Many emergency room doctors and safety experts say they are all too familiar with the type of compressed-air gun injury that apparently killed a 21-year-old college student who was struck by a shot fired from a pepper-pellet gun by Boston police trying to control an unruly crowd after a Red Sox game on Oct. 21.
Several models of compressed-air guns, which are also used to fire paintballs and pellets, are nearly as powerful as traditional firearms and have caused dozens of deaths and serious injuries in the United States in recent years.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday November 02, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 33 words Type of Material: Correction
Journal publisher -- An article in Monday's Health section on the dangers of compressed-air guns said Pediatrics is the journal of the American Pediatric Assn. It is the American Academy of Pediatrics' journal.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday November 08, 2004 Home Edition Health Part F Page 4 Features Desk 1 inches; 35 words Type of Material: Correction
Journal publisher -- A story in the Nov. 1 Health section about the dangers of compressed-air guns said Pediatrics is the journal of the American Pediatric Assn. It is the American Academy of Pediatrics' journal.
In a report in today's Pediatrics, the journal of the American Pediatric Assn., experts warn that compressed-air guns should be used with caution and "should never be characterized as toys."
The study found there were about 21,840 compressed-air gun injuries treated in U.S. emergency rooms in 2000, the most recent year for which statistics were available. Four percent of the injuries required hospitalization. Between 1990 and 2000, federal authorities recorded 39 deaths from the guns, of which 32 were children 15 or younger.
"What this report does is list objectively for people the injuries and mortality associated with these weapons," says Dr. Danielle Laraque, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and lead author of the study. "These injuries have been documented for many years. Consumers may not really be aware that when they use one of these guns, even though it's not a firearm, it often has a muzzle velocity that overlaps with traditional firearms."
Muzzle velocity is the speed at which the object leaves the gun. The study found that 80% of compressed-air guns have muzzle velocities of 350 to 450 feet per second, and about half of the guns have a muzzle velocity 500 to 930 feet per second.
In contrast, a firearm pistol, which launches a bullet using the energy generated by burning gunpowder, has a muzzle velocity of 750 to 1,450 feet per second. Eye penetration can occur at a muzzle velocity of just 130 feet per second, and skin penetration at 331 feet per second.
Both low- and high-velocity compressed-air guns have been linked to serious injury, and deaths can result from the high-velocity guns, according to the study. The report was written by Laraque for the pediatric association's Committee on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention. "There are various things that have been done to these guns in recent years to make them faster, to increase muzzle velocity," says Laraque, author of the report, which used statistics from the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. "When we started having these higher-velocity guns, that's when we started seeing these injuries."
