# Gunshots in the night **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 19, 2000, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525 "2000-10-19T13:44:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tubagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b77776/32.png) [@tubagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tubagirl)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/1 "2000-10-19T13:44:50Z")
I don’t know if it is just the area I was brought up in, but I’m shocked by hearing rifle firing in the middle of the night. I went to my friends “Mandi’s Mind 101” house last night. She lives out in Umatilla FL (out in the boon docks). At about 10:30 last night, shots of a rifle cracked across the silent night for about 3 minutes. Now do I make a dash for my car so I can go home? I really had to get home, but I’m afraid of a bullet hitting me. These things don’t happen in Lake Mary. It is really weird. Has anything like this happened to you. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/2 "2000-10-19T13:48:23Z")
The land behind our development is a preserve of sorts. I’ve heard gunshots a few times, tho I suspect it was probably kids shooting targets. Still, I don’t like it - it kinda creeps me out. Ya never know, ya know?? ---
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/3 "2000-10-19T13:55:21Z")
Come over to my house. I live on a couple of acres in the county, there are 90 wooded acres behind my place. Touching off a few rounds is legal – thought I’d advise against big game weapons. Umatilla is a hick little Florida town. 40 years ago MUCH of the state looked the same way. (Umatilla has kept its small town charm. I love it. Well – except for an old girlfriends house but that’s another story.) You’re safe there dear. Noone will shoot you for walking to your car. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Simetra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Simetra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simetra)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/4 "2000-10-19T14:03:18Z")
[hijack] One of my best friends is a class III machine gun dealer. After running 200 rounds through an MG-34 belt-fed, hearing gun fire doesn’t fade me at all anymore. I’m pretty damn efficient with his MP5-Navy too. I think it’s just the south. We didn’t get anything like this in Rhode Island…that’s for damn sure. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/5 "2000-10-19T14:09:22Z")
Try southeast Washington DC. You’ll be amazed at the number of gunshots going off on New Years Eve and July 4th. ---
**Author:** ![Simetra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Simetra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simetra)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/6 "2000-10-19T14:12:52Z")
Beelzebubba, this is third post you’ve been right behind me on just today. I couldn’t resist commenting. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/7 "2000-10-19T14:15:42Z")
I have my very own gun range in my backyard, I kid you not. It’s usually my neighbor or his wife back there shooting. They built it on our property when the the previous absentee owner had the land, and we let them keep it there. (It’s quite a way back behind the house). Zette ---
**Author:** ![bovary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e68b1a/32.png) [@bovary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bovary)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/8 "2000-10-19T14:20:24Z")
hey zette do you live in tennesee next to a guy named terry by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![Opengrave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/919ad9/32.png) [@Opengrave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opengrave)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/9 "2000-10-19T14:22:17Z")
I grew up a ways out of town. In the woods around my house I heard gunshots year around and don’t think anything of it. The only thing that would scare me was if they were really close. I shot out there quite a bit and probably know most of the folks doing the other shooting, it was no big deal. I also carried a gun to school and kept it in my car a lot and never thought anything of it. We would go hunting after school. I’m 31 so this wasn’t but a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Simetra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Simetra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simetra)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/10 "2000-10-19T14:23:18Z")
~Gunshots in the night… Exchanging tracers… Wondering in the night… Doo doo de doo doo.~ Sorry… Once again, this was tormenting me and wouldn’t go away til I posted it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/11 "2000-10-19T14:23:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Simetra \* > \*\*Beelzebubba, this is third post you’ve been right behind me on just today. > I couldn’t resist commenting. 😃 \*\* Guess I’ve just got good timing 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/12 "2000-10-19T14:52:13Z")
Good God, Simetra. Once I saw that subject line, I immediately started coming up with lyrics. Thought I’d be real clever. Damn you. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/13 "2000-10-19T15:05:18Z")
tubagirl–no worries, probably just poachers. We get that, too, where I am. ---
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/14 "2000-10-19T15:08:10Z")
When I lived in Raleigh, I lived in a second floor apartment. I was lying in bed reading one night - it was about 1 a.m. - and there were three gunshots and the sound of glass shattering. Someone had fired a gun into the apartment of the guy who lived below me. The sliding glass door that they fired through was just below my window that I was lying right next to. Very scary. The bullets went through the guy’s apartment and into the one next door. Nobody was hurt, but the “target” left very quickly the next day and I didn’t see him again. Every once in awhile, my husband and I hear what sounds like gunshots in the distance, but since we live at the beach, I think we’re just hearing fireworks (which are legal here). It sort of freaks us out anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Simetra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Simetra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simetra)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/15 "2000-10-19T15:08:35Z")
You’re welcome. 😃 Hopefully I won’t be singing this the rest of the day. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/16 "2000-10-19T15:19:55Z")
Back when I was a single man sharing a house with several others, I heard what could not have been anything else but six rounds being fired off in quick succession. In the alley behind the house in Northwest DC. That was pretty freaky. ---
**Author:** ![SouthernStyle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@SouthernStyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SouthernStyle)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/17 "2000-10-19T17:39:12Z")
Hi **Olentzero** , Washington DC, huh? This reminds me of an event years ago where a second string quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers got shot during a drug transaction. (I don’t remember the kid’s name.) I was in a training class in DC at the time and had gone exploring. I got lost and drove up to and past the crime scene. I figured something HUGE had happened because of the number of flashing lights involved. Only when I read the paper the next day did I realize what I’d stumbled past. ---
**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/18 "2000-10-19T20:22:50Z")
Do you mean to say that hearing gunshots in the night _isn’t_ an everyday experience for most of you? Geez, I’ve got to move to a better neighborhood. I have no formal experience at all with guns, but I can distinguish a big gun from a little one from a firecracker/car backfiring, just from the neighbors telling me what that sound was the next day. We’ve been taught to call the police when we hear shots, even though there’s not a chance we’ll be able to tell them exactly where it’s coming from. That way we get more officers in our area when they do the annual review of who needs what police coverage. Poachers…I think I’d rather have poachers. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/19 "2000-10-19T20:30:47Z")
I live in inner north London. I live in a nice little road, mostly quiet, and the only trouble I’ve ever had is from the usual drunks on the tube trains or kids getting aggressive late on. Recently, though, someone told me that the road mine filters into (which I have to walk down to get to the station) is home to London’s biggest drugs gangs. It’s all council estate blocks. Since then I haven’t failed to notice an increasing number of squealing tyres late at night and in the morning there’s always a burned-out car sitting by the roadside. It really started bothering me the other week when, on my way to buy a Sunday paper, I passed a blackened and burned-out **articulated lorry**. An entire truck. ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2000, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525/20 "2000-10-19T21:06:43Z")
The last time I lived in Oakland, (and by last I mean both the most recent as well as I won’t live there again if I can help it), my family resided in a nice little bungalow in a pleasant neighborhood. But 5 blocks away was the border of a terrible neighborhood. The sound of gunfire was part of every evening. What eventually bugged me most about it was that I became totally blase to it, to the extent that I no longer even noticed it. The decision to move was made one night about 11:00pm. On this night, I was sitting on the couch watching TV. My ex and her brother were standing at the entrance to the hall having a conversation. Suddenly, one of the blades of the front window venetian blinds popped in half, immediately followed by the lightbulb of the wall lamp, which was positioned directly between the head of my ex and her brother, making a small pop as it ceased being a luminous device. We never heard the gunshot. The police found the bullet buried in a book in the bookcase. My ex, her brother, and I spent a good part of the rest of the evening sitting on the floor of the hallway essentially saying “Oh sh\*t!” Me disturbed by the randomness of it all. They by the fact that the bullet passed directly between their heads, no more then six inches from seriously changing or ending their lives. Also, my son, who was about 4 at the time, loved to stand and look out the window through which the bullet passed. Fortunately, at the time of the incident, he was safely ensconced in his bed. The next morning, a large bookcase was placed before the window and plans were made to move to a gentler place. At the time, I was so angry at whomever decided to shoot at my home, apparently at random. I can understand having the thought or the impulse. I don’t understand choosing to act on it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gunshots-in-the-night/37525.md?page=2)