Maybe. If the other person is fighting for minutes, that means you were stupid enough to hang around.
After being shot I’m guessing target aquisition is going to be a problem. Heck, it’s hard enough to fire accuratly under stress not shot.
Shoot then leave. You’d be fine.
You could maybe knock him over with a whoosh. I was making a small comment about The Long Road 's post in which he accidently typed grams instead of grains, turning a 250 grain or 16.2 gram projectile into one weighing just over half a pound. We’re not talking about a shoulder mounted weapon here.
If there’s any truth to knocking one over with a ballistic weapon it would be due to knocking one off balance unexpectedly (the shooter knows there will be a kickback.) I can’t imagine it’s never happened, just that they are never blown backwards slowly through a window that shatters neatly into millions of little pieces and doesn’t leave any gashing wounds on the shootee…
Depending on the weapon it could be empty before the firefight begins 
Hollywood loves the clicky sounds.
Well… ger… dammit.
What if you eat, shoot, then leave? 
Then Lynne Truss would shoot you in the face.
<nitpick mode>
A 12Ga shotgun slug weighs in at about 1 ounce, or 28g. They travel (in general) about 1600ft/s out of the barrel (this can vary).
Unless you’re talking about some big rounds, like from an A-10 Warthog
</NPM>
FYI, the muzzle energy of a .50 BMG round is usually in the ballpark of 10,000 - 13,000 ft/lbs. Just to give us some perspective. I’m aware that the grams v grains mistake has been rectified.
Thanks for the welcome, Osip.
Never heard that rumor about the shoulder wounds, but I deal mostly in death, not damage. I suppose they were talking about the brachial plexus. More of a high armpit shot than a shoulder shot. Hard to hit, and hard to hit all of it (it makes a big M and there are separate nerves in each part of the M). If you injured only part of it, some of your fingers would still work. Most shoulder shots I see do not injure the brachial plexus. Fricking big artery and vein running next to it and slightly below it are more likely to be injured.
You could do what the person did in the real life situation: transfer the gun to the other hand.
Is it not the case with duels of old that one side shot first, then the other? That would indicate that someone who was wounded would be capable of shooting. This was shown in an early episode of Hornblower (not a cite).
Ahhhhhh! Silly me.
From martial arts experience, there are ways, especially if the other person is walking or running at the time, that even a very small amount of force can disrupt their ballance to knock someone over. Sometimes this can lead to quite a spectacular pratfall. Someone (especially if they are on a slope) can be knocked back several yards simply by disrupting their ballance. After which their own attempt to regain ballance can propell them headlong down the slope.
The energy might actually be enough (assuming butler1850’s numbers are correct, that’s 6660 Joules, enough to lift an 80 kg person 8.5 meters into the air) … But the momentum isn’t. And most of the energy will be wasted as heat, so it’s the momentum that matters.
Gabriela,
Welcome aboard! Thanks for your posts. Fscking fascinating!
Someone with more money than me wanna’ buy gabriela a membership?
All of this forensic information is WAAAAY neat to read.
Qualifications for a panda? :smack: Sorry, that was “eat shoots and leaves.”
Awww.
May I say a big Awww to all the Dopers.
Mr. Slant, I cannot belong to the Dope; the rules at my workplace would have me strung up. I only took the free guest month because somebody wanted to know how far you have to fall to die, and my memory is bursting with one of the few actual studies on that very topic. I shouldn’t really be posting but I think I can slide with General Questions since I am allowed to use the Net to find out work-related information. A lot of y’all here are far more informed than I am on - well on everything, but to make it work-legitimate, on tangentially forensics-related questions such as Pistols vs Revolvers (see thread). I know what bullets do to the body, but not much about what fires 'em. However, that doesn’t legitimate me paying money to belong to the Straight Dope through a work-protected proprietary server, and so, as of April 2, I’m gone.
I’ve been a lurker for a long time, and I have to say it takes a certain something to be a Doper (besides eloquence and time). I’m not sure I have this quality. Listen up, y’all, because I am struggling to express myself here. There must be a certain weird humility I’m not sure I possess. Arrogance, oh yeah, admixed; you have to be the sort of person who, when someone asks “How many people fantasize about you when they’re masturbating”, instinctively fires back, “All of them!” But you also have to be the type who takes a joke, has a thick skin, self-deprecates, admits to mistakes - in short, a real intellectual humility. I think I would be too tempted to pontificate to fit in.
Yours,
Gabriela
Ask your manager. It might be the best $7.50 your employer ever spent on public relations.
<snork>
My manager is the Dept of Health of the Commonwealth of Virginia and ain’t interested in no Internet bulletin boards.
But thanks.
