Lethal Passage_ The Story of a Gun - Erik Larson [17]
The GAO report cautioned that the survey sample, limited by the lack of available injury data, was hardly representative; the 105-to-1 ratio could not be projected to the country as a whole. The report noted, however, that this ratio fell in line with others reported by the National Safety Council. The overall ratio of injuries to deaths for all accidents of all kinds in America was 94 to 1; for household accidents, 151 to 1. If the 105-to-1 ratio were indeed accurate, it would indicate that 157,600 accidental, nonfatal gunshot injuries occur each year. Even if one excludes Dallas as a statistical outlier, the ratio comes out to seventy injuries for every death, or 105,070 nonfatal gunshot injuries each year.
A gun is an ego pump. It can give a fifteen-year-old mugger absolute power over anyone he encounters except perhaps another armed teenager. Likewise, police fear, a gun may impart a false sense of security to anyone who keeps one for self-defense, especially anyone who carries it outside the home. “There’s just so many what-ifs,” said Officer Joanne Welsh of the San Francisco police. The mother of a four-year-old, she won’t bring her service weapon into her house. “A weapon is really only good if that perfect situation you may have envisioned occurs.”
Guns certainly don’t make police officers feel safe, despite weeks of training and drilling in combat-shooting tactics. They know that just hanging on to a gun in an armed encounter can be difficult. From 1980 through 1989, 735 police officers nationwide were shot dead in the line of duty; 120 were killed with their own guns.
“The typical NRA line is, you can’t rape a .38,” said Col. Leonard Supenski, a Baltimore County firearms expert, who testified in a landmark civil suit arising from Nicholas Elliot’s shooting spree. “Well, that’s absolutely false. If the guy’s got his gun out first, you’re gonna lose. If you’ve got a .38 in your purse and the guy gets to it first, you’re gonna lose. If a guy attacks you from behind in the dark with the element of surprise, you’re gonna lose.”
Armed encounters involve a daunting array of split-second decisions. The self-defense shooter must first identify the target. Next, he must gauge the degree of threat. Does the intruder or assailant really pose a mortal danger? In broad daylight, these questions may have ready answers. But a self-defense shooting is most likely to take place under less than optimal conditions, with fear complicating the decision process.
Analysis of police shootings shows that a wild surge of adrenaline quickly impairs fine motor control, Supenski said. “You have tunnel vision, your eyes tend to focus on the threat, you see nothing else around you. Your auditory senses are diminished. It’s called auditory exclusion. You hear only what’s in front of you.”
One of the absurd myths of gunplay nurtured by television and Hollywood is the idea that during a gunfight one can actually count the number of bullets the other guy fired and thus know whether or not his gun remained loaded. Police officers involved in shootings often report never hearing the sound of gunfire.
Amid the confusion of sleep and the distortions of fear, an armed homeowner has yet one more crucial question to answer: What’s behind the target? A bullet that misses its target, or even one that strikes its target dead on, can continue traveling with enough momentum to pass through interior walls into adjacent bedrooms, even exterior walls into neighboring homes. A miss is likely. In gunfights, Baltimore County police