The day their AR15 GSW article was published I sent an email to WAPO and Cc'd all the reporters and editors involved with the article, pointing out several errors, and attached a copy of Fackler's "Wounding Effects of Military Rifle Bullets" paper. I told them, "It's a 'splash' effect, not a 'blast' effect", and provided a link to John Ervin's (Brassfetcher) video of M855 in gelatin showing the temporary cavity (the "splash" created in water-filled soft tissues when the bullet hits at 2000 mph) and fragmentation as the wounding mechanisms. A day and a half later I received the following pathetic email response from one of the editors, Ann Gerhart:
As part of our reporting for this story, we scrutinized nearly 100 autopsy reports from five mass killings to analyze the patterns of deadly wounds from rounds fired from AR-15-style rifles. We consulted trauma surgeons who have operated on victims shot with high-velocity rounds, ballistics experts and a medical examiner. We then drew on court testimony from medical examiners and autopsy records to create the depictions in The Blast Effect, which includes animations of fragmentation, energy dispersal creating the temporary cavity and bullet tumble.