Peter H. Proctor writes:

> 2) The main factor was apparently the substitution of handguns for

> long guns as home defense weapons. For penetrating trunchal

> wounds, the mortality rate for handguns is 15-20 %, roughly the

> same as for equivalent knife wounds. For (e.g) shotguns, the

> mortality rate is 70% or so. If memory serves, for high power

> rifles, about 30-40 %, BTW, the mortality rate from those wicked

> "assault weapons" is close to that for handguns, since they shoot

> a relatively low-powered round

Please provide a source for these claims.

> This is what I was taught in my training as a pathologist and seem

> to be pretty standard figures. Also, I saw roughly these figures

> presented at a Path convention and see no reason to question them.

> But I suppose I could find the reference somewhere.

Please do so. I've appended about 20 studies that all contradict this.

I looked in Medline for studies on gun shot and stab wound mortality

and turned up dozens. There was a consistent pattern across

different countries and wound locations -- gunshot wounds were far

more lethal. For example a study in The Journal of Trauma (36:4

pp516-524) looked at all injury admissions to a Seattle hospital over

a six year period. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds was 22%

while that for stab wounds was 4%. Even among patients that survived,

gunshot wounds were more serious -- the mean cost of treatment for

these patients was more than twice that for stab wounds.

> Apples and Oranges. I suspect the difference is " for equivalent

> trunchal wounds" which I carefully specified.. If you include

> superficial knife wounds and wounds that do not penetrate the

> peritoneum, your figures do sound about right. These are easy to

> treat and nobody ever dies from them.

Sorry, as I specifically stated those rates were for wounds serious

enough to warrant hospital admission, not superficial ones. Further,

the other studies mostly looked at equivalent wounds in equivalent

locations. **Without exception**, gunshot wounds were more serious and

more likely to lead to death. I've appended the abstracts of the studies

from Medline.

> But wait until you penetrate a viscous or ( especially ) cut a great

> vessel. The lesser energy involved in knife wounds is more than

> made up for by their larger size.

This does not seem to be the case. See the attached studies.

As for handgun vs long gun wound mortality, I suggest you look at

table 5.10 of "Point Blank" which presents the results of a

multivariate analysis based on NCS and SHR data and shows no

significant difference.

> Er, this just does not sound right. Long guns ( particularly

> shotguns) are much more destructive than handguns. Compare about

> 200 ft-lbs for 38 Special to 2000 ft lbs for a high-power military

> round.

The kinetic energy of the projectile is obviously not the only thing

that matters.

> One possibility---These figures are for people who actually make it

> to the hospital alive.

No. They are are based on the the NCS (victim survey) for the number

and type of woundings and the FBI's supplementary homicide reports for

the number and type of deaths.

Date: 21-Feb-97 Name: T13752_8Nbgjvm Database: Medline Set Search Results --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 001 *wounds, gunshot/ 1071 002 *wounds, stab/ 293 003 1 and 2 52 004 from 3 keep 6,9,11,17,21-22,25,27-30,33-36,43-44,47-48,50-51 21