Clang

You know that unbearable clang clang clang sound that an MRI machine makes?

If you don't know what it sounds like, count yourself as lucky, because that must mean you've never been stuffed into that tube. 

Anyhow. MRI stands for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. That machine produces a very powerful magnetic field. Very powerful. The machine sends electrical pulses through metal coils, and that makes the coils vibrate, and that's where your clanging comes from. 

The magnetic field allows the machine to create really detailed pictures of your insides. Fact is, your body is 55-60% water (except on certain Saturday nights) and the water molecules do a little dance under the magnetic spell, and that's where the pictures come from. It's very complicated.

But keep in mind, it's a super magnet in there. There was a TV news team here that got their van a little too close to one a few years back, and it caused the entire van to be a magnet on wheels. Literally. You could just do without a tool box and just put your tools on the van door and they would stay. They had to take the van to a special place to be degaussed.

So. Knowing all that, when you enter the MRI suite to get your picture taken, you are advised to get rid of all metal. Your watch, pocket knife, jewelry, keys, fountain pens, clipboards, you get the point. Nothing metal can be in that room. And that includes guns.

On January 16, a lawyer and pro-gun activist in Brazil, one Leandro Mathias de Novaes, 40, brought his mother to have magnetic resonance imaging done at the  Laboratorio Cura in São Paulo. He was advised not to have anything metallic on him, but he concealed a handgun in his waistband. The magnetic force was strong enough to pull that gun out of his trousers and drop it to the floor, at which point it sent a bullet into his abdomen, causing major injuries that led to his death on February 6.  

CNN Brazil reported that Novaes signed a form agreeing to follow the protocols of the clinic and then still carried the gun with him. They also report that he had 8,000 followers on Tik Tok who saw his many pro-gun posts. My post on this (you're reading it now because I don't Tik my Tok in public) says that no one needs a gun in the room where the MRI machine is located, so why bring it in?

It made him feel stronger, until it didn't.