Think bullets fired into the air won’t kill you when they come down? Check out the following, from the Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5350a2.htm
The CDC folks were called on to investigate this very phenomenon, and found all the evidence you need that it does happen, especially if some dumb jerk shoots in a congested urban area.
Welcome to the SDMB, LBarker.
A link to the column you’re commenting on is appreciated. The column in question is Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down?
This was addressed some time ago on MythBusters as well. Their conclusion was that while a bullet fired straight up would be likely to tumble and have insufficient energy on impact to cause serious harm, most people waving guns 'round in the air are not shooting straight up–rather, it’s at some angle, leaving the projectile more likely to remain stable throughout its trajectory.
If you really must go shooting guns off into the air, I suspect the ‘safe’ alternative would be shotguns with birdshot; the individual pellets ought to be too light to do any damage. (Not, mind you, that I’m suggesting anyone try it!)
It should also be noted the Mythbusters runs one or two experiments. That might be enough to verify that something CAN happen, but it’s not anywhere near enough data to even suggest (let alone “prove”) that something CAN’T happen. All they’ve done is to show that in their one experiment, it DIDN’T (in this case, the falling bullets didn’t have enough force.)
If by “experiment,” you mean literally firing bullets straight up into the sky, finding where they landed, and calculating the force necessary to embed the rounds in the depth of the earth where they were collected (which was consistently ~3 in., IIRC), then yes, I guess you could say that all they did was an “experiment.”
It was a hell of a good experiment, and the results convincingly demonstrated that a bullet falling back to earth after being fired straight up will not strike with sufficient force to kill anyone. If you have any specific criticism of the methodology that casts doubt on their results, I would be interested to hear it. Barring such criticism, the results appear pretty conclusive.
As the Mythbusters episode noted, however, bullets fired in a more general “upward” direction can remain in a ballistic trajectory and return to earth with force sufficient to kill. It seems likely that this is the explanation for the cases noted in Cecil’s column.
A skydiver jumped and released several different bullets in freefall. He observed their relative speed compared to his own 120 mph. You can read it here:
http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=700586;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
I recall a story a couple of years ago about a Klansman who was supposedly killed by a bullet that had been fired into the air. Or was that urban legend? I don’t find it on Snopes, but do find references to it via search engine.
A couple of observations: First, CDC pronouncements on firearm-related topics should probably be taken with a grain of salt, as most seem to be politically motivated (by the same token, I’m not inclined to take NRA data at face value).
Second, “into the air” is pretty vague. You could be talking about departure elevations of anywhere from less than 20 degrees on up. Since maximum range is typically realized somewhere around 34 degrees, it’s readily seen that a bullet fired at a shallower angle is going to be capable of some significant mayhem downrange (the danger decreases exponentially as the angle is increased beyond 34 degrees, both because of the increased volume of air the bullet has to punch through and a decreasing terminal radius).
Almost all of the film of celebratory pistol fire I’ve seen shows people firing at distressingly low angles: 50 degrees or less. Rifle fire tends to be a bit different, particularly in the middle east, where the “tradition” appears to be to hold the rifle straight out in front of you and fire more-or-less straight up (at least with Kalashnikovs and other military rifles chambering relatively puny cartridges). Nevertheless, you occasionally hear of some dimwit shooting a rifle just over a roof- or treeline which is a terribly unhappy thing for anyone unfortunate enough to get in the way.
The lesson, I suppose, is that if you’re going to shoot your gun in celebration (something to which I’ve no particular objection, by the way), shoot at some kind of backstop. Anvils are traditional in the U.S., but an earthen berm or ditch or even just steeply downward into soft soil is probably safer (and if, in the latter case, you should shoot yourself in the foot…well then, you’ve learned a valuable lesson).
Out in here in Arizona, where shooting into the air in a celebratory manner is not unheard of, there was the case of a 14 year old girl who was in her backyard talking to a friend on the phone when a bullet that had been fired into the air came down and struck her in the head killing her instantly. Clearly the bullet wasn’t shot straight up and down, but it still came from the air. Her death prompted “Shannon’s Law”, which was passed in April 2000. Having known people who knew her before her death, I can assure you that while death may not be the only outcome of a bullet falling from the sky, it is indeed possible.
http://www.linkingwithvictims.org/memorial/shannon_smith.php
If anybody watches the show Mythbusters, they actually did this experiment. The results were a bullet can kill you if fired straight up in the air.
You can watch Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel on Sundays. It is a great show.
The answer to whether falling bullets can kill is complicated, and requires more specificity. If the question is “has any falling bullet of any type ever killed anyone”, the answer is yes.
But are falling bullets in general a deadly risk? In what cases? Are there risk differences between different types (caliber, shape, spin) of falling bullets? How do different trajectories (90 deg, 80 deg, 70 deg) affect the risk?
In the early 20th century, Army General Julian S. Hatcher supervised experiments to determine whether a .30 caliber bullet returning by gravity from rifle fired vertically represented a danger.
“One of the shots that hit the platform was a Service .30-'06, 150 grain flat based bullet, which came down base first (as that bullet usually does) and bounced into the water after striking the edge of the lower platform. It left a mark about 1/16 inch deep in the soft pine board.”
“It was concluded from these tests that the return velocity was about 300 feet per second. With the 150 grain bullet, this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds. Previously the Army had decided that on the average, an energy of 60 foot pounds is required to produce a disabling wound. Thus Service bullets returning from extreme heights cannot be considered lethal by this standard.”
However what’s not lethal to an adult soldier may be lethal to an unshielded child.
Also the Hatcher study focused only on bullets fired vertically. Such returning bullets would have energy limited by atmospheric terminal velocity. Much celebratory gunfire is at angles, maybe even 45 degrees. In that case more of the horizontal muzzle energy would be retained, making it more deadly.
All bullets are not equal: we can calculate the effect caliber has on impact energy, simply by knowing the terminal velocity of the bullet and the caliber. By actual observation this site gave the following bullet fall rates:
.22 rimfire, 25 grains, terminal velocity 60-80mph
.223, 55 grains, terminal velocity 80-100 mph
9 mm, 115 grains, terminal velocity 100-110 mph
.45, 230 grains, terminal velocity 120 mph
From those numbers this equation calculates the kinetic energy (I used the highest estimate):
KE = 1/2mv^2, where
KE = kinetic energy in Joules
m = mass in kg
v = velocity in meters/sec
Kinetic Impact Energy:
.22 rimfire - 1 Joule (0.74 ft lbs)
.223 - 3.55 Joules (2.62 ft lbs)
9 mm - 9 Joules (6.63 ft lbs)
.45 - 21.4 Joules (15.78 ft lbs)
The question is almost always phrased as “will a falling bullet kill you”, not could you be injured, is it dangerous, etc.
The answer to that is complicated, since in some cases you clearly will not be killed. E.g. the popular .22 round is unlikely to kill anyone, if fired vertically. Based on the above recent tests, it has a total energy 0.74 ft lbs.
But as bullet size increases, energy goes up rapidly. A .44 bullet is extremely dangerous. A .50 cal is certainly deadly, even if fired at 90 degrees. The celebratory skyward anti aircraft 23mm artillery fire sometimes seen in the middle east is deadly for non-exploded rounds. A high velocity rifle fired at 45 degrees would seem very dangerous.
So firing guns into the air isn’t a good idea. In many cases the returning bullets won’t kill you, but in some cases they can. However we should also place that risk in context of other life risks. A few people have definitely been killed by falling bullets. However 11,000 EVERY YEAR die from gunshots in the US alone. Firing skyward isn’t wise, is always dangerous, and is potentially fatal. However your probability of dying from a gunshot is vastly higher from direct fire, especially in the U.S, Brazil and Mexico.
Off topic, perhaps, but can anyone briefly describe how experiments are set up to shot straight up and collect the falling bullet?
How far from the “gun” did the bullet land?
How was its impact speed calculated?
In the case of the Mythbusters episode, they went out to a dray lakebed and set up a rig to point the gun straight up. (I think it may have been angled slightly to account for wind speed and direction.) Then they emptied the clip and waited to hear the rounds hitting the ground and searched the desert for the holes.
They found several impact sites from the handgun they tested (9 mm, I think), and measured the depth at which the spent round was located inside the hole. From that measurement, they calculated the force required to embed the round at that depth (which was consistent for all the located rounds). The results were in the same ballpark as General Hatcher (described above) had found.
They also tried the experiment with a rifle, but were unable to locate any impact sites after the rounds returned to earth, apparently because the rifle launched the rounds high enough that the winds carried them too far away to locate. So to simulate a straight up, straight down fall by the rifle rounds, they rigged up a balloon to drop them from sufficent altitude to reach terminal velocity, then again measured the depths of the recovered rounds.
they do better when they use machine guns, as a string of bullets returning is easier to spot
I was wondering, because one thread commented on the depth a board was penetrated, making me wonder if it was an accidental impact or if they hit a target (which seemed rather unlikely).
Any idea how high vertically fired bullets would go? How far from the gun they landed?
When I was younger we were poor enough that on occasion, if we didn’t hunt, we didn’t eat. So, I can vouch for the effectivity of shotguns & many types of other ammo (still an avid firearms enthusiest - aka gun nut).
I have been shot by shotguns. For the normal bird shot (anything smaller than #6 shot), having it rain on your head from someone working the oposite end of the field is no big deal, so long as you don’t get it in the eye - that’s one reason to wear safety glasses when hunting.
I have been shot from close (defined as less than 10 yards) by #6 shot. It was a clasic “Dick Cheney” accident - the guy I was hunting with didn’t realize I had walked into the position I was in, and he was tracking the rabbit such that I was on his “blind” side - he was already pulling the trigger before he realized that the rabbit was running accross my feet. Now you’d think that one should’ve hurt, but I guess the thick clothing saved the day.
Anything bigger than #6 shot, though (say #4 or bigger)… I wouldn’t want to be in front of that stuff, and slugs are devastatng.
More results on the effects of various ammo & firearms can be found here: http://www.theboxotruth.com/
I haver to wonder about the effect of the bullets twist rate on that. If I drop a bullet from the air, I’m sure it’s terminal velocity will be higher if it is point down with a good spin, rather than tumbling…
When I read this news story, I was reminded of Cecil’s old column Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down? and the subsequent discussion here.
It appears there’s another way a bullet fired into the air can kill. According to Reuters, at a funeral procession for a 2 Palestinian fighters killed by Israeli forces, gunmen fired their weapons into the air. But they did so while passing under a high-voltage electrical power line, which the bullets severed, so the power line fell onto the procession, killing one person and injuring 7 others. (cite)
So it appears there are other reasons to avoid firing guns in the air (at least while passing under power lines).
This website requires a sign-in, alas.
I would like to see someone shoot upward at a freefalling skydiver such that the skydiver can catch the bullet at its apex. I’ll take the gun and someone else can take the parachute if you want to try it.