Brain Quiz #23

The victim was severely allergic to gunpowder.

Is it safe to assume that "rifle" means, like, a gun, the kind that you can put bullets into?

Yes. The rifle is indeed a gun that you put the bullets into and that can be used to shoot.

Is something considered a "murder weapon" if it's only used for an "assist"? Like, you know, you shoot the target which makes the mouse run on the wheel which turns the generator which starts the electric chair which kills the guy. Or whatever. In that case, can we call the rifle the murder weapon?

Also, was the rifle shot to accomplish the murder, even though the victim wasn't shot?

Also, was the victim a human being?

1.) For this question, something could be considered a murder weapon if it either directly, or indirectly caused death. E.g. If I was stung by a bee, and died of an alergic reaction, I believe the bee could be considered the "murder weapon". If it were something where I gave you 5 dollars to buy equipment to blow up someones car, I think that either the equipment or the car could [in this case] be considered a murder weapon, but the $5 would not. That make sense? Gray Area'd!!

2.) Split question:
a.) Was the gun shot?
Yes, the gun was shot.
b.) Was the gun shot to accomplish the murder?
[read:The intent of shooting was to accomplish this murder?]
No.
3.) The Victim was a human being.

The gun was shot by a person, wearing a space suit, in a spacecraft with windows. The window was broken by the bullet, exposing the interior of the craft to a vacuum. The victim, not wearing a spacesuit, died of asphyxiation.

Then they had a race on an asteroid using lunar rovers. Then they exploded the asteroid with a nuke. Then Bruce Willis died.

The victim is a hunter who happened to have shot a rather large deer or other animal of that sort. He didn't have anyone to help him retrieve the deer, so he tried to carry it himself. He managed to hoist it onto his shoulders and was doing fine until he dropprd his rifle, causing him to trip and fall. The rather large and heavy deer, still being on his shoulders, held his face on the ground in the rather soft and pliable dirt, thus killing him, as he was not able to lift the deer from him in that position.

The guy was hunting and he shot the rifle at a deer. The kickback was so great that it burst through his chest and crushed both of his lungs. He couldn't breath any more, so he choked to death.


This is obviously the correct answer.

Two guesses:
1) He was going to commit suicide, and choked on the barrel of the gun.
2) Perhaps he choked on the bullet. Haven't figured out how yet, but it seems plausible.
I could make up some other fun senarios, but alas, no time.

Okay, new theory. There was a hunter, who was in the process of hunting, that came upon a steep hill. As the hunter was looking down the hill, he heard a noise behind him. He turned around to see what it could have been when he spotted a rather large and angry looking squirrel. The hunter thought nothing of it and was about to turn around when the rather large squirrel began running at him. A little worried that the squirrel may be attacking him, took a step back as he tried to shoot the large and angry animal. As he did so, he fell backward and proceeded to roll down the hill. When he landed, he was unconscious. The still very large and angry squirrel ran down the hill after the hunter. The squirrel, still very angry for his own reasons, particularly because the hunter shot at him, took the hunters hat, placed it over his(the hunters) face, and laid on it, thus suffocating the hunter.(The act of shooting the rifle at the squirrel caused the squirrel to become even more pissed off, which led the hunter to die of asphixiation.)

The victim was hunting in the moutains, when he fired the gun, it caused an avalanche that buried the man, who then died of asphixiation.

Cheers to Joel for his answer.

This one suffered from an over-abundance of correct answers.

Murder is not suicide or accidental death, murder is to kill.

maybe the killer shot a blank round into the victims throat causeing the victims throat to swell shut due to the powder burn thus killing the victim without being shot.

Either that or the rifle was used as a club.