Their weapons (or a lot of them) are pretty different from ours anyway, though, due to their differing technology. I mean, they have guns that fire nets and electric beams, and indeed pokemon have got to be capable of fatally injuring a human. Although with the number of times Twerp Boy has his pokemon attack people, it makes me wonder what the hell their laws are.
I agree that pokemon COULD die in battle but it's just looked down upon for trainers to force them that hard; it's probably what they meant in GSC about the rival being too "harsh". In the wild, it obviously happens, because they do eat each other.
