Trick Gun for Secret Society Initiations

Imagine the sheer delight of the person being initiated, when the realistic looking gun is pointed at them, a loud explosion occurs--but only water emerges! High-larious!

Full patent here.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Apr 24, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Clubs, Fraternities and Other Self-selecting Organizations, Guns, Patents, 1900s, Pranks

Lorne Greene, “Ringo”

Another in our series of "Actors Who Should Have Stuck to Acting."

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 05, 2022 - Comments (5)
Category: Guns, Hollywood, Music, Television, Wild West and US Frontier, 1960s

Just Can’t Put My Finger On It

Who knew this was a technique? See a more recent incident after the first story.

DOCTOR MAKES A DRAMATIC RESCUE
Karen Dillon
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Dr. Wendy Marshall was jolted awake at 5 a.m. by an urgent phone message: Doctors at a Joliet hospital were using nothing but their fingers to plug two bullet holes in a man`s heart in a last-ditch effort to save his life.

The doctors at Silver Cross Hospital ''said they had their fingers in the holes and couldn`t stop the bleeding,'' Marshall recounted Thursday.

In an age when sophisticated medical equipment can keep patients alive for months, this most basic technique ultimately saved the life of Tommy Lee

''Tony'' Hairston, of Joliet.

Before the night was over, Marshall, a cardiac surgeon and director of the Loyola University Medical Center`s Trauma Center and the Air Medical Service, would be flown to Joliet and use her own fingers to dike the holes. At the same time, Marshall squeezed the 29-year-old man`s heart to force it to pump when it stopped three times for a total of eight minutes.

Eventually, Hairston was taken by helicopter to Loyola where open heart surgery was performed. Thursday night he was listed in critical condition, but was expected to recover.

The drama began Wednesday night when Hairston, a landscaper shot after an argument with a neighbor over missing property, was taken to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet.

Silver Cross physicians immediately operated on Hairston, but did not open up the victim`s heart. ''The surgeon found blood in the chest and a couple holes around the heart. At that time, he didn`t open up the heart,''

said Dr. Robert Freeark, chief of surgery at Loyola.

But then after surgery, Hairston started bleeding again. ''This time the surgeon opened Hairston up and and found two holes in his heart . . . and he couldn`t stop the bleeding,'' Freeark said.

The physicians did the only thing they could-stick their fingers into the holes in Hairston`s heart.

Marshall arose, dressed and was taken by helicopter to Silver Cross, accompanied by a paramedic, Kent Adams, and Laurie Dudek, a flight nurse. They arrived 23 minutes after the call.

At Silver Cross, Marshall found a hole in the front of the heart and one in the back. The location of the one in the back was in an area where it couldn`t be repaired without stopping the heart, she said, and Silver Cross didn`t have the equipment for such specialized treatment.

So it meant transporting Hairston to Loyola Medical Center-with Marshall`s fingers in the holes.

Before the night was over, Marshall, as her fingers plugged the holes, squeezed Hairston`s heart to force it to pump when it stopped three times for a total of eight minutes.

Marshall said she used the first two fingers of her right hand to plug the back hole and her right thumb to stop up the front hole. ''When the heart stopped, I kept my fingers in the holes and squeezed my left hand against the right.''

During the flight, Adams, the paramedic, forced Hairston to breathe by squeezing a bag attached to a tube that was shoved down his trachea.

Four intravenous tubes were attached to Hairston, feeding medicine to stimulate his heart beat-one into a large vein near his left collar bone, two to his left arm and one in his right arm.

When the team finally arrived at Loyola, cardiac surgeon Henry Sullivan had been alerted. The patient was placed on a machine that circulated his blood while the heartbeat was halted and the organ repaired, Freeark said.

Adams shook his head in wonder Thursday afternoon. ''It was dramatic,''

he said.

Adams said Marshall was steady as a rock during the flight. ''She was so calm. She just let us know what was happening, and then we did our part.''

Hairston allegedly was shot by Robert Knox, of Joliet, after an argument over some items reported missing from Hairston`s apartment, Joliet police said. Knox was charged with attempted murder, armed violence and unlawful use of a weapon, police said.

By Thursday afternoon, Hairston had awakened a few times, which is considered a positive sign, Marshall said.

Hairston ''is lucky to be alive today,'' she said. ''When the heart stops, most people are basically brain dead within three to four minutes.''

Freeark and another Loyola heart physician, Dr. Bruce Lewis, said that saving Hairston`s life by plugging the holes in his heart was amazing.

''To my knowlege it was totally unprecedented,'' Freeark said. ''Nobody has ever been transferred with a finger better.''

''Very, very amazing, and very rare to see someone survive after that . . . especially with the size of the hole (in the back of the heart),'' Lewis said.

Marshall took the praise in stride. ''Anyone who has got a blood pressure can be saved. So you go for it.''

Source.

Heroic military veterans and police officers put their training to use during the deadly mass shooting at a Las Vegas music concert — even “plugging bullet holes with their fingers,” according to a report.

“You saw a lot of ex-military just jump into gear,” witness Russell Bleck told the “Today” show on NBC. “I saw guys plugging bullet holes with their fingers.”

“While everyone else was crouching, police officers (were) standing up at targets, just trying to direct people, tell them where to go,” he added. “The amount of bravery I saw there, words can’t describe what it was like.”

The practice of plugging gunshot wounds helps to kick in the body’s defense mechanisms that prevent rapid blood loss, according to a Wired report.

Severe wounds, especially on the carotid arteries of the neck, must be quickly plugged with the fingers or packed to temporarily stop the hemorrhaging, according to Gould and Pyle’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Medicine and Surgery.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 09, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Body, Blood, Death, Guns, Medicine, Superheroes, 1980s, Twenty-first Century

Diapers with pistol holsters

Patented by Harriet Y. Clough of Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1958.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 26, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Babies, Guns, Inventions, Patents

Turnpike Toll Gun

Introduced circa 1962 by Lyman Metal Products, the Turnpike Toll Gun allowed drivers to shoot quarters and nickels into toll baskets. I imagine that, nowadays, whipping one of these things out at a toll booth could get you in trouble. But it's still possible to pick one up on eBay if you gotta have one.

Source: airgunenthusiast.com

Cedar Rapids Gazette - Nov 4, 1965

Spokane Chronicle - Jan 23, 1963

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 22, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Guns, Money, Travel

Harmless Hunter

In 2012, the brothers Randy and Michael Gregg tried to raise money to produce their 'harmless hunter' or 'kill shot' gun. Though it wasn't actually a gun. It was a camera shaped like a gun. From their Kickstarter page:



They never succeeded in raising enough money. Apparently the idea appealed neither to hunters nor to wildlife photographers.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 17, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Guns, Inventions, Photography and Photographers

Follies of the Madmen #426

Favorite shirt of pistoleros everywhere!

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon May 27, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Fashion, Guns, 1950s

Follies of the Madmen #410

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 01, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Anthropomorphism, Business, Advertising, Guns, 1910s

The Punt Gun

Wikipedia page.

Longer article.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Aug 23, 2018 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Guns, Nineteenth Century

Hunting Licenses for the Blind

It sounds like it should be a joke, but apparently in the past various states have debated whether they should issue hunting licenses for the blind. And today some states appear to issue such licenses. For instance, on the website of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game a "Resident Hunting License for the Blind" is listed as costing $45.00.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Dec 2, 1953

I think the clipping below explains these licenses. They allow blind people to go out hunting with their friends. Someone else (who can see) has to do the actual shooting, but the blind person can claim one of the game animals as their own kill.

Tallahassee Democrat - Apr 15, 1959

A separate issue is whether a blind person can purchase a regular hunting license. I don't know what the current laws are, but in 1963 in Washington state there was nothing to prevent them from doing so, as demonstrated by the stunt below in which blind attorney Arnold Sadler purchased a hunting license for himself.

Staunton News Leader - Jan 31, 1963

Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 04, 2017 - Comments (6)
Category: Guns, Sports, Regulations, Differently Abled, Handicapped, Challenged, and Otherwise Atypical