# 21 gun salute

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-gun-salute/138243>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [November 22, 2002, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-gun-salute/138243 "2002-11-22T21:36:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mingum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mingum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mingum)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-gun-salute/138243/1 "2002-11-22T21:36:01Z")

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[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m21gun.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m21gun.html)

Has anybody ever been shot in a 21 gun (or other number of gun) salute?

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**Author:** ![chukhung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@chukhung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chukhung)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2002, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/21-gun-salute/138243/2 "2002-11-25T15:46:07Z")

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In case you didn’t know by now: Nigeria is a place where you can get killed in surprising ways.

I refer you to a study entitled “Civilian abdominal gunshot wounds in Lagos” by A. A. Adesanya, I. R. Afolabi and J. T. Da Rocha-Afodu, Department of Surgery, Lagos University Teaching Hospital and College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Nigeria, published in the _The Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh_ in August, 1998. An online copy of this study is available at [http://www.rcsed.ac.uk/journal/old/4340004.htm](http://www.rcsed.ac.uk/journal/old/4340004.htm).

> [@](#):
>
> In the 30 years after 1960, civilian gunshot wounds of the abdomen were very uncommon in our region, with less than five cases per year seen at many teaching hospitals. **Most were due to inadvertent gunshots that occurred during the gun salute of burial ceremonies** and when hunters mistook others for game.