Gun shots in celebration of the coming of 2018.

[kw5kw]

It is now 19:11 2017/12/31 and on the west side of Fort Worth, just inside Loop 820, I have just heard the first two gunshots in celebration of the New Year. This is an issue and I really hope that no one on this forum discharges a firearm to celebrate the new year. Besides being illegal it is inherently dangerous to have the projectile of whatever caliber coming down who knows where.

[C-dub]

One of my LEO friends, who is now retired, told me once that many/most of his coworkers would park their cars underneath an overpass for about 15 minutes or so if they could right about midnight. It was to try and keep from having a round come back down on them.

[Flightmare]

I only discharge firearms into targets. BGs can choose to make themselves a target by threatening me and mine.

[Tex1961]

As a great philosopher once said. “Stupid is as stupid does”

[pushpullpete]

Just curious but, how do you know they went up & not straight out ? It's a little early, even for stupid people.

[kw5kw]

Our neighborhood watch reported hearing the same two shots that I heard. I admit it's early but we're a neighborhood of older people and they might be old (like me) and go to bed early.

[The Annoyed Man]

In the 5-6 years I worked in an ER, I helped take care of two different patients who had been hit by bullets falling out of the sky. This stuff DOES happen. The least hurt of the two had a femur broken by a 230 grain .45 FMJ that came down through the canvas top of his Jeep while he was waiting for a light to change. Nobody nearby said that they had heard the shot fired, so it came from a ways away. The other person suffered a devastating wound that nearly killed her. It’s a miracle she survived, considering how many of her organs were involved and how much blood she lost.

5 or 6 years later, when I was working somewhere else, I was unlocking the front door on the morning of Jan 2nd, and I noticed a long vertical scuff mark that was new on middle of the door. I looked down at the front door mat, and resting right there was a slightly dented 9mm bullet. I still have that bullet in a keepsake drawer.

[ScottDLS]

In the 5-6 years I worked in an ER, I helped take care of two different patients who had been hit by bullets falling out of the sky. This stuff DOES happen. The least hurt of the two had a femur broken by a 230 grain .45 FMJ that came down through the canvas top of his Jeep while he was waiting for a light to change. Nobody nearby said that they had heard the shot fired, so it came from a ways away. The other person suffered a devastating wound that nearly killed her. It’s a miracle she survived, considering how many of her organs were involved and how much blood she lost.

5 or 6 years later, when I was working somewhere else, I was unlocking the front door on the morning of Jan 2nd, and I noticed a long vertical scuff mark that was new on middle of the door. I looked down at the front door mat, and resting right there was a slightly dented 9mm bullet. I still have that bullet in a keepsake drawer.

I’m going to speculate that this was not the result of a bullet fired up and then falling back down due to gravity. The terminal velocity of a falling object in the atmosphere is somewhere around 120 mph. And a 230 grain bullet at that speed would be unlikely to penetrate canvas. Falling on an unprotected head, it might cause a hemorrhage or even a fracture. There would be no spin left so the bullet would be tumbling and not even falling round nose down. Then again there is always that penny thrown off the Empire State Building that goes 2in into the concrete...

[The Annoyed Man]

In the 5-6 years I worked in an ER, I helped take care of two different patients who had been hit by bullets falling out of the sky. This stuff DOES happen. The least hurt of the two had a femur broken by a 230 grain .45 FMJ that came down through the canvas top of his Jeep while he was waiting for a light to change. Nobody nearby said that they had heard the shot fired, so it came from a ways away. The other person suffered a devastating wound that nearly killed her. It’s a miracle she survived, considering how many of her organs were involved and how much blood she lost.

5 or 6 years later, when I was working somewhere else, I was unlocking the front door on the morning of Jan 2nd, and I noticed a long vertical scuff mark that was new on middle of the door. I looked down at the front door mat, and resting right there was a slightly dented 9mm bullet. I still have that bullet in a keepsake drawer.

I’m going to speculate that this was not the result of a bullet fired up and then falling back down due to gravity. The terminal velocity of a falling object in the atmosphere is somewhere around 120 mph. And a 230 grain bullet at that speed would be unlikely to penetrate canvas. Falling on an unprotected head, it might cause a hemorrhage or even a fracture. There would be no spin left so the bullet would be tumbling and not even falling round nose down. Then again there is always that penny thrown off the Empire State Building that goes 2in into the concrete...

There is no building anywhere near that intersection that looks down on it. Even if fired from the nearest taller building, that bullet would have had to go up, and then down to hit that vehicle. Also, that particular incident happened in the middle of the afternoon, not during the night. According to one of the paramedics that brought him in, there was a bullet hole in the rag top of his Jeep. I am well aware that a bullet fired perfectly vertically straight up would lack the velocity coming down to do that kind of damage. But a bullet fired on an arc from some other location could easily have that kind of velocity. The other patient I mentioned was hit by a .223 bullet in the top of her left shoulder while walking along the parade route the night before the parade. The bullet went straight down through her left shoulder, left chest, left diaphragm, stomach, most of the bowel on the left side of her abdomen, bounced off the inside of her left pelvis, tore her bladder apart, bounced off the inside of her right pelvis, and came to rest in the dome of her liver. Again, nobody anywhere near her, in a large crowd, heard the shot that hit her. She was standing in a relatively open area out in front of Pasadena City College. The nearest building that could have served as a sniper’s nest was about 100 yards away. A bullet fired from there would not descend vertically through the top of her shoulder. A bullet fired from ground level in that crowd could have easily hit someone else before it hit her, or passed through her upright body and hit someone behind her. Instead, it hit the top of her shoulder on a near vertical trajectory. 14 hours of surgery and 24 units of blood later, she survived.

I’ve seen the same Mythbusters episode everyone else has seen. They claim to be definitive, but (A) in the real world, people don’t shoot bullets on a perfectly vertical path due to physics, biology, and alcohol; and (B) Mybuster’s results don’t account for two patients in whose care I have personally taken a part, and for whom no other explanation is possible than a bullet descending on a downward trajectory, after having been fired from far enough away that no witnesses to the event heard the shot fired.

Mythbusters can claim to be definitive, but they weren’t there, and they didn’t go home and wash the victim’s blood out of their socks.

[Waco1959]

From Mythbusters annotated:

For the first time ever, they deemed this one busted, plausible, and confirmed. All of their tests, from the pig's head to the 9mm firing to the balloon, showed that a bullet fired perfectly straight up into the air is not lethal. However, it is also very difficult to shoot perfectly straight up into the air and, with the cases cited by Dr. Mohler, they have confirmed that people have died from bullets falling from the sky.

I hate people shooting in the air but I grew up around folks that did but there was one difference from most of the problem cases: they almost all fired birdshot from a shotgun and it was in rural areas with "safe" directions. Given the spread and energy involved I'm not surprised we never heard of anyone getting hurt or any damage. Far cry from firing rifles or pistols in urban/suburban areas.

[John Galt]

Idiots

[Pawpaw]

From Mythbusters annotated:

For the first time ever, they deemed this one busted, plausible, and confirmed. All of their tests, from the pig's head to the 9mm firing to the balloon, showed that a bullet fired perfectly straight up into the air is not lethal. However, it is also very difficult to shoot perfectly straight up into the air and, with the cases cited by Dr. Mohler, they have confirmed that people have died from bullets falling from the sky.

I hate people shooting in the air but I grew up around folks that did but there was one difference from most of the problem cases: they almost all fired birdshot from a shotgun and it was in rural areas with "safe" directions. Given the spread and energy involved I'm not surprised we never heard of anyone getting hurt or any damage. Far cry from firing rifles or pistols in urban/suburban areas.

Birdshot is an entirely different thing. Going dove hunting as a kid, we always wore long sleeved shirts and put some cotton in our ears. The one and only reason for both is that hot birdshot that was certain to rain down on you when you're spread out and have a field surrounded. Falling birdshot stings when it hits skin, but does no damage. A hot piece of birdshot in your ear is quite painful, at least until you can shake it out.

[Greybeard]

My daughter and her husband live in Vegas, northwest of the strip. They had a hole in the sheetrock of vaulted ceiling and found a bullet on the floor of living room this morning.

[ScottDLS]

If fired and landing from a flat surface (ie same level) and at greater than a 45 degree angle, the bullet will expend all its horizontal velocity prior to landing. So the only energy remaining in the bullet will be that of its terminal velocity from gravitational acceleration. So,it is not necessary to fire exactly 180 degrees from vertical. This is basic ballistics (ie physics). It is simply not possible for a 55gr bullet to puncture thick canvas and flesh from gravitational energy. Either the bullet was shot from higher elevation or at a less then 45 degree angle. The danger of shooting up in the air is that there are very often people and objects at a higher elevation than you and heavier bullets can cause some damage to unprotected people even from gravitational energy.

[The Annoyed Man]

My daughter and her husband live in Vegas, northwest of the strip. They had a hole in the sheetrock of vaulted ceiling and found a bullet on the floor of living room this morning.

Exactly. And if that bullet had struck someone, it could have very easily hurt them, possibly even severely.

People who shoot bullets into anything except a living or static target are idiots.