Bullets fire up into the air is not safe.

[Kulindahr]

It's so sad when people die as a result of a foolish and dumb ritual. Is it suppose to bring good luck?

No, it's like little boys at the playground throwing sand in the air: nobody else knows why it should be considered kool, and neither do they.

 

[Lukeee]

Don't they tell people that they really shouldn't do that when they are training them to use a gun?

 

[Kulindahr]

Don't they tell people that they really shouldn't do that when they are training them to use a gun?

They don't all bother to get trained.

They didn't all check in when God was handing out brains, either -- anyone with a brain knows the moment you open a second beer, the guns and ammo get locked up.


This is why I sort of support a bill introduced regularly into Congress that would require everyone in the U.S. sixteen and over to join a local militia and get trained.

 

[Kulindahr]

Nintendo is far more relevant.

That depends on which game, and which church.

 

[ComNavFdgPk]

Wasn't there an episode of Mythbusters where this one was debunked?

 

[Kulindahr]

Wasn't there an episode of Mythbusters where this one was debunked?

What, playing Nintendo in church?


I recall one where they looked at the possibility of a bullet killing someone from a distance, but it wasn't conclusive. The fact is that this happens almost every year somewhere in the U.S.

The odds are small -- but coroners' reports confirm that they are greater than zero.

 

[cklover]

Wasn't there an episode of Mythbusters where this one was debunked?

Yes, there was; as well as a penny falling from the top of the Empire State Building. A bullet shot straight up will not cause any damage when it come down. Note that the bullet must be shot straight up; any angle other than perpendicular to the ground and the bullet has the potential to kill or cause damage coming down.

As for the penny dropped from the top of the Empire State Building it was proved that the energy from the terminal velocity is not enough to kill or hurt a person on the ground.

 

[CumAlong]

Wasn't there an episode of Mythbusters where this one was debunked?

Yea, thats for bullets being shot straight up. Bullets traveling at terminal velocity cannot kill someone.

They did mention that if shot at enough of an angle, the bullet COULD POTENTIALLY retain enough of its initial velocity along the horizontal plane to kill someone if it stuck in the right spot.

 

[Kulindahr]

The problem with Mythbusters on this issue is that they're very unscientific; they make too many assumptions. They rarely prove anything; all they do is show something to be likely or unlikely.

For the bullet fired straight up into the air, it's still possible to kill someone -- if it came down right dead center on the weakest part of the temple, for instance. But that's another of those one-in-a-trillion type things.

I recall the shooting-into-the-water episode, and it seems to me they did a really good job on that one.

 

[Kulindahr]

They did mention that if shot at enough of an angle, the bullet COULD POTENTIALLY retain enough of its initial velocity along the horizontal plane to kill someone if it stuck in the right spot.

If they had gotten in an imaginative physicist, they could even have written an equation for it.

There are two components to a bullet's flight, the forward (F) and the downward (D). So long as the bullet remains in a stable flight path, the D force is insufficient to kill someone. If it leaves a stable flight path, tumbling ensues, and the D force is reduced. Only in the very unlikely occurrence (for most bullets) of a tumble at high altitude turning into a stable D path (with F reduced to zero) can the D vector possibly kill.

Any time D is sufficiently large compared to F, you'll also get tumbling. That happens in two cases: in a mostly horizontal flight, near the end of its path (if it hadn't hit anything first, which is unlikely), or in a mostly vertical path, as the bullet begins to fall. So a bullet that's going to be potentially lethal can't have too much of a vertical path. OTOH, though, it can't have too much of a horizontal path, either, or it will hit something nearby and can't properly be called "stray".

The angle will depend on the bullet design; some tumble easily, others are intended to remain stable over a long distance. But in general, a bullet fired at over sixty degrees from the horizontal isn't going to kill anyone. One fired at less than thirty degrees isn't likely to, either; even in a small town that trajectory is flat enough that it's almost certainly going to hit something before it hits a person (unless someone is so foolish as to fire right down a street, or toward a park).


But again I have to ask, haven't these people heard of blanks?
And why isn't there an ammunition company out there making celebratory rounds? Imagine loading up blanks that fire red, white, and blue smoke...!

 

[gsdx]

The problem with Mythbusters on this issue is that they're very unscientific; they make too many assumptions. They rarely prove anything; all they do is show something to be likely or unlikely.

They made no assumptions. They had, in fact, evidence to prove that it was possible.

All of their tests of 'straight up/straight down' (terminal velocity) were non-lethal which, apparently, debunked the myth. But they had the evidence proving otherwise.

It was later determined after speaking with specialists that, like the incidents noted above, the deaths were a result of angled trajectories in which the bullets maintained much of their velocity (far beyond terminal velocity) over the distance. Those velocities are easily lethal. Terminal velocity isn't lethal except, as you noted, in "one-in-a-trillion" instances.

 

[Adrock-JD]

Whatever happened to tossing confetti and popping champagne corks?

Is this a new fad? I've never heard of guns being used to ring in the New Year before.

Just because we're armed with assault rifles and paranoid, you assume it's dangerous?

Well it is.