As in, a gunshot that kills someone instantaniously. Whether self inflicted or shot by some other means, probably in the head or heart so that death is immediate, do the people hear the shot fired?
I realize that maybe the only people who know are those already deceased, but anybody have any info that might shed some light on the subject without having to be fired upon to find out?
My guess:
If it’s a supersonic round, no; the sound wave is trailing the actual bullet. If a subsonic round, yes; the sound wave is travelling ahead of the bullet.
The speed of sound at sea level (21 degrees C ~ 70 degrees F) is approximately 344 meters per second, or a little less than 5 seconds per mile.
The muzzle velocity of a U.S. Army standard issue 9mm Beretta 92s is 335 meters per second. Depending on your distance from the gun, you might have a split-second sensation of sound before impact.
However, I see that a number of .22 caliber loads have muzzle velocities of +360 meters per second, meaning the bullet will get there before the sound.
You also have to take into account the time it takes your ear and brain to process and recognize sound. My guess is this would be quite a bit slower than speed of the bullet, although I can’t find any good information online. I found some where that axonal transmission is 200 m/s but that doesn’t tell you much. Anyone know?
Many rifle bullets can hit 700 meters per second and beyond so they greater outpace the sound of the shot.
Shagnasty
That’s right. A .17 caliber rifle fires a bullet that’s a real screamer - 4,100 feet per second or 1,250 meters per second. (About 46.5 miles per minute !!!)
As for the gushots that merely wound them–I’m always surprised to hear that many gunsot victims are genuinely unaware that they were shot. I doubt it’s universal, but judging from the number of people in news stories who say this, I’d guess it’s commonplace. Maybe the force of impact throws you into shock before you can register that you’ve been hit?
Your brain seems to have trouble processing things faster than about 1/15th of a second. Video images blur together if they change faster than this, and audio signals appear to our brain to occur simultaneously if they are sperated by less than this amount of time. So, my WAG is that even if the bullet is subsonic, if the sound gets to you less than a 15th of a second before the bullet does that your brain won’t process it in time for you to realize what it was.
Of course, the human nervous system being what it is, this isn’t a simple thing to answer since parts of your nervous system will respond much faster than that.
This also assumes that the bullet hit you in the brain. If it hits in the heart, you can stay concious for maybe a good ten seconds or so, which is more than long enough to realize what happened. Not a pleasant thought.
This topic is somewhat related to The Pefect Master’s “Does the head remain briefly conscious after decapitation?”
Getting shot in the brain is a bit different than just having it isolated, though. I’d have to say that no, if they die ‘immediately’, eg if the brain loses the ability to communicate with the other parts of the brain in such a way that consciousness ceases to exist immediately by literal nature of the neural chains no longer existing, then they don’t hear the gunshot. But if they get shot in the heart, i’d say they might hear the gunshot. The vibrations obviously reach the ears, but they lose priority because the body has gone into a state of emergency and is focused on other things, such as pumping you full of feel-goods.
that all depends on how long it took to die of the gun shot. 