gotta be a head shot judging from what I saw. If the bullet hit between the ribs or was fired at extremely close range, I suppose there is a chance they could nick the heart or any of the great vessels, which would be lethal.
 
one of the guys I used to work with tried one one of those sympathy ploys involving shooting himself in the belly with a .22 while out in the middle of nowhere

It worked.

I guess he hit something pretty important, he bled out before help arrived..

The girlfreind had his apartment cleaned out before morning.
 
2 freaky ones from the early '70's

Guy took a .22 to the chest that apparently entered the aorta which sealed itself off with minimal bleeding.Seeing no reason to operated that night the surgon admitted the guy intending to operate the next day.The bullet got into the internal carotid artery,traveled north & occluded it causing a massive stroke.RIP.
(Not sure this one was a .22 or not).Big burly cop took a through-&-through in the upper arm that missed the bone & major blood vessels.Literally a 2 bandaid wound.This cop was in excellent physical condition:no tobacco,very little alcohol,ran a mile or so daily,no history of drug allery,heart problems,etc.
A small dressing was applied,x-ray to be sure no bone damage & bullet not in arm,tetanis & penicillin shot to be on the safe side.After all the the guy sits down on a stretcher,keels over & DIES!Anaphalytic (drug allery shock) was specifcally ruled out.All we could figure out was he'd always been taught "You get shot you die" & convinced himself to die.
 
The search function should reveal many cases. After all, whenever someone discusses the .22 as a self-defense round, some individuals will present stories of people who died quickly or slowly from wounds produced by this cartridge. Virtually every thread involving .22s and self-defense will contain such accounts.

The assassination of Robert Kennedy, which occured 40 years ago this June, is the most famous murder case I know of involving a .22. Perhaps some of our other members know of cases where famous people died from .22 rimfire wounds.


Timthinker
 
The school shooting in Finland (8 dead) was done with a Sig Mosquito .22 LR. Hui used a Walther P22 as well at Virginia Tech, and some type of 9mm Glock.
 
I know of three, personally.

1974...the brother of a ladyfriend had an altercation with a man who had stolen a pistol from his brother a few hours earlier. He chased the guy down and forced him off the road. The shooter got out of his car with a .22 pump-action rifle and fired one round into his chest at a distance of about 6 feet. "Henry" did an immediate about-face...took 2-3 steps toward his car...and died in his tracks.

1976, a friend of mine...despondent over a breakup...decided to shoot himself in a play for the lady's sympathy. He shot himself in the left shoulder...inside the rifle butt pocket.

The bullet struck his clavicle, and traveled along it...into his lung...and he was dead within 30 minutes. He called his sister immediately after the shot, and it took about 35 minutes to make the trip from her home to his. He was taking his last breaths when she got to him. Only he knows why he didn't call an ambulance. She never mentioned it, either.


The third scenario...around 1985...a guy who I worked with on the midnight shift at RJR didn't show up for work one night. His live-in girlfriend had shot him in the abdomen after a fight that she lost badly after it turned physical. He drove himself 15 miles to a hospital...parked the car and walked into the triage area...collapsed and died.

A .22 will absolutely kill. The question is...Will it take effect in time?
 
I am not sure what purpose this is serving. A small number of people are killed by air guns every year. No doubt that a .22 can kill people as well.
 
Two guys in my neighborhood were shot with 22's within a month of each other back in the mid-eighties.
1 was drt after being shot once.
1 still had three bullets in him when I last saw him, and is probably still walking around.

Read up on the IRA, Westies, La Cosa Nostra, and others like them. You'll see that a 22 is a traditionally preferred caliber for business.

Years ago, there was video of a state trooper who wrestled with a guy and took a 22 round during the struggle. He killed the bad guy, but the 22 made it past his vest in the armpit area, iirc, and he died later from the wound.
 
Lots and lots of stories about a .22 being plenty of kill.

I just have to point out one I saw where it, unfortunately, wasn't.

It was on a nature show last night. Two men, one a guide, were out walking. A polar bear approached making aggressive moves. The guide fired a warning shot, the bear wasn't scared off, the guide shot the bear multiple times, got hit by the bear. The second man managed to get the revolver. The show mentioned 'he fumbled with it', given the number of shots fired I could only think that he was trying to reload it, a revolver just fired shouldn't be difficult to fire again as long as it's loaded.

Anyways, he also shot the bear an unknown number of times more, then the bear hit him once(nonfatally), then he staggered away. It wasn't mentioned until after that that the revolver was a .22, and the gun pictured in the reenactment looked a lot more like a long barrel .357.

They tracked down the bear and killed it with a HP rifle, found that the bullets didn't penetrate the fat layer.
 
I have taken a deer with one to feed the family when we were broke and had no more food.

I also read a book where the hero had a mission to take out a rival leader. It was set in a post nuclar war USA. The hero had a Colt woodsman with a suppressor. In the end use snuck up on about 5 different guys and drilled them in the back of the head and never got caught. I forget the name of the bood. But the country was split much lke it is in the TV Show Jerico on CBS.
 
I know three reputable .22 rimfire cases. I say reputable because I've seen the people (or lack of later on).

One guy did one of those "My girlfriend broke up with me" moves and shot himself. The bullet ricocheted around in his ribcage and missed his heart by 1/4 inch. He lived. I hoped he would have gotten smarter, but he's a crack addict now.

Second was a man who got in an arguement at a party in a bad area. I don't know the details, but we don't see the man anymore. Shot in the head with a .22 rimfire.

Next one will freak you out if you see him. This guy that comes into a store where I often get gas...

He is an older bald/shaved headed black man. Nice guy. He has a scar in the middle of his forehead that then runs a straight line as wide as a pencil all the way over his head and ends at the base of his neck.

He got in a fight with another guy a while back and the guy shot in between the eyes with a .22 handgun. The bullet hit his skull but did not penetrate. It ran under his scalp until it exited at his neck. I haven't yet figured out why it exited at the base of his neck as opposed to the back of his head.

He died not too long ago, but he loved telling that story to highlight just how hard his head was....


-- John
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
  • Locked
Man shot himself 5 times, then jumped into the river...
2
Replies
28
Views
4K
Malone LaVeigh
M
M
  • Locked
Burglar Fatally Shot by Card Shop Owner
Replies
11
Views
1K
Chipperman
C
T
  • Locked
Man fatally shot by officers serving warrant
Replies
10
Views
769
Leatherneck
L
D
  • Locked
(TX) Intruder fatally shot by apartment resident
Replies
1
Views
381
Blackhawk
B
I
  • Locked
This happened not far from me... .22
2
Replies
35
Views
4K
hirundo82
H
Back
Top