Updates:
Might be best for mods to lock this post at this point (is that a thing on Lemmy?) because this story is basically wrapped. The FBI says a bullet caused some ear damage. Maybe it was bullet shrapnel from a ricochet or something like that, but later photos show the teleprompters in-tact so it wasn't shards of glass from those. Trump's usage of the bandage (and the assassination attempt) as symbols and political tools has been discussed at length and I don't think conspiratorial thinking beyond that is very productive. Pete Souza took his own account down after getting a lot of harassment, so no further conspiracies are needed regarding X-formerly-known-as-Twitter at this time.
A photo of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump taken on Saturday without his ear bandage has sparked a wave of speculation.
The image, taken by Alex Brandon of the Associated Press on July 27 and shared by photojournalist Pete Souza on X, formerly Twitter, shows Trump walking up an airplane staircase with an apparently fully healed ear wound just weeks after he was shot with a high-powered rifle.
Souza, known for his tenure as the chief official White House photographer for Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, posted Brandon's photo on his now-deactivated X account on Saturday, writing, "AP photo this morning. Look closely at his ear that was 'hit' by a bullet from an AR-15 assault rifle."
Souza's profile, @PeteSouza, which had over 200,000 followers, now reads, "This account doesn't exist, try searching for another," implying that he has deleted or deactivated it. If he had been banned, it would read, "Account suspended. X suspends accounts which violate the X rules."
I think you overestimate the size and power of a 5.56 round. Much of the destructive force comes from speed and the area it hits - such as the chest or hips. Bones can cause it to ricochet and spin, causing cavitation and greater destruction.
They can leave a tiny entrance wound. With how thin the ear is, it's unlikely to have left an exit wound any larger than the entrance. It may have even hit the tip of the ear.
Either way, I think there would still be a visible wound unless it just nicked the tip of the ear. The bleeding may be due to blood thinners or something, considering his cardiovascular health.
You should've stopped there.
If it had hit his ear, it would have ripped a chunk of the ear off, not just caused a scratch that was unnoticeable days later. This isn't the first time he's been seen without a bandage. He was photographed like a day later and it was fine.
You're missing the point.
The bullet "nicking" his ear isn't possible because (due to speed) it would have ripped a chunk off.
Please demonstrate this. If a paper target can get hit by these rounds every day in target practice and not get blown to pieces, why would an ear (especially if the ear was only “nicked” by the bullet) be any different?
Yeah, after watching some of the ballistic recreations, it'd either punch through in the case of full hit or nick it pretty good on a grazing hit. Either way, it wouldn't take a chunk off.
There'd still definitely be a wound, though. I think the most likely case is that he was indirectly hit with some sort of shrapnel.
Personally, it doesn’t matter to me which outcome it was. He was shot at, and very minimally damaged by the bullet or something else. The outcome is the same.
Agreed, although he's certainly been playing his injury up wearing that ear patch around, when it's at most been a little scratch.
Paper is thinner and will immediately tear and perfectly so. Squishy thicker flesh will rip and tear slower as the force goes everywhere before the entire region just fails.
Compare the size of the whole to the bullet
The holes is always bigger, and an ear has much more tear resistance than an ear. But Trump doesn't even have a bullet sized hole in his ear.
He has literally zero visible wounds...
There's not even a "nick"
The holes on paper aren't bigger than a bullet. Bullets go fast. .223/5.56 is better than mach 2. That'll breeze right through a surprising amount of material.
He definitely didn't have a bullet go through his ear though. Even at a magical angle a bullet wouldn't be able to go right through.
I kind of think it either barely touched or he got cut when he reached up to touch his ear or something, or a chunk of shrapnel from something else popped him. Honestly, that last one might make the most sense.
Oh, I see. You were using hyperbole and not actually claiming a “nick” by the bullet would take a chunk out of his ear. Fair enough.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/An-Unusual-Feature-of-Graze-Gunshot-Wounds-Heninger/8ca4248a19d68ad59e8895945331d21121374d21
Bullets can lacerate tissue without causing crazy destruction. A wound less severe than this on the tip of the ear could be healed within 2 weeks or however long it's been.
This does not follow at all.
If the bullet went directly into his earlobe, yes it obviously would have taken a or multiple chunks out.
If it barely grazed the top of his earlobe, it certainly could have basically just barely knicked it, with only tens or hundreds of microns of the bullet actually contacting tens or hundreds of microns of skin on the ear.
At that scale, a bullet has a microscopically rough surface, and in addition to travelling at a high speed through its trajectory, is also rotating at high speeds.
The analogy I have been taught to make sense of how bullet wounds work is that of a long range, high speed drill press.
In this case, the drill does not so much punch a hole through flesh, as it does basically scrape right on top of an area with a large amount of blood flow under very thin skin.
Let me rewrite that:
The destructive force of a 5.56 round is exponentially increased by the tissue it hits. If it hits purely soft tissue - such as a pass through the deltoid or quadriceps - it may not cause much damage at all.
The real destruction comes from hitting hard tissue (like bone), which causes it to tumble and cavitate or cause it to ricochet and hit more soft tissue, on top of probably breaking whatever bone it hit.