Finally, some good news out of Texas... a man has been hospitalized after allegedly shooting an armadillo, causing the bullet to ricochet and hit him in the jaw. It's the old story of an armed dildo attacking an armadillo, and the armadillo won.
While the story, as reported, has a certain appeal, especially in the wake of the lion assassination that has dominated news and social media for the past week, the story doesn't exactly square, as commenter David Emghee pointed out in the comment thread of the linked story. Armadillo shells are composed of a combination of bony scutes and keratin scales, not steel, their bullet-resisting capacity (carapacity?) is questionable. Given the fact that this gun mishap took place around 3AM, I suspect that the shooter's real opponent was not an armadillo, but an Amontillado.
It's not a hardness question. The key to ricochets tends to be the angle of impact. Windshields have long been pesky things, because of the way they are sloped. That slope, incidentally, matches the great Russian breakthrough in tank armor early in WWII. They realized that if they sloped the front armor plating, a projectile on a flat trajectory would effectively be forced to go through more material, even as it was being deflected by the angle. Now, in the case of the 'dillo, this is going to require some specific conditions, but it's not actually that unusual. A year or two ago, a man famously shot an armadillo and the ensuing ricochet hit his mother in law in the head. Armadillos are plentiful, and shooting them is a kind of a national pastime in Texas, like shooting rats or rabbits in other places. In my Fort Worth days I shot my share of them - with a 9mm, mostly, so shot placement was pretty critical...
ReplyDeleteLeading states with leprosy (Hansen's disease): Texas, Louisiana.
ReplyDeleteThe actual risk of getting leprosy from an armadillo is quite low because most people who get exposed don't get sick with the ancient scourge, known medically as Hansen's disease. But that doesn't mean there's no risk at all. In some states, like Texas and Louisiana, armadillos are hunted and eaten as a delicacy. And that, say scientists is where the trouble comes in.
Of the 150 cases of leprosy cases each year in the U.S., researchers now believe a third may be caused by exposure to armadillos, usually through extensive handling or eating of the animals. Most leprosy cases are actually imported from the developing world where it is more common.
-----
~
I'm not convinced that that mother-in-law shooting wasn't intentional. Further consideration of these cases makes me suspicious.
ReplyDeleteI knew about the leprosy connection- I'm surprised Trump doesn't use it to claim that Mexican immigrants are spreading leprosy.
No 'Tarkus' image? You disappoint me.
ReplyDeleteIn B^4-related news, Japanese knotweed is now a beer ingredient.
ReplyDeletehttp://tenemu.com/news/cat-statue-now-on-tap-at-tired-hands-fermentaria/06/2015
d1n52t3d79 o0d53h8n43 k6y93d1i79 q5d04w8p42 t4h97x2i70 z6q66m4o10
ReplyDelete