While at a New Year’s Eve party, I engaged in a rather lively discussion about the lethality of objects which are dropped from great distances. Police officers on New Year’s Eve routinely park under viaducts, or other solidly constructed objects, at the stroke of midnight. They do this to avoid being impaled by falling bullets. I don’t think they have much to fear from a bullet that was fired into the air, as long as it comes straight down. The bullet reaches terminal velocity, I’m guessing at about 120 mph, and stops increasing speed. does anyone have any evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, on the subject?
Robin - welcome to the strange and wonderful of the sdmb. One feature is the “search” which, if I’m correct, will allow you to search any messager’s history of posting messages. If you click on search at the bottom of this post, you should be taken on a search of recent postings -ONE of which asks a very similar question to yours and which resulted in they typical entertaining and enlightening answers we all seek. Turns out that the question has been shot up in the air, so to speak, several times, and even the Great Cecil Himself (music) has taken it on. So, if your search fails to turn up my post of about 3 days ago, you can search Cecil’s Archives for the straight dope. And, again - welcome.