I met someone who tried to kill himself with a bullet through the head because he was depressed about his obesity years ago. He had a last second change of heart and only succeeded in blowing off half of the lower half of his face. Needless to say he is alive, but his life is difficult because of the damage and the fact that he is still overweight.
people lack a good understanding of what guns do.
the other day, reading about the upcoming breivik trial, a passage talked about peoples comprehension of these brutal murders (the vast majority of which were head-shot executions),
on avergae norwegian tv shows about 30 fictional murders per day.
compared to in the past, when humans would never witness deaths unless it was real, and right there in front of them, today we see movie-heroes killing bad-guys left and right, and we get very desensitized to it.
in movies guns are "off-switches", you shoot someone, they go "arkh!" and die on the spot.
in reality, a gun only throws an iron pellet at you, at a very high velocity. if it hits your torso, shock will make you fall to the ground, get "weak knees" and such, if it hits your head, it may go anywhere, it may shatter your jaws, it may crush bone but not penetrate the brain, or it may even destroy parts of your brain, but still allowing you to survive if you get help quickly.
its not an "off-switch", its merely a very brutal tool
when we see old black and white footage of executions, such as germans shooting jews, or that famous vietnamese colonel shooting the prisoner in the street, they fall down and appear as if instantly dead.
but if you imagine these arent executions, you'd imagine paramedics rushing to the spot, many of these people could potentially recover from their execution
what always "gets" me watching such footage, is the facial expression people make, before they pass out.