Posted: May 31, 2013 7:02 am
orpheus wrote:Weaver wrote:People survive being shot in the heart, too, and death from heart hits is rarely "instant" - it usually takes a measurable period up to about a half a minute on the outside. The only place one can reliably generate an "instant" death is by destroying the brain stem.
Guns are not the uber-reliable killers they are portrayed to be, - there is a LOT of variability in terminal ballistics. This is one of the things I'm very interested in, that I expect to keep learning more about as long as I live.
This is one reason I've always been puzzled by the firing squad custom of aiming for the heart. Isn't that less humane than the head? (Presumably with multiple marksmen firing at the head, instant (or very quick and relatively painless) death is more likely than with an amateur suicide attempt?)
Heart shots for firing squads are likely designed to deal with the feelings of the firing squad much more than the condemned man - saving them the visual of multiple head-shots as they continue past the execution.