Who Knows Someone Who's Been Shot?

[Moondoggie]

I was having a converstion with my local friendly FFL at his shop the other day when he made a point that made me stop and think......

"Cars & firearms supposedly kill approximately the same number of folks. How many folks do you actually know who've been killed/injured in an automobile accident vs. the number who've been killed/injured by firearms?" (For purposes of discussion, we have to take into account that not everybody involved in firearms incidents dies, or is even wounded.)

I've personally known far more folks killed/hurt by cars. I've personally had far more close calls or collisions (none my fault) where I wasn't hurt than incidents involving firearms. Consider that I spent 2 yrs as a reserve LEO so my exposure ought to be a little higher to firearms danger than the average. I've rendered first aid to quite a few folks at car accidents and been with dead folks 3 times prior to the EMT's arrival, but never actually seen anyone wounded/killed by guns.

Now consider how many strangers you've witnessed hurt/killed in car accidents vs. firearms related incidents. (Yes, looky-lou'ing to see them loaded into the meat wagon counts.)

My friend was a Huey pilot in Viet Nam, so he's seen plenty of wounded/dead soldiers in the course of flying Medevac missions, but otherwise his experiences in civilian life have been similar to mine.

I think he has a valid point.

 

[bshepherd]

My wife. When she was about 12 or 13 she was at a friends camp and was shot through the foot with a .22. they were walking through the woods and her friend was carrying a .22 rifle pointed down at the ground. He neglegently discharged the gun and the bullet went through her foot. Missed bones, bled some, treated at the local Hospital. Pain was not bad, healed quickly. Had to fill out a police report, no repurcussions. I believe the lad learned from his mistake.

Ben from Texas, currently in Iraq

 

[BryanP]

I know one person who has been shot. His father-in-law was "cleaning a .22lr rifle in the next room and it went off." (ND). It went right through the drywall and hit my friend in the leg.

 

[Trebor]

I used to work in an ER in a medium-sized metro area. We'd get car accident victims every day. Gunshot victims were much rarer. Like on a 10 - 1 or even 15 -1 ratio.

So, who actually his links to the stats on number of vehicle deaths and injuries per year and the number of firearms deaths/injuries per year? I know someone has to keep those numbers.

 

[Gordon Fink]

I’ve been in one minor car accident (no injuries) and know lots of people who’ve also been in accidents (some involving serious injuries and/or fatalities). I know only one person directly who was killed in a shooting. This was a high-school classmate. Someone also took a shot at my dad when he was a young man, but the shooter missed.

Interesting thread.

~G. Fink

 

[richyoung]

I know only ONE person who was shot - a friend and co-worker named Keith Vowell dropped a double-barrel derringer style pistol loaded with Mag-Safes. It landed on the hammer hard enough to fire the active chamber into his ankle. He almost lost the leg, and was in physical thereapy for a year - couldn't walk for a long time. Compared to that, I know or know of around 10 people injured in automobile and motorcycle acccidents, including two fatalities, and 3 near-fatalities.

 

[TallPine]

Well, I know of a couple people who have been shot (not counting news reports, of course) ...

A friend of a friend of ours was executed during a robbery in Denver some years ago.

And I heard via the grapevine that a young lady who used to live near to us was shot and killed by her boyfriend/husband/whatever after she had moved to another state. She once pulled into our driveway with a flat tire and borrowed our phone.


OTOH, I have on my bulletin board in front of me, the picture of a 20 year old niece of the same friend mentioned above. She apparently fell asleep at the wheel and drifted across the line under the wheels of a semi I used to hold her when she was a baby, and watched her growing up.

 

[2400]

Cars & firearms supposedly kill approximately the same number of folks. How many folks do you actually know who've been killed/injured in an automobile accident vs. the number who've been killed/injured by firearms?"

Does this question include time in the military? If not, I know 9 people that have been shot, 3 died and the other 6 came out OK for lack of a better word. I have seen many others that had been shot but have no idea how they came out.
I have been to many accidents and have seen a higher percentage of dead/injured than shooting related.

 

[femoralis]

On uncle-in-law accidently shot my other uncle-in-law with a .22 in the leg. Bullet bounced off the water. The injured one seemed to think it was funny after the fact...

 

[shermacman]

Hmmm. My wife's grandfather was murdered when he walked into his house, robbery in progress; grandmother was shot in the chest, she recovered physically, but never mentally.
A tennant in my three family was shot in the shoulder during an absolute bust-out bar brawl.
I know far more people who have been killed or seriously injured in car crashes. I would ditto the above poster on the 10 to 1 ratio. Is it possible the firearm death data is not true?!?! Maybe Dan Rather could do an in-depth report on it now that he is unemployeed...

 

[petrel800]

I've known two people who have died in car accidents. Both during the high school years.

I also knew a guy in high school who died in a gun / hunting related incident. Details were scetchy, but from what I understand it was a negligent discharge stemming from hunting from a car at night. Gun was loaded in the back seat and fired while he was reaching for the gun. Died about a day later.

 

[lawson4]

I know one person that was shot: me. It was a hunting accident (negligence by both parties) when I wa a teenager. As a reserve LEO for a couple of years I haven't seen a shooting victim yet.

Rick

 

[41mag]

I can think of two.Both in the Michigan woods during deer season.

The first happened to an older gent I call friend back in the very early sixties.He was out deer hunting when he was shot in the knee.By someone else.He told me that he remembered laying there in the snow yelling/screaming for his hunting partner/brother.He also remembered seeing a stranger walking up towards him w/a rifle.He presumes that this was the shooter.For some reason the shooter just stared at him a minute then walked away.My friend was so creeped out that he never went hunting again.Still shoots though.& no,they never figured out who the shooter was either.

The second occurence happened to a friend of mine & his son.I had an ice fishing partner who had a son the same age as myself.While out deer hunting the son shot himself through the foot with,IIRC,a .270.Both of these guys were big.The boy was 6' probably 220 & his dad was 6'4" about 300.Brad had to basically carry his boy out through knee deep snow.Adrenaline...wow!
Anyways,the son was fine-no permanent damage.I was teasing him about it just a few weeks later.The part of the story that just frosts my noodles even now,twenty yrears later is the way the hospital staff & the Sherrif treated my friend.Here he had just been scared ????less by the sound & sight of his son shooting himself(albeit in the foot),he'd dragged him out & gotten him to help,but then he'd been given the third degree by a suspicious cop & hospital staff.Ferchrissakes his kid shot himself in the foot!Supposedly a branch had snagged the trigger.It was an accident!Yet the "Authorities" took some convincing before they let it go.

 

[mr.trooper]

I know several peole that have been injured or killed in car accidents, including a good friend of our family. some kids were racing and hit him head on as they passed another car. They all came out with minor injurys, but our friend was killed instantly.

On the other hand, iv never know anyone who has been shot with a firearm.

i do know a couple of people that got shot with BB guns when they were little though. my dad got his head grazed by a ricochet, and the husbad of my first grade teacher got a BB lodged in the bone on the side of his head, but luckily suffered no serious injuries. Its actualy a funny story. i might tell it some time if i get the chance.

Yup, Guns are SOOO much mroe dangerous than cars

i think we need a national VEHICLE Ban!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[duckslayer]

I know of three.

One was a girl shot in the shoulder by her boyfriend while she was walking out to his deer stand.

One was a kid who found a .22 and shot himself in the leg.

One was an adult who had an ND and shot his leg.

I have had many more friends and family members killed or injured in car wrecks.

 

[dmallind]

I think what is missing is the socioeconomic milieu where gunshot wounds/fatalities are more common. While there are many suicides and hunting accidents every year (and no the media doesn't just make them up), the actual gun violence directed intentionally at others is concentrated much more in higher crime, lower income areas than in the general population and especially than those with the time and money to be firearms hobbyists and internet message board participants.

Car accidents are of course much more evenly distributed, as even poor areas in the US are replete with cars.

Another factor in the anecdotal prevalence of car accidents vs firearms accidents is that, while gunshot wounds are not fatal a majority of the time as we probably all know, they are certainly fatal at a far greater rate than car accidents, where minor injuries outnumber fatalities by probably hundreds if not thousands to one. Thus this would be a fair comparison only if restricted to fatalities or perhaps very serious injuries.

But to answer the question yes - my father in law was a suicide by shotgun, my mother in law a homicide by handgun (you can imagine the powers of persuasion it took to convince my wife that firearms are not always a bad thing!) To add to this cosmic irony and although it wasn't strictly asked for, my own uncle was/is (not sure he's still alive - never met the man) a murderer who used a shotgun to kill two people. Having said that a colleague's daughter and an acquaintance's son were both killed in car accidents so I guess I'm 2 and 2 really - or 4 and 2 if you count my uncle's victims whom I never met or even heard of.

My point though is that this type of anecdotal personal survey is not valid for the comparison you want.

 

[Tom Servo]

I've known two. One is a Dekalb county deputy who took four .25 rounds in the vest and one in the hip a few years back. Took a small chip out of his hip, but he was otherwise fine. He commented that it was actually a pretty tight group to the chest. Good thing it wasn't a real caliber

The other is a former co-worker. He was walking his dog when shots were fired somewhere across the street. One of the bullets hit a cement wall next to where he was, and part of the slug ricocheted into his left calf. Minimal damage, but he's still got the scar. Never did find out who was shooting.

Both these are in "the hood," but in Atlanta, "the hood" is somewhat mobile and tends to pop up where you least expect.

 

[Rockrivr1]

When I was a kid my Dad went to the Birkshires in Mass to do a little hunting with a friend. While he was out he was getting tired from trecking through the hills and decided to rest and eat his lunch. He found a rock that was against a thick bush, so he sat on the rock and leaned back against the bush.

Unfortunately there was another hunter on the other side of the bush and instead of waiting to see what was coming through the bush, this hunter decided to fire into the bush. Outcome of that shot was that it hit my Dad square in the back with a full load of buck shot. The hunter came around the bush to find my Dad on the ground and bloody. My Dad doesn't remember much from there as he was pretty much out of it. The hunter was definitely an Jack!@s for shooting into a bush, but at least he was man enough to accept responsibility and he dragged my Dad out of the woods.

My Dad spent 8 hours in surgery trying to get the buck shot out of his back. Some of the pellets were dangerously close to his spine. My Dad came out ok from this ordeal, but he still has two of the pellets in his back. The surgeuns said it was just to dangerous to try and get them out.

I remember one time some people commenting on his bullet scars on his back when we were at the beach.

 

[madkiwi]

Well, a pilot I know was car-jacked in the Marina area in San Francisco. He get's out of the car, says "Take the car, whatever you want" and starts backing away. The perp, who could not be a black gang member or anything, says "Where do you think you are going, white boy". Drew knew what was coming, so he spins around and starts running. The asshat shot him in the back. He was able to keep running, gets around the corner, collapses. Lucky for him in the arms of some cops who heard the shots.

Spent about 3 weeks in hospital, and about 4 months in recovery. Luckily, a full recovery.

They never caught the guys, who ran off and left Drew's car.

Only know two people who were killed in traffic accidents, one in high school, another was the fiance of my co-worker's daughter (fell asleep at the wheel on a freeway).

 

[ProactiveReactionary]

i've been shot at and i know myself.

does that count as knowing someone???

 

[AG]

I also was shot ... Home invasion robbery in 1985 .... I was shot execution stye in the back of the head ... The bullet (believed to be a .22 to .32 caliber) pistol bullet is still in the back of my head and neck in about 25-30 pieces. They said the surgery to remove it would be more traumatic than leaving it in .....


BTW this is not a joke I was really executed and lived ... I still have the newspaper article However, I don't set off the metal detectors ....

Edited because I didn't proof read and used the word cartridge when I meant bullet

 

[jwoods]

Not a good comparison

Almost everyone drives a car, almost everyday.
A lot don't own guns, and even more don't use them everyday.


SEAN

 

[Gordon Fink]

I just remembered another acquaintance who was murdered by his roommate over a dispute involving a dog. I don’t know if the murderer used a firearm.

As mentioned earlier, the reason normal people don’t personally know a lot of shooting victims is because said “victims†are mostly criminals. If we eliminated criminal-on-criminal violence, the average shooting rate would be much lower than the average car-accident rate.

~G. Fink

 

[madkiwi]

AG- that's one hell of a "Hello".

Welcome to the forum, I hope you made a full recovery (apart from the souvenirs that you have to carry around for the rest of your life). That is a horrible thing to have happen to you.

madkiwi

 

[cookekdjr]

Lots and lots.