BlackBerry stops bullet, at last proves itself useful beyond BBM
We kid, we kid. There are many excellent reasons to choose a BlackBerry as your main handset in the year 2010, but we've got a brand new item to add to the list: bullet stoppage. A woman in Ohio was sitting with her gun-handling boyfriend at a restaurant when the gun went off and hit her leg. Lucky for the both of them, the BlackBerry in her pocket intercepted the bullet -- rather sufficiently, though to the considerable demise of the handset. It seems as if it was helped along by a neoprene case of some sort, but it's still pretty impressive for such a point blank attack. Love is a battlefield, folks.
[Thanks, Tommy G.]
[Thanks, Tommy G.]























More fuel for Mythbuster's next "Is it bulletproof?" episode.
@MowDownJoe Yeah, I'm skeptical of this based on MythBusters' results, especially at that range. What kind of gun did he have? It couldn't have been a direct shot.
"There are many excellent reasons to choose a BlackBerry as your main handset in the year 2010"
That's news to me.
The phone wouldn't have a scratch on it if it had a impact gel case.
ha i bet the Nexus One would have taken out a gun and shot back
The iPad could do that, too.
@Esteban Jobs
iPad can only do one thing at a time.
@Esteban Jobs YEA BUT IF IT DID DO THAT. STEVE JOBS WOULD HIT YOU UP FOR SOME EXTRA MONEY BECAUSE THAT WAS HIS IDEA AND HE IS GOING TO SUE YOU FOR THE USE OF HIS BULLET STOPPING PATENT. ALSO, IF THE GUN "FLASHED" YOU WOULD BE KIND OF SCREWED BECAUSE THE IPAD DOES NOT SUPPORT IT.
"rather sufficiently, though to the considerable demise of the handset"
Who the hell taught you guys English? For Pete's sake, you get worse every day...
Who ever said that Canada doesn't have good defense? We have RIM!
@Nitesh sooo, the pride of ur national defence is fruit?
Who's her boyfriend, Plaxico Burress?
crappy gun!
This has little to do with guns and everything to do with irresponsible behavior, and you can't legislate that out of existence.
The Palm Pre would have caught the bullet, toss it up, and shoot back at the same time thanks to its amazing multi-tasking power.
@TheDigeratiDude
This is known as the hidden power of multitasking!
Awww come on BB.... The iPhone has an app for that. Get with the times dude. And dang, then they would have had the CPR app too. Geeze, software before hardware... including when you would like to be invincible.
@Randall AND THEN YOU WOULD HAVE ITUNES KICKING IT OUT. BECAUSE THEY HAVE POWER ISSUES. IS IT SHORT MANS DISEASE?
raw facts:
- The US is the third country in the world for gun homicides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence ).
- "Between 1987 and 1990, David McDowall found that guns were used in defense during a crime incident 64,615 times annually.[60] This equates to two times out of 1,000 incidents (0.2%) that occurred in this time frame." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States). Guns help victims in 0.2% of crimes...
- The US have a comparable rate of violent and non-violent crime than other countries, but a much higher level of fatalies due to guns. (same source)
Overall, that gives me the feeling that guns
1- are useless to prevent crimes (same crime rate in gun-happy US as in no-gun countries)
2- do not help victims of crime.. well, do in 0.2% of crimes...
3- since guns are everywhere it makes it much harder to control their ownership by criminals, and
4- hence rises the rate of fatalities during crimes, since gun violence is much more often fatal than, for example, knife violence.
@obarthelemy
"2- do not help victims of crime.. well, do in 0.2% of crimes..."
My lord you're stupid. The .2% was the percentage of incidents where a gun was used in defense and has no relation to helping the victims of a crime.
Since you're obviously in love with wikipedia perhaps you should have quoted the next paragraph:
"The findings of the McDowall's study for the American Journal of Public Health contrast with the findings of a 1993 study by Gary Kleck, who finds that as many as 2.45 million crimes are thwarted each year in the United States, and in most cases, the potential victim never fires a shot in these cases where firearms are used constructively for self-protection."
But seriously, I don't know where you went to school, but you may want to take some classes in logic. You seem to be seriously lacking in that department. However, you do qualify to be Palin's running mate.
@(Unverified) OR IT COULD BE OBAMA AND YOU COULD LIKE ABOUT ALL THE STATS AND BLAME YOUR SCREW UPS ON SOMEONE ELSE
Rule One: safety on
Rule Two: unloaded
Rule Three: never point at someone
If a gun owner can't follow even one of the basic rules (and you should follow all three at all times), he should have all his firearms confiscated immediately.
@zakany
hum but what's the point in having a gun in your pocket if it is unloaded?
or the dude just want to show off?
I don't know about all that, but this shit is scary, I know people carry knives in their pockets, but you never hear : "and the knife went off by itself, without any reason, the security lock wasn't properly set"
@zakany
There are these really cool items called "holsters". They are quite new and have a high learning curve, but they have proven to be very useful. What they do is hold a loaded firearm securely on a person's body and also allow easy access in case the need arises to use the firearm. I hear even the police are looking into using such a device.
I would love to know the gun/caliber of the round here.
No headshot? How boring.
aha, this is why Obama insists on having a blackberry. Forget the secret service, blackberry will take the bullet and all you'll feel is a little haptic feedback
The ability to legally carry a hidden firearm in a public place is one of the most foolish ideas I have ever heard. I don't care what licence they have!
@Xpoc : right, you wouldn't want criminals stressing about who might be able to fight back. Or Obama's army of teenage stormtroopers concerned about getting capped as they kick in your door.
@psycros and what good is a hidden gun going to do against these 'criminals' exactally? Have a duel? I think you've seen too many westerns!
@psycros
"Obama's army of teenage stormtroopers"???
When did Obama become Darth Vader?
I don't know what's worse this idiot or the video of the cop having an A.D. in the middle of a classroom full of kids.
P.s. wouldn't Kevlar be a cool phone name? The Blackberry Kevlar!, in a kevlar edition? kevlar?!
@cjwild : but would it get along with the Magnum?
@psycros Only if he drove a Ferrari.
I thought you had to be living in a third world country to need to be packing heat just to go out to a restaurant.
@roman1290 We are not too far off from a third world country.
"There are many excellent reasons to choose a BlackBerry as your main handset in the year 2010". Best reason? Autotext.
GOOD THING IT WASN'T AN IPHONE. STEVE JOBS WOULD COME OUT OF THE WOOD WORK AND ASK YOU FOR A EXTRA $1,000 BECAUSE HE JUST ADDED THAT FEATURE AND HE NOW AS A PATENT ON IT AND WANTS TO SUE EVERYONE.
the long preserved secret of the bulletproof vest was finally disclosed..
Blackberries inside...
I knew it! Even tho I originally went for cranberries, I was pretty close!
okay fine... Engadget has finally convinced me that RIM has something to offer the world.
I would make a redneck joke here, but the woman is using a blackberry so she can't possibly be a redneck. Then again, any rednecks with blackberrys jokes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIpLd0WQKCY
I think this is the american dream.. to sit in a restaurant with your fat girlfriend ,with your gun in your pants and to be too stupid to put the safety on or to leave your gun at home or in a safe place... It is such a shame that we in europe don't get to live this ... oh how i want to be a part of the american dream...
There seem to be a lot of people posting here who have no idea what the gun laws are here in the US and what the various states enforce - not that it has ANYTHING to do with the post.
this was in my hometown...the best part about the restaurant is the 'frickin chicken chunks'.
no comment on the story other than pure stupid