OPINION: How I feel about GUNS and our Children

  "Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value."

 - - The late chemist Paul L. Kirk, from Crime Investigation, 2nd Edition, J.J. Thornton, ed., 1974, p.2.

I do not usually write at length about subjects, unless it is about a subject I feel very strongly about. fire arms is a touchy subject to me.  Representative Gifford was shot, and we have watched her and her husband Mark go through tough times, but she is a fighter. Two days ago a Florida mother kills 4 children, then herself. What would cause a mom to do such a thing?  We may never know that answer.  She had a gun, where did she get it? The number of children and adolescents that have been injured or killed by guns this year

Any doctor can write a report and say anything the patient wants said.  Especially a 'family' physician,  I do not take this as truth, I watched those videos and did not see anything that remotely looked like a broken nose, or cuts on the head. There was more video taken in the police station by security cameras.  Zimmerman was not hand cuffed, was not interrogated, it looked like a stroll in the park with 'friends'.

And as for his attorney to categorically state that the video was too grainy, not reliable and you could not see the so called injuries, is a bold faced lie.  I did see a slight dark blotch barely noticeable. It is surprising that all other defendants, video tapped at police stations have not used this argument.  And the picture of Zimmerman 'supposedly' taken three minutes after he shot Martin, not possible, no police were there yet and no one had a camera, and no cell phone takes that clear of a picture.  It looked to me like someone finger painted on his head, or poured paint, food colouring over the spots. It did not look real. And if Zimmerman had been beaten within an inch(no pun taken for two cuts to his head) of his life, and barely conscious, would not they (the police) have automatically sent him to the hospital no matter what Zimmerman said. They could have been held responsible if Zimmerman had lapsed into a comma, or God forbid died.

I am not impressed, I will wait for the trial, and God and I can only hope that this will not drag on for months and months. There are too many questions that I want answered.

• What was he thinking, when he disregarded the instructions given him? 

• Why was he carrying a gun, when it states that patrol persons were expressly forbidden to carry one.

• That all neighborhood watch patrol persons allowed to do was to report it to the police, do not follow, and leave it to the professionals. 

• Would like to know what happened to the money that people donated to the web site, to help Zimmerman with bail or an  attorney, when he feigned that he and his parents where poor.   

• That was the reason the judge made his bail so low, I am just totally blown away. I am afraid that this judge will give Zimmerman a walk, because of the 'stand your ground' law.  It will be open season, for people with guns to take justice into their own hands.  

• Will we see more Neighborhood watch people carrying concealed weapons? 

1. I hate guns

1. I hate how easy it is for anyone to get a gun, 
2. I understand that lots of people have guns to hunt, 
3. I am not sure of concealed weapons permits and why they are needed.
4. I would love to see the congress talk about gun laws, restrictions, the number of guns a person can lawfully own, concealed permits, the size of the ammunition holder, the less the better.  
5. It seems that lately I have heard more about children wounded or killed by guns owned by parents who do not have them stored, locked and empty.  There has to be laws, punishment, jail, for those who do not abide by the rules. 
6. And there should be rules for the NRA, that they can not buy votes from Congress persons. It is too easy for the NRA to get what they want, to hell with ordinary constitutes who get screwed by the very law makers they vote into office. 
7. Did you know: 

• Children, adults, rich, poor, male, female, black, white. A bullet doesn’t care, and the cumulative toll is staggering.

• Bullets are small objects made of metal that travel very, very fast. A bullet shot from a high- caliber handgun can briefly reach speeds of over 1,000 miles per hour. That’s a lot faster than you can run . . . or zigzag. 

• Damage done to the body by a firearm depends on a number of factors. Of course where a bullet enters the body has a significant impact on the outcome. Engineering specifications of a particular weapon contribute to its overall impact on the human body, a phenomenon known to health care providers as the blast effect. 

• The blast effect refers to the zone of damaged tissue around a gunshot wound caused by the bullet itself, and by shock to surrounding tissue caused by the sheer speed with which the projectile enters and travels around inside the body. 

• Some of the bullets are engineered to tumble upon entrance into the body, or implode upon impact. Bullets are designed to do the maximum damage.  Some have an amazing ability to ricochet off of things inside the body.

• When a bullet penetrates the body, it imparts some of its energy into the body. Typically this energy results in temporary cavity formation. 

• This means that as the bullet creates a path through tissue, the path expands for a fraction of a second and then retracts.

• This expansion can damage tissue in its own right, making a bullet wound and its resulting injuries appear larger than the projectile itself.

• In flexible areas - such as the abdomen - there might be a higher resistance to the expansion and thus, the temporary cavity doesn't cause as much damage;

•  but, in an inflexible area, such as the tough unyielding skull, the temporary cavity formation can result in severe pressures and devastating injuries

• The human cost of firearm injuries is recognized every day not only by the loved ones who must live without a son or daughter, father or mother, husband or wife, but by the health care workers who must care for the victims. 

• For children, most of these injuries are accidental because parents do not have appropriate safety measures in place to keep children from getting their hands on the guns. There are kids who have shot themselves because they think the gun is a toy.

• Studies have shown that twenty-five percent of children who are injured by firearms are left with chronic health problems, the reason firearm injuries in children are much more devastating than in adults is simple physiology.

• Children are smaller, so the chances of a bullet hitting a vital organ are much higher, and many times the bullet ends up crossing the midline of the body and injuring vital vascular structures   

•  If parents want to prevent firearm injuries in children, they need to use trigger locks, or store guns in lock boxes. To be skeptical and say these methods won’t work isn’t true. If the guns are locked up then the kids can’t get to them.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data stating firearm injuries are the leading cause of death in adolescents. 

• CDC data suggests that over 66 percent of U.S. households have a handgun, and these guns are often stored loaded and unlocked.

I HATE guns, and this one point I can not stress any harder.  I know that guns do kill, because people who point them at other people do not care about the person on the other end.  People kill, guns kill, guns can not fire without a person behind them.

Here is a situation:

A gun sitting on a table cannot fire by itself, but have a child, teenager, an adult pick up that gun and point it, have it go off.  That bullet whizzes through the air, traveling at great speeds, to hit a wall, ceiling, floor, or God forbid another child, teen, or adult.  The damage that a bullet causes(depending on the size) could be devastating, because that bullet does not know where it is going, it travels a straight line. The bullet penetrates your skin, ripping open your flesh and tearing capillaries. As it encounters resistance from your flesh and muscle, the tip of the bullet flattens out, expanding its overall width. The shock wave from it entering your body puts extreme pressure on nearby tissue and organs, disrupting their operation.  The bullet now moves forward and shatters your rib cage, spraying shards of bone that pierce organs and blood vessels. The bullet’s “crush mechanism” destroys tissue and muscle— leaving a permanent hole— as it penetrates deeper into your body and enters your heart. Blood spills out of your heart, filling up your chest cavity, and gushing liberally from the entry wound in your flesh. Your blood pressure sinks dramatically, and your heart fails from the damage.  Coupled with blood loss, you suffer cardiac arrest.  The bullet comes to a stop somewhere in your body— if it has run out of energy— or exits out your back, creating a big hole that will further drain your blood.

We have mentioned gun shot wounds.  Here's a few things to remember:

• Gun shot wounds (GSW) are not really puncture wounds.  They are considered a special kind of blunt trauma.
• The kinetic energy of the bullet is the key to how much damage it can do:
          KE =  1/2 MV²
             Kinetic Energy = 1/2 Mass x Velocity²
              Notice that the velocity is squared.  If the velocity
                  is doubled the effect is quadrupled.

This is useful in explaining cavitation, or the formation of cavities as a result of the energy of the bullet:

In the diagram above, and that below, the difference between temporary and permanent cavitation is shown in terms of color, with the paler color indicating the temporary cavitation.

What happens when a bullet enters the body:

• The bullet hits the skin first, yet it does not penetrate immediately.  The bullet pushes on the skin until the skin breaks.

• This can result in the skin being pushed back into the body a considerable distance (very similar to hitting someone with a blunt object).

• Finally the skin breaks and the bullet can enter the body.

• Once the bullet is in the body it creates one or two cavities (hollow spaces).  The cavity is created because the tissue is pushed out of the way of the bullet.

• Low power bullets only create a small permanent cavity

• High power bullets create a very large temporary cavity (like a splash in water) and a permanent cavity.  It is this temporary cavity that can cause massive wounds.