Sunday, March 8th
I've read of a minister in Illinois that was shoot with a .45 in front of his congregation today. The article I read said that the Bible that he held in front of him stopped the first three bullets but the forth one proved fatal. The Bible turned into confetti one witness said, and the congregation thought it was part of the sermon.
Just for a moment, take a look at the last digit of your ring finger. Girls, look at the last digit of your middle finger. This is about the size of a .45 slug. It travels at about 900 foot-pounds-per-second muzzle velocity from a five inch barrel, with 414 ft-lbs of energy and 21,000 psi. For bullets, this is pretty slow. Imagine driving 25 mph. Now imagine a brick traveling at 25 mph. Now imagine getting hit with this brick. Sure, the brick wasn't going that fast, but it is still a brick.
The first three of the gunman's shots landed directly into the minister's Bible and created a flurry of pages but the fourth bullet found it's mark.
If there is a moral to this story, I can't find it. No one knew the shooter and the minister was just as dead, not to mention the two church-goers who suffered knife wounds from taking the shooter down.
I know in my heart of hearts that God makes miracles, but they don't come in .45 caliber, or any other caliber for that matter.
Doc
Man.
ReplyDeleteI just spent the better part of this afternoon in a workshop on emergency treatment of gunshot wounds for police.
I just can't imagine any book slowing down a 45 round after firing one so many times. That is just incredible!
ReplyDeleteBubs- I don't envy you your job some days. While I think it would be interesting to learn how to treat a gunshot wound should something bad happen, I'm glad I don't have a job that requires me to know this or might put me in a position where I need to use this knowledge. You have my deepest admiration.
ReplyDeleteSkyler's Dad- The only thing I can figure is that it was a huge bible with one inch print. I had a Colt Gold Cup and that thing would chew up large phonebooks, so it had to be BIG bible.
Doc
Wait, the congregation thought it was part of the sermon?? Where do they usually have church service - Frontier Town??
ReplyDeleteThat is so awful.
ReplyDeleteIs the phone off the hook there? It's ringing busy...
ReplyDeleteHow did they think it was part of the sermon?
ReplyDeleteWhat normally goes on at Mass there????
Strange.
peace
#2
I wonder if the moral of the story is to keep shooting??
ReplyDeletethey musta been fired off in pretty rapid succession for THREE to hit a Bible, unless it's one of those really BIG ones...