It is possible for a disproportionate response to an impact to result from involuntary muscle spasms, in the same way that an electric shock can 'knock you over'. note Except for that one scene in Men in Black.Ī theoretical situation where this trope might occur would be if the target were wearing a very strong suit of armor and were hit by a very large, heavy projectile (or self-propelled rocket) made of equally strong material with neither body able to give way, the target would be forced back by the impact. The Law of Inverse Recoil tends to be in full effect regarding this. High-powered rifles just make the bullet still more likely to go through the target rather than be stopped and have to shove it back.Īdditionally, the laws of physics guarantee that in a hand-held firearm the shooter must deal with a backward force equal to the force of the projectile being fired a gun capable of blowing the target across the room would need to blow the shooter back with even greater force, when you account for the energy the bullet lost due to friction on the way to the target.

The much higher pressure will cause the bullet to impart massive stress to a tiny area, causing it to penetrate rather than shove backwards conversely, you are unlikely to see a boxer put his fist through his opponent's torso because of the very low pressure caused by the large contact area. A boxer's fist, on the other hand, has far more momentum and a much broader contact area. A bullet is a streamlined, hard object which focuses a large amount of kinetic energy onto a small area, but has relatively little momentum due to its small size in comparison to a human, meaning it has little ability to drive an object back. However, there are massive mechanical differences between the types of collision. A heavyweight boxer, we reason, can lift a grown man off his feet with a powerful uppercut and a car can throw an unfortunate pedestrian into the air over its hood, so surely a gun, which we see as more powerful, would be able to produce an even more devastating blow on impact. This trope exists because, as humans, we tend to associate power with muscle strength, and thus the ability to move things. Preferably through a Sheet of Glass while it's at it. In a movie, you can reasonably expect a gun to be able to do anything, be it firing shots that travel faster than sound without making any, sounding like it's about to fall apart while working normally, fire all day long without a reload, or, as here, throwing a normal-sized human clean across a room with a single shot.

Can a falling bullet penetrate a roof