Being a lifelong Washington D.C. resident, for as long as I can remember at mindnight on January 1st, a multitude of gunshots can be heard throught the city. Speaking to people from other cities, it’s not exlusive to D.C. (which I already knew). When, where and how did this tradition begin?
Due to the pointless danger it represents, Phoenix has made it a felony to do this. It’s called Shannon’s Law after the girl who was killed by a stray bullet. I suspect I will hear some gunfire tonight, but it’s much reduced from years past.
As to when the tradition got started, I suspect it is related to the “making a loud noise to scare away evil spirits” tradition that the Chinese believe practice.
I’ve done it before but when I did I lived on the outskirts of town. I wouldn’t chance it now.
I don’t think it has anything specifically to do with the holiday. It is just celebratory.
In particular, Iraqis were terrible about this. Every wedding was accompanied by gunfire; the richer the family, the more ammunition was wasted on the sky. They also shot up the night sky when their team won some soccer game at the Olympics.
Haven’t you ever seen Yosemite Sam? I recall him falling in love with Bugs Bunny in lingerie: “Yee Haw! Yee Haw!!” Guns blazing into the air.
It’s gone out of favor in the US (except for the occasional New Year’s blast) these days due to our anti-gun fervor, but I don’t see how it is particularly dangerous if you keep the muzzle pointed at the sky or the dirt, and away from people. I suppose that is a big ‘if’ for some folks, though.
Bullets fired up typically come back down, and they ain’t wearing parachutes. They can and have done damage to folks.
To document that, Uncle Cecil has done a report on the subject.
But they do wear parachutes; it’s called air resistance. A bullet fired directly up will hardly bruise someone on the way down.
Sure, ‘they can and have done damage’ (due to being fired at less than 90° up), but the question is one of probability, not possibility, or else crossing the street should be as illegal as shooting guns skyward. No cite, but I’d venture to guess crossing the street is vastly more dangerous.
The Chinese? We light firecrackers to make noise. I don’t recall ever shootin’ the sky to scare away evil spirits. 
I never really understood the desire to shoot into the air, especially after I nearly got stabbed by my own arrow one time.
It’s still plenty loud and celebratory shooting into the ground, as well as safer (assuming soil rather than rock). There are also laws against discharging a firearm within city limits around here so I haven’t done it since that Armenian guy let me shoot his Uzi back in the late 80’s sometime.
Don’t listen to me, listen to Cecil in Billdo’s link:
Now to talk about the big sky, little bullet concept, sure the odds are low, but a ferinstance of Times Square makes that landing a lot more risky.
Mythbusters did an episode on this. If a bullet is fired directly up, when it hits the ground, it’ll do so with a less than lethal velocity. Any deviation from that, however, and the bullet will be lethal to anyone who happens to be under it. The odds of you being able to hold the gun perfectly vertical are pretty slim. If you watch videos of folks firing guns upwards in celebration, you’ll see that none of them are holding the gun straight up, but at some slight (or even not so slight) angles.
This is something you would find acceptable?
Wow, I started a whole 'nother sub-topic. The Yosemite Sam reference was a good one. I also think of the character in the movie ‘Unforgiven’ who unloaded both six shooters and “shot the moon” in one scene. I figured it was a celebratory gesture, but I just wondered if it had ever been documented around it’s first occurence.
I also had a pastor whose car roof sustained a sizable dent from a fallling bullet on New Year’s, so fatal or not, I definitely would not want to be on the receiving end of one.
Thanks for the input.
Anyone who shoots a gun into the air has an IQ less than the caliber of the gun they shoot.
Plus, how many of such shooters are sober at midnight on a New Year’s eve? I would venture very few.
Mythbusters did this at some point. IIRC, their conclusion was that a bullet fired exactly vertically will tumble and fall “safely” (if you don’t mind a lead pebble bouncing on your skull). The problem is that any minimal deviation from a perfectly vertical shot will cause the bullet to arc and fall as a bullet, point first and ready to kill whoever it lands on.
As for the origin of this tradition, it is just that in some places, bullets are easier to find than firecrackers and noise has always been a part of celebrations everywhere.
Celebratory fire can and does seriously injure and kill people including people in the U.S. New Orleans has such a problem with it that it prompted the update below. A perfectly innocent and random person was killed by a falling bullet when I lived there in 1994. It isn’t a simply theoretical subject.
Shagnasty,
Thanks for the link. So much for the “no danger” espousers!
Can anyone imagine the impact from a falling 1 ounce 12 gauge slug? From only 500 feet, it would be ~124 mph/~180 fps!
I celebrated the new year by firing off my civil war musket. I wasn’t the only one to fire off a gun in my neighborhood, but I’m pretty sure that I was the only one using blanks. In my case, the musket “ball” was a wadded up piece of toilet paper. Aside from being safe, having a tiny flaming ball of toilet paper float down from the sky brings a lot of amusement to the kids.
The mythbusters episode, by the way, is the only episode so far to be busted, plausible, and confirmed all in one. If the bullet is fired straight up, it isn’t lethal when it comes back down (busted). If the bullet isn’t quite fired straight up, it follows a parabolic arc which certainly can be lethal (plausible). And, their researchers found cases where people were actually shot by bullets that were fired up (confirmed). One of the two cited cases whose details were aired was a fatality.