As I opened the CT scan last week to read the next case, I was baffled. The history simply read “gunshot wound.” I have been a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the United States for 13 years, and have diagnosed thousands of handgun injuries to the brain, lung, liver, spleen, bowel, and other vital organs. I thought that I knew all that I needed to know about gunshot wounds, but the specific pattern of injury on my computer screen was one that I had seen only once before.
In a typical handgun injury, which I diagnose almost daily, a bullet leaves a laceration through an organ such as the liver. To a radiologist, it appears as a linear, thin, gray bullet track through the organ. There may be bleeding and some bullet fragments.
I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had been brought to the trauma center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a gunshot wound have caused this much damage?
The reaction in the emergency room was the same. One of the trauma surgeons opened a young victim in the operating room, and found only shreds of the organ that had been hit by a bullet from an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that delivers a devastatingly lethal, high-velocity bullet to the victim. Nothing was left to repair—and utterly, devastatingly, nothing could be done to fix the problem. The injury was fatal.
A year ago, when a gunman opened fire at the Fort Lauderdale airport with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, hitting 11 people in 90 seconds, I was also on call. It was not until I had diagnosed the third of the six victims who were transported to the trauma center that I realized something out of the ordinary must have happened. The gunshot wounds were the same low-velocity handgun injuries that I diagnose every day; only their rapid succession set them apart. And all six of the victims who arrived at the hospital that day survived.
Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim’s body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta, and the victim does not bleed to death before being transported to our care at the trauma center, chances are that we can save him. The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different: They travel at a higher velocity and are far more lethal than routine bullets fired from a handgun. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than—and imparting more than three times the energy of—a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun. An AR-15 rifle outfitted with a magazine with 50 rounds allows many more lethal bullets to be delivered quickly without reloading.
I have seen a handful of AR-15 injuries in my career. Years ago I saw one from a man shot in the back by a SWAT team. The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange.
With an AR-15, the shooter does not have to be particularly accurate. The victim does not have to be unlucky. If a victim takes a direct hit to the liver from an AR-15, the damage is far graver than that of a simple handgun-shot injury. Handgun injuries to the liver are generally survivable unless the bullet hits the main blood supply to the liver. An AR-15 bullet wound to the middle of the liver would cause so much bleeding that the patient would likely never make it to the trauma center to receive our care.

If you are a retiree and think it is prudent to have 1-5 year piece of your investments in a rather safe place for annual or emergency needs, how are you positioning this money? Suggestions or opinions appreciated.

Interesting. I thought the whole point of target date funds was that they were a one stop shop...

My unconventional Bucket #1 in retirement would utilize target date funds.
Bucket #1 would arrive in 5 year increments using target date funds that are spread out over retirement. If I were retiring in 2020...Bucket #1 would be (Bucket 2020) and would be funded with 5 years of retirement spending (any growth could be looked at as additonal discretionary spending) to be spent between 2020 -2025.
A second Bucket #1 (Bucket 2025) would be funded with a 2025 target date fund and would have 7 years (2018-2025) to "grow". It would be funded to anticipate expenses during those 5 years (2025-2030). The third bucket #1 (Bucket 2030) target date fund would have 12 years to grow...and so on.
This approach glides a portion of your portfolio from growth to income...from stocks to bonds...in a professionally diversified and professionally managed way. I might add it's affordable and easy to understand. Anyone from you to your wife can stay the course.
Six target dated funds would cover your retirement for 30 -35 years of retirement "bucket #1" needs.
The rest of your available portfolio can be dedicated to long term growth and the occasional re-balancing with your buckets.
I also see Bucket #1 being paired with an additional 1-3 years of spending in the event markets fall into an extended bear. The would very very liquid and very safe.
Not sure how one would deal with the possibility of a "lost decade" (extended under performance of the market), especially during the spend down of assets in retirement.
Any thoughts?

If you are a retiree and think it is prudent to have 1-5 year piece of your investments in a rather safe place for annual or emergency needs, how are you positioning this money? Suggestions or opinions appreciated.