Where's the best place on your body to get shot?

Although no one wakes up in the morning hoping for a gunfight, we all know life can be unpredictable. So check out this HowStuffWorks podcast and learn the best place to take a bullet if you get shot.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast Stuff you Should Know. That's what it's called.
How's it going, Chuck? It's going great, Josh? How are you?
I'm doing pretty good. Good. Before we get started, Josh,

(00:20):
I'd like to say a couple of words if I may. Okay, Uh,
this is uh. We say this how Stuff you Should
Know is just named to uh iTunes two thousand eight
Best of two thousand eight podcasts, And we say this
as a thank you to the fans, ay and as
a thank you to our producer Jerry. This is not
a pad on our back. Our producer Jerry works tirelessly

(00:43):
to edit, to provide the music, makes the sound quality
everyone talks about. How great. Yes, everything we say is wrong.
Jerry has to go back um figure out the right
answer right and edit it so that it sounds like
we know what we're talking about. Essentially, so Jerry's work
and the fans that sin is a big, big reason
why we were named best of two thousand eight and

(01:03):
something we're really proud of. So we just want to
say thank you and let's get on with it. Yeah,
let's how about gun death. How about that for a segue. Well,
Jerry's crying now, so I think a gun death is
a good way to go. Okay, all right, So um
wow that was really something that was great. Um, I'm
for Clint, are you? Yeah, Well I've never seen you

(01:24):
get choked up? Okay, alright, alright, so gun death, gun death,
basically chuck. There's a new study that was released though
I think about four hours ago. Really yeah, less than
that actually, um, And it found that states that have
lax handgun laws. There's actually ten of them that have

(01:47):
really lacks handgun laws, and I believe George is one
of them. See, we're one of those states. You can
come down and buy like fifty guns if you want,
and then take them to New York and sell them. Yeah. Well,
states like ours actually have a higher in stince per
capita of UM handgun related deaths, actually seventy more. So
that's not altogether shocking, No, it's not. And what's even

(02:10):
less shocking is that these statistics are found in the US.
Because you can make a pretty good case that, um,
the US is a gun culture. Yeah, you want some numbers, Yeah,
I'm flying in with the stats as we speak. Uh,
United States in two thousand seven, there were a total
of two hundred and seventy million guns. Yes, and that

(02:33):
is ninety guns for every hundred people. Right, And just
to put that in perspective, India, which is kind of
surprised me, actually the second most armed nations. Well think
think about this. India also has like a billion people
living there. We have a quarter of the population have
been India, right. Uh So, having said that, India has
a forty five million compared to our two seventy and
there's second in the most heavily armed nation on the planet.

(02:56):
So there you go. Yeah, um so that's that's a
lot of guns. We had a lot of guns for people.
You know. Um, I spent some time when I was
in high school. I lived in kenne Saw, Georgia, and
kenne Saw actually has a law on the books that
says you have to own a gun if you live
in kenne Saw. That was probably passed right around the
time you were growing up there, right, I think it

(03:17):
was pasted a few years before because I heard of it. Yeah,
I'd heard of it when you know, before we came
down and I don't know gun guy, but apparently crime
dropped quite a bit. And it did. And it also
it also was an end run around any debate over
gun control. They just said, no, forget it, We're going
the exact opposite way of gun control. Everybody has to
have a gun. And clearly, you know, the police didn't

(03:40):
enter your house in search, which would have been stupid
to do in kenne Saw because everybody's armed. So it
wasn't very heavily enforced law, but it's a it was
a significant one. Everybody in Kennethan knew it, you know.
But we're not talking about gun control today. No, that's
not what this podcast is all about. Just to set up, Yeah,
what we're talking about is, uh, where do you want

(04:00):
to get shot? What isn't that what we're talking about?
The best place to get shot? Oh? Yes, yes, yes,
actually yes, um. And and the reason we were talking
about guns is because there's so many of them, it's
pretty you know, you have a pretty high likelihood in
the US to get shot. So as a service of
you know, a public service of how stuff works, we're
here to advise you on the best place to take

(04:23):
a bullet if you do get shot, as if you
can control that, oh THEO. There are a couple of
things you could do. Sure, I mean you're in a
grocery store and and it goes down. You know, the
stuff is the fan, that kind of thing. Now you'll
know what to do or um. An example I used
is um if an angry loan shark is like, I
got a bullet here with your name on it. Where
you want to take it? Now you'll know? Okay, So, um,

(04:46):
let's let's first kind of describe what happens when you
get shot, right, Because an understanding of this called wound ballistics.
It's the field of study of, you know, what a
bullet does to bone and tissue organ Once you understand that,
you can figure out pretty easily where the best place
to get shot is. Um. Okay, So, wound ballistics, Chuck, yes.

(05:09):
Kinetic energy, Josh, Yes. Bullets entire purpose on this planet
is to take the energy that it has when it's
shot out of a gun and transfer it to your body, right,
which is determined by its weight and velocity in trajectory.
In trajectory, yes, So you take all these things together
and actually you can predict pretty well the kind of

(05:32):
damage that's going to be done. Um, if you are
shot in a bone, a bone is going to absorb
most of that kinetic energy, if not all, which sounds
like a good thing. It's not, it's not. It means
your bone is just totally shattered, right, which causes essentially
a mini shrapnel explosion inside your body. Yeah, and the

(05:52):
bone fragments actually end up doing I don't know about
as much, but does a lot of damage to your organs.
And then they've been known to travel all sorts of
crazy places too. Yeah. Bullets, Uh, the another big JFK
magic bullet theory sounds crazy and I'm not citing one
way or the other, but bullets have been known to
do weird, weird things once they hit objects. Didn't wasn't

(06:12):
it that that Texas senator didn't It supposedly hit his
elbow and travel up his arm and then go out
and then hit JFK in the face or something. Yeah.
And my my brother in Lawn, he's in the Marine Corps,
told me a story one time about a firing range
accident where a fellow marine was shot and it like
went in his shoulder and traveled across his chest and
then down the arm and like out the tip of

(06:33):
his finger. Wow, just tumbling. It's just nuts. Yeah yeah.
So okay, so these things are deadly and unpredictable, which
is a really bad. Yeah. Um okay, so that's what
happens when you when when bones hit that kinetic energy
is transferred, the bone with shatters and it's bad. And ultimately,
here's a little side note, um getting shot through and

(06:55):
through and in and out. It's actually it's actually good, right.
I mean, you you may bleed death, but you're probably
gonna bleed to death anyway if it hits some sort
of vital organ um or major artery. But the bullet wasn't.
It didn't manage to transfer all of its energy, which
is why it kept traveling. If it stays in your body,
all that energy was transferred to your bone um soft tissue,

(07:17):
which actually doesn't it doesn't um, it doesn't crush the
kind of wound that a bone sustains as a crushing wound,
crushing penetration um soft tissue or organs, that kind of
thing that actually suffers a cavitation. This is screwed up, right,
This is actually this kind of surprised me. When a

(07:38):
bullet passes through you through tissue, it creates a cavity
that can be up to thirty times as wide as
the bullet itself. And yeah, and it's it's created by
the shock waves, right, and then the path closes behind
the bullet. It's like a split second opening this gulf
in your soft tissue. Um, and then it closes behind.

(07:59):
But that that damnage is already done. That shockwave has
already just trashed all that soft tissue. Um. So that's
that's bad too, right, which sort of brings us to
these specialty bullets. Yeah, they are especially made to do
maximum harm. We're talking about uh, full metal jacket bullets
and then yeah, good movie too. And the hollow points

(08:20):
which are designed to fragment after impact or hollow points
are soft and they actually flatten and spread out and
create a wider area wider than that yeah, because you know,
if you have a little pointy bullet, it's not going
to make as as much, it's not gonna have as
much of a wide of a track or create a cavity.
So I just call those people killing bullets exactly. I mean,

(08:42):
these things are designed to to most efficiently transfer their energy,
all of it to the human body. Um. So yeah,
so so now we kind of understand what a bullet
can do, right, Um now the body, right, the human body,
So bone can shatter. Yes, so you want to kind
of you don't. You don't want to get shot in

(09:03):
a place that's real bony, especially if it's a bone
that's near a vital organ. Right your ribs, Yeah, your
chest is just out of the question. You've got you've
got lungs in there, You've got heart. I think the
liver's in there somewhere. I mean, you've got a bunch
of really important stuff in there. Yeah. Between your waist

(09:23):
and your neck is a lot of organs going on.
And if all of a sudden you have rigged rib
fragments flying all over the place. Then and also getting
shot in the spine not a great place. Um, probably
lifelong paralysis, if not death. Um, not not a good spot.
Your head is a terrible spot too. Yeah. I know

(09:44):
the guy that did you interview him or yeah? Yeah,
his name is Ed size More. Yeah, he said, you know,
you'd rather get shot in the brain then in the heart.
He said he'd rather get shot in the heart than
the brain, right, because you can repair a heart. There's
artificial hearts, there's no artificial brain. Although he also pointed
out that, um, there are plenty of people who uh
survive um, gunshot wounds of their brains from I think

(10:08):
nineteen eighty something to nineteen ninety three. Uh, it's pretty
it was. It wasn't that scientific. Um, I'm sorry. It
was two to nine sixty six percent of the people
who came into Cook County General Hospital in Chicago with
gunshot wounds to their brain lived. So it's not necessarily

(10:29):
fatal to get shot in the brain, but you can
be messed up for the rest of your life. Sure,
brain damage, and that's not kind of fun either. No,
So you want to stay away from the head. You
want to stay away from the torso the spine. Um.
And I think really ultimately, every single one of our
listeners is like, yeah, really, what what a huge surprise?
What an enlightning podcast. Okay, so let's go to the
arms and legs and smarties. Huh did any of you

(10:51):
say arms or legs, because if so, you'd be wrong. Yeah.
But my first thought was maybe to get shot in
the leg would be a good place because in the movies,
they just tie bandana around it and limp off. Yeah
did you did you ever see? Uh? I think it
was Rambo. I think it was First Blood Part two
might have been three. Um where he gets shot in
the side, through and through wound and he's done in

(11:12):
like some sewer or something, and he pours like gasoline
or or sterno into it and then lights it on
fire with a torch to motorize the wound shot and
it just shoots through like the side of his body
and he screams and everything. It's awesome. It was pretty good.
You just I just got a glimpse into twelve year
old Josh. Yeah, yeah, I think I was even younger
than that. But yeah, that was good stuff. Um okay,

(11:34):
So but again, had he had he chosen wisely, he
wouldn't have gotten shot in the side again close to
internal organs. But let's get back to the arms and legs. No,
because major major arteries, the femeral and the brachial arteries
run through the leg and the arm, respectively, So these
are huge arteries. They're they're responsible for all the blood

(11:55):
flow to your extremities, which is pretty important because without it,
they would freeze off when it got you know, down
to thirty five degrees um. And if you get shot
in any one of these, if these things become severed, um,
you'll bleed out in about two or three minutes. Yeah.
Once I read the part about the femoral artery, it recalled.
And you know I've heard a lot on the news
about people getting shot in the leg and dying, and

(12:16):
that's the reason. It can be a very deadly place
to get shot. So what are we left with? Well, uh,
by my account, the head, the chest, the arms, and
legs are out, so I would just say the feet
in the hands, that is right. It's probably the best
place to right. And also somebody out there who may say, well,
what about the pubic region the hip? No, no, um,
there is a nerve bundle your hip. That is by

(12:40):
again Ed Sizemore is reckoning. Um. The most painful place
to get shot. The nerve bundle right there would just
shoot pain throughout your body in the most efficient manner possible.
So not the pelviace either, but yes, a hand or
a foot, well, there's all kinds of bones though, So
it is true this is the thing you know there
you would suffer some terrible, terrible crushing injuries. Um, you

(13:02):
may never use your hand or foot that you got
shot in again. Number one, you have another one. Okay,
so let's say you you get even you know, your
your foot just completely disabled. Um. There are such things
as crutches, wheelchairs. You can drag your foot along behind
you with your good foot, your hand. You'll never work
with your you know whatever hand you got shot in again.

(13:24):
But think about the drummer from def Leppard. He droned
with only one arm. Okay, so I mean there's exactly yes,
um is that his name? Next one? Um? So, so yes,
it would hurt, but think about how thin your hand
and feet are. It could go right through it. Hopefully
we'll go right through. And also those bones that are

(13:44):
getting shattered as that you know, high high, high speed,
hollow point bullet and rushrooms into it and it goes
out the other end. Um. There, it's very unlikely those
those fragments will travel to a vital organ. Right, So
is it there far enough away? Well? I guess just
makes sense because whenever you hear about stories about army

(14:05):
dudes in various wars, you want to get sent home.
They shoot themselves in the foot. That's just a common
way to do it to get sent home. Yeah, at
the very least Stewie and Brian did right from the
family guy. Yeah it didn't work though, Yeah yeah, so yeah,
hand or foot that's the way to go, agreed. I
would if someone came running at me with a gun,
I would lie down and stick up my arms and

(14:27):
legs and and my hands in front of my face. Actually,
you you would be right in lying down. Mr Sizemore
told me, you know, if you get down on the ground,
you're presenting a smaller target. His number one advice to
any civilian UM who is being shot at run run.
I believe he may have said run, like hell yeah, yeah,

(14:48):
I would do this too. That's another good idea too.
I mean, most people can't shoot to say their lives. Yeah,
um so yeah, but you know you could just as
easily run into a bullet. That that's true. So yeah,
number one, run number two laid down on the ground.
Do you have a choice? Hand? Foot? Yeah? Exactly. So
you know that brings us to right listener mail listener mail. Okay,

(15:15):
so who do who do we have one from there? Buddy?
This week we have um one from one Coral Clark
from San Jose, California's Great Need. And this we've already
talked about the jelly bean thing ad nauseam, the booger
flavored beans. Hopefully this one will put it to rest,
because this is sort of a correction upon a correction
that we've already done. So in one of our podcasts

(15:36):
we talked about booger flavor jelly beans. Josh doubted I
had had them, and no, they weren't just real boogers
that I've had, and someone confirmed. But now Coral writes
in and says back to booger flavor jelly beans jellybellies.
While it is true that the trade name Jellybelly does
not market these unusually flavored sweets, the company that manufactures

(15:57):
them goalets is commissioned to make Bertie Potts Every Flavor
beans of Harry Potter fan which I know you mentioned
in our podcast. Uh while, when I tore the California factory,
they did confirm that they manufactured Bertie Potts Every Flavor
beans and their factories using the same process as for jellybellies,
except they did not always use all natural flavors, bringing

(16:18):
you flavors alike dirt, bacon, spaghetti, earwax, and vomit. I
could go for bacon or spaghetti. Yeah, but I don't
know why those would be gross. Well, I agree, but
I mean it's a really little tiny capsules of bacon
and spaghetti that's kind of nights actually. Uh so uh.
He goes on to say, I think you also mentioned

(16:38):
bean boozled beans, where the black bean might be a
liquorice or a skunk spray flavor, and the company Gullets
produces those as well, So it's fantastic. Coral Clark, right,
Coral Clark, greatest name ever. Thank you very much for
writing in. Thanks for the mail, and anybody else who
wants to point out a point, or revise another point,
or just say hi or whatever, send us up an

(17:00):
email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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