I heard the noises about 10:45pm or so, just about 30 minutes ago.
POP
POP
POP
POP
Sounds like a loud, echoing “slap” noise, almost like somebody whapping a book on a table or smacking a sandal down, over and over again.
I step out my front door and it’s still going on.
POP
POP
POP
Echoing down the street and off the hillside. With each POP I can see a flash of light reflecting off the houses nearby so I think I know which street it’s coming from.
POP
POP
POP
I’ve never owned or fired a real gun but this sure sounds like one being fired to me. None of my neighbors are standing outside which in hindsight was probably a sign of intelligence on their part! But I can see a bunch of lights on. When the noise stops I peek around the corner, don’t see or hear anything. I’m just thinking “Time to call 911” when two of El Cerrito’s finest go rolling by, obviously circling the area and looking for whoever.
Sheezus, this is a nice neighborhood - really it is. What fucking loonoid is firing a goddam gun at 11 in the evening, outside in a residential neighborhood? I haven’t heard any screams or glass breaking or sirens or anything like that, I don’t think anybody was shot but WTF? Some turd with blanks? Or shooting into the air?
Checked all my walls to see if they had sprung any 9mm holes, nothing. I’m still a little bit wound up, this is not a pleasant thing.
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t fireworks - didn’t sound like any fireworks I’ve heard, hard to describe but firecrackers make a sharp, quick “Bang” and this was quite different. Also coming at pretty regular intervals, slower than one of those strings of firecrackers or whatnot.
San Francisco Bay Area, it appears. Is it that dry up there? Regardless, we are still getting sporadic outbreaks of fireworks around here (Metro Detroit.) (And after a few years, you can easily tell the difference between fireworks and firearms! ;))
Yup, right across the bay from SF. Summers here are almost always “extreme fire danger” - lots of wind, steep hills, dry brush, eucalyptus trees (they go off like bombs in a fire)…they still haven’t forgotten the Oakland Hills firestorm around here, that was one of the largest insurance losses in US history believe it or not.
Anyhow it’s an hour later, no followup sirens or anything…I’ll be looking at the sidewalk tomorrow to see if there’s brass casings lying around.
I lived in a nice, quiet, peaceful neighborhood - until a neighbor decided to try some PCP. In his deranged state, he fired off a magazine load of 9mm out in the street. That was the bad news. The good news was he was shooting his own fucking car. :wally
If someone really was firing a gun in your neighborhood, that’d not only be hideously unsafe and unacceptable in terms of good firearms handling, but it’s also illegal in most municipalities.
It would be nice if they could catch that person and make them pay the penalty (jail time, fines, whatever it happens to be).
Hey, you should come on down the highway a couple of miles and listen to my neighborhood - the flats of Fruitvale. I hear shots just about every night. Sound carries a long distance at night, so they aren’t necessarily nearby, but it still isn’t my preferred soundtrack to life.
Years ago, when I first moved to a pretty nice neighborhood in North Oakland, it used to freak me out. I imagined bullets coming through my windows or dropping through my roof and hitting me. Now I just figure that the odds of a bullet dropping on my head through my roof are pretty miniscule and I go about my business. The thing is, shootings are pretty rare in my neighborhood - relatively speaking, for Oakland - so most of the gunshots seem to be of the recreational variety.
So the POP-POP-POP sounds don’t bother me at all. It’s the
POP-POP…pause…
POP…pause…
POP-POP-POP…pause…
POP.
noises that bother me. Sounds more like a gunfight and I imagine I’m hearing the sounds of somebody getting shot at. Staying inside is a good first step, though.
…and one of the scenarios in SimCity 2000! They ever had Will Clark’s house, IIRC.
That firestorm was 1991, BTW.
We have like, seventy-four different climates within a couple of miles. S’weird. Watch a game at Pac Bell/SBC Park, I’m probably having the complete opposite weather six miles west, on the other side of the City. And that doesn’t even address the Peninsula or North/East Bay.
Well I didn’t run outside, go around the corner and seek 'em out. I stood in my doorway, then stepped onto the sidewalk and stopped.
And yeah, like I said in my OP, my neighbors were displaying more intelligence than I was. Talked with one of them around the corner where it sounded like the noise was coming from, he heard it and figured it was a pack of firecrackers.
Hell, I shoot guns on my property just about every weekend. But I live in an unincorporated area. So far I haven’t had any complaints from the neighbors. And if they did complain, I would politely inform them I have every right to shoot, and to have a nice day.
Unless there’s evidence the shooter is being unsafe, a person shooting a gun does not bother me in the slightest, even in an urban area. But if you have reason to believe the shooter is being unsafe and there are local laws prohibiting the discharge of firearms, go ahead and call the cops.
I should have mentioned that I live on acreage in a rural setting. My neighbors also shoot varmints on their property. It’s not considered unusual or dangerous.
Beats the heck out of me what the laws are regarding shooting in my city. However this is most definitely NOT the land of wide open spaces, it’s a residential neighborhood where I can spit off my back porch and hit house next door. No earth berms between lots. One stray shot is going to hit somebody or something. Plus, doing it at 11pm is at the least a “nuisance” call to the cops (it’s loud). If one of my neighbors has a shooting range where bullets and noise are properly contained, great, but whatever was making this racket was right out in the street, an entirely different case.
