As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the nation for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before.
In a typical handgun injury that I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ like the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, grey bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.
I was looking at a CT scan of one of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, with extensive bleeding. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?
The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle which delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. There was nothing left to repair, and utterly, devastatingly, nothing that could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.
The doctor goes on to explain that the higher velocity of the Ar-15 bullets allows them to essentially rip through the human body and obliterate internal organs, and even cause enough damage that a victim can bleed out quickly even if no major arteries are damaged.
In short though both a handgun and an assault rifle are designed to kill human beings, however an AR-15 is designed to ensure the death of its victims even if they receive prompts medical care.
So why in the hell would that weapon be available to individuals NOT entering a war zone?
Have always loved the Helen & Margaret blog posts and this one is spot on.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for reprinting Margaret and Helen's take on Trump's reaction to the Parkland tragedy. They say so much in so few words. I'd love to see them face to face to the Orange One. He would be quickly hiding under a chair - or trying to fit under one.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
1. The craven nature of @marcorubio on the gun issue is more apparent than with most politicians. The reason is not what he says about policy, but what he says about guns themselves. So many of his statements are wrong about guns as objects that it is clear he has done no work...
ReplyDelete3....using AR-15s for hunting. Without major adjustments by the owner, an AR-15 cant shoot a caliber bullet that is legal for hunting deer, etc. The reason why is that hunters are not in the torture business - they would have to rip apart the deer with repeated firings to....
https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/967081397642039301
Gryphen
ReplyDeleteOT - Track Palin
It is said that his full name is Track CJ Palin. Any one know what "CJ" might stand for? Curtis Jr.?
yes grasshopper. Curtis. He was his "godfather" maybe? In addition to his biologic father.
DeleteCis4 Chuck Heath, Sr. Track Palin
DeleteTrack Palin teaches my boys how to shoot a rifle - more at chuckheathjr.com https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/10/8c/a4108c2b4e0ad212ae192571459e370d--sarah-palin-my-boys.jpg
We should call #AR15s #MarcoRubio because they’re both easy to buy | TheHill
Track son Charlie
7am
ReplyDeleteDear, web etiquette requires that you post a paragraph and a link instead of posting the whole damn article and taking clicks away from the author. Just common curtesy.
Thank you, 8:24. I like Margaret and Helen but come on!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.yahoo.com/news/parkland-survivor-apos-apos-ve-091955474.html
ReplyDelete"Samantha Fuentes, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School― where a former student killed 17 people after opening fire on the campus― was at the hospital when the president called her. Fuentes, who was shot twice, told The New York Times that the president “didn’t make me feel better in the slightest.”"
"“He said he heard that I was a big fan of his, and then he said, ‘I’m a big fan of yours too.’ I’m pretty sure he made that up,” she told the Times. “Talking to the president, I’ve never been so unimpressed by a person in my life.”"
You're not the only one, Samantha. Plenty of the rest of us are unimpressed with him too.
This post has made me think about something Trump said at CPAC today. He was sure to make special mention of Andrew Pollack, father of one of the victims, the man who stood in the back and spoke during Trump’s listening session the other day. I’m not sure how many parents of the Florida school victims were invited, but I read that he was the one parent to show up.
DeleteHe’s a Trump supporter who some have criticized for wearing a Trump 2020 T-shirt on the day his daughter died. A pic was taken of him wearing the T in his car as he held up a cell phone photo of his daughter Meadow. He was searching for her. But she’d died after being shot multiple times. His Facebook page is no longer available, but there are still a few pics of him online. One site, datalounge.com, lists a number of sites he supposedly had liked on his Facebook page, and I looked some up to see if they were real, and they were. If these are actual likes, and not a pathetic joke by people at datalounge, then he’s a really big supporter of guns and is against gun regulation and is an Obama trasher (and not just someone who didn’t vote for Obama). I listened again to his words that day in the WH, and he was careful not to get into a gun debate but he also used wording that made it pretty clear that he wants guns in the schools. In looking for any other info or picture hints about what makes him tick, I can only say that in one pic he was wearing camo shorts and in another pic a camo hat (and is in great physical shape for a middle-aged guy and I wondered if he’d been in the military), and he’s connected to a protection dog company called Avisa K9. His sons made comments about the free exchange of ideas and not censoring, which some people found unusual and the remarks seem to have come from a place of criticizing the MSM as fake news. The father sounded, even in grief, like someone who is used to public speaking.
Gut feeling says that Trump is going to want to get this guy to campaign with him or make ads for him or something—I see Trump latching onto him for reelection, especially with all the victims’ families and high school students who will be old enough to vote and who will be fighting to get someone else elected.
Well, that man in truly a pathetic, indoctrinated soul.
DeleteThat's all I can say. His daughter was slaughtered and he can still justify the Republican bullshit.
You can change indocrination. Most would change, I believe after their child was slaughtered. But clearly not all.
I think you are correct. He will be used bigly.
Sort of like "Joe the plumber" aka Mr Magoo.
DeleteTrump can have Camo Dad.
DeleteHis opponent will have Samantha Fuentes and numerous other survivors.
If it comes to that.
I'm still hoping for a coronary.
OT:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-u-official-focused-election-security-being-replaced-022122938.html
"The head of a federal commission who has helped U.S. states protect election systems from possible cyber attacks by Russia or others is being replaced at the behest of Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House.
Matthew Masterson, a member of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission who currently serves as its chairman, has been passed over for a second four-year term as one of the agency's four commissioners.
"The appointment expired in December and we are going in a different direction for our nomination. We nominate people for a variety of positions and generally speaking choose our own folks," AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan, said by email on Thursday."
Considering this administration's talent for appointees, I'd say we're all screwed.
All I can picture is the kids' bodies literally exploding internally from the cavitation process he describes and illustrates.
ReplyDeleteWe are one fucked up nation - that is all I can say. My Norwegian family members ask me every week, WTF is going on there and when are you leaving?
I am staying off social media like FB. I can not stomach the people who continue to make excuses for Drumpf. People who are in my town. It's like people's brains have been hijacked.....it is almost enough to make me consider that there is some weird virus or chemical in the air making people lose their minds. Some of us are immune, perhaps because of our genetics.
Ha! Hope Trump doesn't find out or he won't welcome Norwegians anymore!!!
DeleteNo separate virus.
DeleteThe problem is belief in a separate salvation. Its called evangelism, but also includes aspects of monotheism in general.
How is that?
Because the guns aren't about the guns - they are about control, and about certainty and satisfaction, with sex and violence being the lowest ignorant animal unevolved primal animal response.
People don't see heaven is right here - not as some floozy Caucasian separate concept - but that it is in fact found here and now, as a way or being, not a place.
The problem with monotheism is that its' symbols (ie man on a cross) are taken literally rather than metaphorically, therefore the religious symbols lose their transcendence, as the symbol has been CONCRETIZED. And THAT is where the ERROR of separation occurs and the lesson of life loses all value.
With people not seeing themselves correctly, or correctly understanding their selves, they create erroneous systems of living to compensate for the helplessness they feel while they await salvation. Enter booze and drugs, reality TV, guns, etc.
We are transcendent beings,born luminous (not sinners), who are to consciously realize our own divinity here and now. We are responsible. A separate god - and guns - ABSOLUTELY leaves one unable to be responsible, or to experience salvation. Because we save our own selves. The Oriental sees this, the Occidental (because, again, of the cognitive dissonance stemming from their ignorance of separateness) does not see this.
Guns only exist out if ignorance. And their bullets fix nothing.
OMG are you for real? We have bigger fish to fry than worrying about fucking etiquette round here. If the blog owner has an issue with it, let him deal with it.
ReplyDeleteWhat was NRA Leadership Thinking?
ReplyDeletePalin Set to Speak Forum 2013
http://sarahpalinblog.typepad.com/.a/6a010535e0eff3970c017ee9956386970d-pi
Palin's CPAC Speech?
OK, Blog nazi. You're an idiot. Even tho the entire piece is posted, there IS A LINK to the site. Clicking the link takes you to her blog and so much more. So fuck the hell off, troublemaker and find some other way to fill your empty life than harassing people sharing others words and ideas in a way that they felt was worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteLike Helen says, seriously, I mean it. Really. FUCK OFF.
Arizona GOP candidate compares Parkland survivors to Hitler — then asks reporter to put him in touch with teens
ReplyDelete...“The talk that I’ve heard so far coming from either some of the students or from politicians or from the media is that gun control would make us safer,” Mack said. “I already told you that if you compare that to some of the rhetoric from Hitler and Stalin and Lenin, you’ll see the exact same kind of language used — that gun control will make you safer.”
Mack, who is running in Tuesday’s special Republican primary to replace Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) in Congress, issued a news release calling for an “adult conversation” about guns.
The former Arizona sheriff now teaches economics, constitutional government and criminal justice at the Heritage Academy, which has links to fringe Mormon theologian W. Cleon Skousen.
“I love kids, I love teaching and I hate violence and always have, and I’m looking for solutions just like they are,” Mack told Hatewatch.
Mack said he thought the teens were “rude” to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) during this week’s CNN town hall, and he insisted he did not intend to compare them to history’s most infamous dictators — before doing so again.
“The talk that I’ve heard so far coming from either some of the students or from politicians or from the media is that gun control would make us safer,” Mack told Hatewatch. “And I already told you that if you compare that to some of the rhetoric from Hitler and Stalin and Lenin, you’ll see the exact same kind of language used, that gun control will make you safer.”
He then asked the Hatewatch reporter to help put him in touch with the Douglas High School students, but the correspondent declined...
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/arizona-gop-candidate-compares-parkland-survivors-hitler-asks-reporter-put-touch-teens/
Fox News host flips out on Parkland teens mocking ‘adults’ like Marco Rubio — and the backlash is spectacular
Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Friday echoed a familiar right-wing talking point about the Parkland school shooting survivors, criticizing them for talking—presumably disrespectfully—“to and about adults.”
Ingraham was reacting to a Thursday tweet by Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School junior Sarah Chadwick suggesting, “WE should change the names of AR-15 to ‘Marco Rubio’ because they are so easy to buy.”
In classic “get off my lawn” fashion, Ingraham suggested Chadwick’s quip about Rubio was inappropriate because he’s an “adult.”
“HOW TEENS SPEAK TO AND ABT [sic] ADULTS,” Ingraham tweeted Friday, complaining that “sophomore” Chadwick was using language unbecoming of a young woman.
Chadwick hit back on Twitter, prompting others to rally around the Parkland survivor. Read the satisfying reactions below:
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/fox-news-host-flips-parkland-teens-mocking-adults-like-marco-rubio-backlash-spectacular/
Adult isn't a magic number. In many societies and in our own historical cultures these students are already adults.
DeleteAs for the "respect" she thinks Rubio deserves, I point to his work on gun safety since Sandy Hook.
I think nicknaming the AR-15s Little Rubios is pretty apropos, given he has done less than nothing to keep the children of this country safe. In fact, he has rolled back legislation that would have saved lives and instituted legislation that has resulted in deaths.
Naming an assault rifle after him is only fitting.
Ingraham better be careful or they'll be coming after her just like they're attacking Dana Loesch and Tomi Lahren.
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre saw compensation jump more than $4 million as revenue soared
ReplyDeleteNational Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre is making a killing.
The gun group leader saw a jump of more than $4 million in compensation between 2014 and 2015, according to a tax form obtained by the Washington Post.
The NRA also saw a spike of $26 million in revenue during that time, shooting its total gross revenue past $336 million, the documents show.
According to its latest 990 tax form, LaPierre made $5,110,985 in annual compensation between Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2015.
The year before, he made $985,885.
Most of LaPierre’s new cash stockpile came from payout of a $3.7 million retirement plan. He also saw his salary rise to $1,090,515, and got a $150,000 bonus.
“This is an employee funded deferred compensation plan and the $3.7 million distribution to Wayne LaPierre was required by federal law and properly reported,” NRA Executive Vice President Allan Cors said in a statement to the Post.
The NRA only saw significant drops in its contributions, which fell from $103 million in 2014 to $95 million in 2015.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nra-ceo-compensation-jump-4-million-article-1.2968552
THIS is who @DLoesch is. She is holding an AR-15 with what appears to be an extended 30 round clip.
DeleteDon't be fooled.
https://twitter.com/DadoftheDecade/status/966526997173293056
There is no “AR15 bullet”. Nor is there something unique about .223 round. An AR lower can accept a dozen or more uppers. There are all sorts of semi-auto and bolt action carbines rifles and pistols that shoot .223. Any high velocity rifle round will explode the liver with hydrostatic pressure. A bolt action 30-06 (a military round designed to kill people) will do as much or more damage.
ReplyDeleteBan them all, and the ammo too.
DeleteOnly for active duty military, National Guard, police and sheriffs.
The civilian public has NO BUSINESS owning military grade weaponry.