From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon Jun 14 1999 - 17:14:21 MDT
At 03:55 PM 6/14/99 -0700, I wrote:
>It should be noted that human psychology with respect to being shot is
>really odd and differs significantly from any other animal. In many cases,
>whether or not a person is "stopped" by being shot is determined by whether
>or not that person perceives themselves as being "stopped". Many people
>will roll over with minor physiological wounds due to their *belief* in the
>level of damage inflicted, which many times exceeds the actual damage.
>Most animals and some people with impaired perceptions (such as psychotics
>or people under the influence of heavy drug use), are much more resistant
>to being stopped, since the level of damage inflicted must be
>physiologically severe for them to be stopped; psychologically "severe"
>damage is not applicable in these cases.
Taking this a step further, I suppose it would be possible to devise
non-lethal weapons designed to *convince* people that they had been
mortally wounded. There have been numerous documented cases of people
acting like they had been mortally wounded when in fact they had not been
harmed. This wouldn't work on all aggressors, but it would work for some.
I remember a couple cases where people have been unwittingly shot with
paintball guns (which have a loud report and can deliver a sharp pain when
hit), where the victim actually played the part of a seriously wounded
individual because they believed they had been shot, being unaware that the
device they had been shot with was harmless. People have been sued for
"psychological damages" resulting from such instances, because of trauma
caused to the individual who believed they had been shot.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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