The final tally is in, 59 people shot, 7 dead and 52 wouded.

@sarabee1995 I guess the only positive is that 52 people survived. So the mortality rate was low.

But that's a pretty scant silver lining.

@BlueMetalChick Very scant indeed. And very curious? 🤔 Why was the mortality rate so low?

Don't get me wrong, this is a good thing, but a very curious thing.

@sarabee1995 Because handguns were used in most (all?) cases, and those generate more survivable wounds.

@QuixoticSoul The Chicago shootings this weekend where 59 people were shot? These were executed with handguns??? I did not know this.

@sarabee1995 Yeah, that's the usual pattern in inner city gang and drug crime.

@sarabee1995 @QuixoticSoul You're both partially right but there's a more important factor. The main reason that so few people died is that the majority of these shootings were gang related. Gangsters, in an effort to prevent themselves from being caught by law enforcement, make use of hand loaded ammunition. Bullets can be traced to the gun that was used to fire them using things like chamber marks and powder signatures. If you hand load your own ammunition, it makes it extremely difficult if not outright impossible to trace where the rounds came from.

However, hand loading your own ammo isn't easy and requires knowledge of proper powder loads. Most criminals don't have this information and so they just have to estimate how much powder to use, which commonly results in underpowered ammunition that travels at a slower velocity and thus is much less likely to kill people. The opposite scenario is when too much powder is used, which causes a case-head separation, thus detonating the entire cartridge, and results in the firearm literally blowing up in the wielder's hand.

@BlueMetalChick I am pretty sure that gangsters pretty much never bother to hand-load their ammunition. All of the studies on criminal ammunition use seem to point to them simply using store-bought. And a lot of it.

@QuixoticSoul Maybe it's because all the criminals I know are La Cosa Nostra, and they use hand-loads.

@BlueMetalChick The only real forensic advantage there is a reused case that has marks from several firings. But in a situation where that kind of evidence is useful to begin with, it wouldn't be likely to create much of an issue.

Introduces a unique vulnerability too - the ammunition presses used for hand-loading bullets also leave their own, distinct marks. That's how that one British chap got pinched, filling obsolete-caliber bullets for gangs in the UK.