According to the Mythbusters Results webpage, the verdict is-
“In the case of a bullet fired at a precisely vertical angle (something extremely difficult for a human being to duplicate), the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact. However, if a bullet is fired upward at a non-vertical angle (a far more probable possibility), it will maintain its spin and will reach a high enough speed to be lethal on impact. Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most states, and even in the states that it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets, one of them fatally injured. To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time.”
I’d been curious too, and we’d even tried it, informally I suppose, and in a safe place. We did our best to ensure it was fired as straight up as possible, and at a windless time of day, verified by released helium balloons to check the airflow above our heads. The bullets came down close to us, and seemed to have little energy when they hit the sheetrock panels we laid out. As a result, we’d concluded that it posed little peril for anyone beneath a falling bullet.
Then comes Mythbusters. Ours was about as straight down as possible, thus achieving the result noted above. We were young and enthusiastic, so much wiser then than now. Thanks to the Mythbusters for setting us, and you, dear reader, straight.
Well, that’s pretty much what Cecil said in his 1995 column (to which I assume you allude): Can a bullet fired into the air kill someone when it comes down? - The Straight Dope … but it’s always nice to have outside sources that verify.
(Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Clayton, glad to have you with us. For future ref, it’s helpful to other readers if you provide a link to the column on which you’re commenting. No prob, I did that in my response, and you’ll know for next time. Anyhow, as I say, welcome!)
It doesn’t take much of a mass of metal to penetrate skin and bone even falling at 9.8 m/s squared or whatever the exact speed would be. I would say if it struck the top of your head, most likely you are a goner, or at least you could have brain damage for life,-or at least a headache that would make want to shoot your self on purpose.
Bongo1959
Your opinions are noted but not grounded in facts.
9.8 m/second squared is the acceleration of gravity, not a speed. The speed of the falling bullet would be determined not only by that acceleration, but also the profile of the bullet and the wind resistance - i.e. drag. This leads to a principle called “terminal velocity”, which is how fast an object will fall based upon balancing the force of drag vs the force of gravity. A bullet’s terminal velocity is typically lower than penetration speed, far lower than the speed it leaves the gun.
Getting smacked in the head by a falling bullet probably isn’t fun, but a purely straight up bullet is not typically fatal. However, as pointed out, most bullets aren’t fired straight up, so terminal velocity is moot because the bullets never slow down to that speed, and are still traveling under the initial energy of leaving the gun.
Only the horizontal velocity component of the falling bullet is the same as it left the gun. At mid trajectory, the bullet’s vertical velocity component is zero. It would be at terminal velocity in the vertical when it hit the ground. The horizontal component would be equal to the sine of the angle to the horizon, so 60º angle from the ground is half the velocity in the horizontal. If The Master and Mythbusters agree this is lethal, then I’m having a talk with my neighbor …
I didn’t think people celebrating by firing bullets into the air as a first world problem. Usually, if we want to celebrate something, we’re suppose to go to Disneyland. Of course, I may be hanging around with the wrong crowd. The people I hang around with really don’t know how to have fun. Or at least fun where major bodily injury is likely.
There are confirmed cases of injuries and death from bullets fired into the air (as opposed to stray shots not aimed upwards).
As kids we used to load salt and shoot at each other, that stuff stings.
The horizontal velocity decays due to aerodynamic drag. According to my engineer’s gut feel, any pistol round fired within about 30 degrees of vertical is going to end up coming down very nearly vertical at pretty much terminal velocity.
In another thread on this topic, I mentioned finding a bullet lodged in the roof of my house. 9mm or 38 FMJ. Went about 1/4 or 3/8" into asphalt shingles…probably 2layers. I figured it was less likely to leak if I left it there, so I just squirted some tar over it. The base of the bullet was horizontal, or near enough.
In Columbus, OH I can stand on my front porch on Dec 31 or July 4th and hear THOUSANDS and thousands of guns going off in the adjacent Black and Hispanic areas. Some of them are fully automatic. Listening to the police radio confirms it is a major problem. Newspaper articles recommend parking your car inside and not going out of doors. Police have tried to slow it down, but it is not safe to go in many of those areas at night.
And if you think falling bullets cannot kill anyone, last year there was a young Amish woman killed by a falling bullet. An Amish man about a mile away had been hunting with a muzzleloader and fired it into the air to empty the chamber. The falling slug fell through the top of her buggy and hit the top of her head. The horse continued on home and the family found the body.
I’m trying to figure out if maybe these are fireworks, and people calling the police to report gun shots. I can’t tell the difference. Both go boom and cause my pets to scamper under our beds. I can see someone calling the cops because they hear something in the black or hispanic neighborhood and just assume the worst.
I was at a house of a black friend of mine who was shooting off fireworks off on the 4 of July (perfectly legal where he was), and the police came by several times to investigate reports of gunshots. The police were very apologetic after the first time. We got a call, we have to come out and investigate. I was wondering if his mostly white neighbors were getting the same scrutiny by the police.
I used to live in a neighborhood where people celebrated July 4th and New Years by shooting guns in the air. I knew they were gunshots because they’d come in little runs: pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Too slow and regular to be a string of fireworks.
If this was in fact the case (Which sounds more than a bit dubious) she was not killed by a falling bullet – she was killed by a bullet at the end of it’s ballistic trajectory. If the bullet never slows to a velocity of 0 FPS at the top of it’s arc it never truly “falls”
No, all bullets fired on Earth fall. Some start at the top of their arc, some don’t.
If you had a REALLY powerful gun, you could hypothetically fire bullets at escape velocity that would never return to Earth.
But good luck finding a firearm that can achieve a muzzle velocity of 37,000 feet per second.
I knew I was missing an obvious exception. Thankya.
While I understand the point you’re making, yes all bullets are subject to the pull of gravity the moment they leave the barrel of a firearm, the spirit of this myth is can a falling bullet – IE one that is fired straight up, comes to a stop at the top of its arc, and then returns to Earth, potentially cause death. The answer to this is no. OTOH a bullet that never slows to a stop and is along its ballistic arc carries much more energy – yes it is falling in the strictest sense of the word, but gravity is not the only source of energy for this projectile.
(and just to nitpick) Theoretically you can say a bullet fired upwards and strikes a target above the shooter never falls either – it looses speed as it travels against gravity but never does travel back toward the surface of the earth, so it is never “falling”.
Yes, no argument from me on that.
Oooh! Another good exception. More reason for me to cease talking in absolutes.
A bullet starts falling the moment it leaves the barrel of the gun, no matter which direction it’s aimed or with what speed. Just because something is moving upwards doesn’t mean it’s not falling.
You’re going to have to help me with this one. Yes a bullet is under the influence of gravity the moment it leaves the barrel. However, if fired upwards, it is traveling away from the source of gravity and therefor not falling as defined by Merriam-webster
from Fall Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
Fall (v): to descend freely by the force of gravity
Once the bullet begins to return to earth it is then “falling”, but not before.