How can a pellet gun kill someone?

Question

There was a news story that said a home owner shot a man who was stealing his Mary Jane; he shot the guy with a pellet gun and the man died. How is this possible?

Answer 1

a pellet gun can't kill anyone....the person pulling the trigger can!

http://www.wbir.com/news/archive.aspx?storyid=29348
A Union County woman charged with aggravated child abuse and neglect in connection Advertisement


with the 2004 death of a four-year-old in her care turned herself in to authorities today. Advertisement



Sheila Collins Bailey was recently charged after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reopened an investigation into the incident in which Steven Carroll "Little Man" Blankenship was shot in the head with a pellet gun.

Authorities say Blankenship was shot by a ten-year-old boy who was playing with the .177-caliber pellet rifle. Both boys were in the care of Bailey, who was running a small day care in her home.

The Union County Sheriff's Department initially investigated the incident and ruled it accidental.

Bailey is being held in the Union County jail on a $10,000 dollar bond.

A homicidal case by an air gun involving a 73-year-old woman who was found dead in her home is described. At autopsy, two gunshot wounds were observed on the left anterior chest and the right back. There was neither exit wound nor powder burns. The fatal pellet, 0.9 g and 5.5mm diameter, penetrated the left anterior chest and the heart to cause cardiac tamponade (200 ml) before lodging in the left subclavian artery. Death was due to cardiac tamponade.This case has exhibited two rare phenomena: homicide by an air gun and pellet embolisation. This is the first homicide case by use of air gun in Japan and demonstrates that although it may be rare, air guns can be used as potential homicidal weapons. This experience will alert our society and others on the potential hazards of air guns we have tended to regard as toys.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=11741754

Nonpowder guns (ball-bearing [BB] guns, pellet guns, air rifles, paintball guns) continue to cause serious injuries to children and adolescents. The muzzle velocity of these guns can range from approximately 150 ft/second to 1200 ft/second (the muzzle velocities of traditional firearm pistols are 750 ft/second to 1450 ft/second). Both low- and high-velocity nonpowder guns are associated with serious injuries, and fatalities can result from high-velocity guns. A persisting problem is the lack of medical recognition of the severity of injuries that can result from these guns, including penetration of the eye, skin, internal organs, and bone. Nationally, in 2000, there were an estimated 21840 (coefficient of variation: 0.0821) injuries related to nonpowder guns, with approximately 4% resulting in hospitalization. Between 1990 and 2000, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 39 nonpowder gun–related deaths, of which 32 were children younger than 15 years. The introduction of high-powered air rifles in the 1970s has been associated with approximately 4 deaths per year. The advent of war games and the use of paintball guns have resulted in a number of reports of injuries, especially to the eye. Injuries associated with nonpowder guns should receive prompt medical management similar to the management of firearm-related injuries, and nonpowder guns should never be characterized as toys.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/5/1357

What about BB guns and toy guns?
Whether or not your kids use toy guns, there are some basic facts you should know.
Playing with toy guns could make it easier for your child to mistake a real gun as a toy.
Pellet and BB guns are high powered and can easily hurt your child. BB guns can also kill . They should be used only under adult supervision. The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends only kids 16 years of age or older use BB guns.
Parents may underestimate the potential for injury from BB and pellet guns, unless their child has been wounded by one [11].
Police officers may mistake a toy gun in your child's hand for a real gun. Toy guns should not look like real guns . They should be brightly colored.
Make sure the firing sound is not too loud. It could damage your child's hearing . Children should wear hearing protection. Don't let kids fire cap guns closer than one foot from their ears, and only use them outdoors.
Toy guns with projectiles can cause eye injuries . Kids should wear eye protection when using them.
Don't let kids put caps from toy guns in their pockets. They can ignite and cause burn injuries.
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/guns.htm#bb

Answer 2

It can if its over 1200 fps, anything below 800 can't possibly kill someone, the pellet won't penetrate into the vitals of a human being. But yes, some pellet guns are very powerful and can kill a human. But for smaller caliber pellet rifles a head shot can be fatal, but not always, I own a pellet gun that can put a hole in a squirrel but not go all the way through, and squirrels are tiny little animals!! Also I have shot a few squirrels with a 1200 fps pellet gun right between the eyes and it survives the shot, so a human could withstand a pellet!! You would be in the hospital but probably not dead, it also depends on the type of pellet you're using, like a ballistic pellet would be more dangerous than a hollow point pellet or a practice pellet, but either would hurt if you were hit! Also a .177 caliber pellet gun can't go through rotting wood, so do you think it could go through your skull or bones, NO!!! So it's possible to be killed by a pellet, but it's highly unlikely, so yes/no!

Answer 3

A pellet gun can send a projectile into the eye, which is surrounded by a very thin bony socket. The projectile could easily penetrate into the brain. Also, the bones on the side of the head between the eye and the ear is thinner than the rest of the skull, and a powerful pellet gun could penetrate that. And don't forget, there are actually high-powered airguns of larger than .22 calibre. They're expensive, but a dude protecting his stash of weed is likely to use serious weaponry!

Answer 4

Some pellet guns have a velocity of over 600 feet/second, so this is ample speed of the pellet to penetrate a man's skull [gray matter and metal doesn't mix well], or the pellet can puncture a main artery, and the guy bleeds to death of internal bleeding. There are many other senarios too numerous to list here.

Answer 5

Several serious places it could hit, but also there are powerful, very accurate air and carbon dioxide powder pellet guns that can do a lot of damage. Often they are made in foreign countries, such as England, where regular guns are outlawed for average citizens.

Answer 6

Well, yes, at a certain range, with a .177 you could kill someone in the throat area, the jugular vein area at close range, with a .22 rifle, at about 12ft lbs, you could kill someone from about 25 yards. But however, air rifles are used for either target practice, or pest control, the only time I'd think of killing someone with my two air rifles is when someone comes into my house and attacks my family, or in which case I'd take out razor sharp throwing axe, and smash their skull in two.

Answer 7

shoot him in the eye and it goes into the brain and there wasnt any medical attention braught fast enough.. plus pellet guns can break the skin in some cases.... some of them are more then just a single pump gun... ive had 1 that could shoot into a fance far enough so you would have to cut some wood away to even get to it...

Answer 8

How can you drown in less than an inch of water?

People are killed in all sorts of ways... pellet guns are hardly the least plausible implement.

Answer 9

If I can quote Clark W. Griswald from National Lampoons Vacation: "It can lodge under the skin and cause a serious infection". And face it, any infection untreated long enough can result in a slow pain-full death.

Answer 10

I think it is possible. Even a needle can kill a man. As long as he was hit on his Achilles' heel (idiomatic expression for the most sensitive/ weakest part of ones body).

Answer 11

It is funny you ask. I just finished an invertigation where a 7 year old boy was killed by his friends, with only a "pellet" gun. They were shooting cans, and he walked in front of them. The parents gave it to them and let them shoot it. They now have to bury their child.

I had to watch as the doctor drill a hole in this kid's skull to relieve pressure from swelling. Not something that I'm likely to ever forget.