On Christmas, my brother was telling me about a real legal
case in which it was offered into evidence that the defendant
must have gang ties because he held his pistol sideways when
shooting his victims. I told him about what Andrew Vachss
wrote in Pulse magazine several years ago:
"That's why the Emergency Rooms of big cities are full of
sociopathic little trigger boys with unique facial damage --
from shell casings ejected into their eyes when they held
their precious nines parallel to the ground, Hollywood style,
instead of the way the pistols were designed. Movies didn't
give them the desire to commit homicide . . . but they sure
showed them 'how.'"
While my brother believes that this guy was also imitating TV
or movies, had no gang ties, he said that Vachss was wrong
about the way shell casings eject. He said that every weapon
he has fired (M-16s and 45s, as a Marine, but never a nine)
ejects the casings straight sideways, not backwards or back
and to the side (as it would have to for the casing to hit
the shooter in the face while he held the pistol sideways).
I've never shot a weapon, so I don't know who to believe. Is
Vachss wrong? My brother? Are nines different? Can someone
with hands on experience clear this up?
Mark
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