Many movies and TV shows prior to the 80’s depicted people with the gun to the side of their head method for self termination. However starting in the 80’s, it seemed to get more and more common for the barrel to be in the person’s mouth (possibly starting with Lethal Weapon?). These days you rarely if ever see the gun to the temple style.
My question is, why the change? Is it life imitating art? The other way 'round? Is one truely more effective than the other?
I wonder if Budd Dwyer has anything to do with it.
I doubt there is a factual answer, but here is what I’ve heard. I’ve been told that a temple shot is better for suicide as it is more foolproof. Gun in the mouth is more likely to not kill you or not kill you right away. Miss the brain and you’re in for a whole lot of distress.
(1) Don’t shoot yourself – at all.
(2) If you must, don’t shoot yourself in the mouth!
See, I’ve heard the exact opposite. The mouth shot is more certain. With the temple shot, you’re more likely to flinch as you pull the trigger and pull away from the gun.
I’m betting we won’t see this one on Mythbusters.
See, I’d heard that a gun to the temple can very easily lobotomize you without killing you, and that it was more certain in the mouth. I suppose it depends on the gun, etc.
Still, better off not to do either. My cousin tried, and wound up blind and brain-damaged, but alive. Don’t remember what angle he used, probably temple.
I think people are more likely to screw up with the gun in their mouth because of the pressure required to pull the trigger combined with the awkward angle you’ll be holding the gun at. Your hand is in a more natural position when you put it to your temple, but I think you have a higher chance of just blowing your face off and not your brains out.
I’ve always heard that the mouth method is more effective, as the barrel is relatively constrained, and the soft pallet is easier to penetrate than the skull.
But if I were giving advice, I’d recommend playing it safe and jumping out a high window. No chance of missing the target that way.
Chris Chubbuck was told to do it right behind the ear. Seemed to work for her.
I’ve heard the mouth was the way to do it with a rifle or shotgun. Otherwise it’s hard to aim and pull the trigger. But for movies I think the mouth shot just makes a better shot. You can focus right on the face where the temple shot has the distracting hand and pistol off to the side. The temple shot probably originated at a time the mouth shot was considered too distasteful to be shown.
For some reason, sometimes people were shown closing their eyes before shooting themselves in the temple. The mouth shut always seems to have the eyes wide open, and staring into the camera like they were looking at a mirror.
aimed properly, the mouth shot will put the bullet through your brain stem.
From Wikipedia (emphasis added):
Or maybe not.
I said it worked.
I didn’t say it worked well.
Incidently her information came from police officers.
Mostly. A real frontal lobotomy is nothing like the movies. These people can have productive lives.
Diagram of our brain, and yours if you’re a shark
Any part of the telencephalon you don’t strictly need to stay alive. But losing a part can severely impair your life and make you worse off.
The hind brain is basically designed as your life support. The medulla and anything around there.
It is unlikely you’ll hit the latter with a temple shot. You may, e.g. damage your temporal and become Leonard from Memento, or many other possibilities.
I would think that a 357 magnum round to the head would do the job regardless of mouth or temple for the aiming point.
This. And, even if not aimed “properly”, a gun in the mouth will almost certainly ping the brain stem, or a good part of it. Since the brain stem is densely packed with various connections and control centres, any injury to it is life-threatening.
For those not too familiar with neuroanatomy, the brainstem is the densely packed, compact part of the brain through which every connection to and from the brain travels, and in which are located centres for control of breathing and other basic life functions.
It is also worth mentioning that consciousness resides in the brain stem, or at least depends on an intact brain stem. In other words, you will be unconscious the instant the brain stem is hit (either directly by the bullet or a bone fragment, or torn apart by the tremendous shock and pressure waves generated by the gunshot).
Let me break with the forensics and say a better answer to the OP is that it has little to do with any physiological reasons. In terms of why it started being portrayed this way on TV & film, it’s simply the evolution of showing a serious, taboo act more and more graphically. I think the original Hayes Code banned any actual on-screen depiction of even attempted suicide. It had to happen in another room or at most implied by only showing the shadow of a character raising a gun but still having to turn the camera away from that before the shot is heard (plus it usually had to be a cowardly villain only doing it to escape capture & punishment).
Regardless of any statistics of how often or successfully it’s actually done temple vs. mouth, showing an actor actually put the gun into their mouth is inherently much more graphic (not to mention phallic!) then just raising it to their head. So as movies & TV strived to become more gritty & realistic this started to include showing suicides this way.
As an aside: There was long debate over which way Hitler did it. Many wanted to imply that only putting the gun to your temple was more ‘cowardly’ compared to putting the barrel in your mouth…
Christine Chubbuck - that was a long time ago, 1974, and I had to look that up. Shot herself on her own live TV show. Brutal.
(Her suicide, on Wikipedia)
A few years ago, police responded to a suicidal subject, teenage male. He was armed wiith a .22 rifle.
When they got there he was in the back of a hog shed, and as they came it he put the rifle in his mouth and fired.
Unfortunately, a .22 isn’t a very powerful bullet, and he also fired almost straight up through the top of his mouth.
Didn’t work so well. It bulged/blew one of his eyes out, but he was determined to make it work, so he fired again. Similar result, didn’t get the job done. Third time was a charm.
I can’t imagine the willpower it took to pull the trigger a second and third time.
I read somewhere, long ago, that the most pleasant way of killing yourself (weather permitting) was just going out and lying down in a snowdrift. After the initial pain of getting too cold, you just drift off and die. Dunno if that’s true.
Either location will do it, temple or mouth, and if in the mouth the person has to point the gun up to the brain instead of towards the back of the mouth.
It’s not merely where you aim but also maintaining that aim point while squeezing the trigger. I can imagine that a long double-action trigger pull, combined with the anticipated result, will cause the shooter to move the gun. I see that happening more easily when pointing at the temple. So if one has a double-action only (DAO) revolver, the mouth is the better aim point, IMHO. Just point up, not back.
I recommend single action semiautomatic pistol, preferably .45 ACP. Or possibly a cocked revolver, single not double action, in either .357 magnum or .44 magnum. And, hollow points. That should do it.
And, please drape several towels over your head so you don’t spray too much blood and brain matter on my ceiling and walls.
Better yet, take it outside.
