If you shout a gun in the air, don’t you have to worry about the bullet coming back down? And could it injure someone upon its decent?
If you shout a gun in the air, don’t you have to worry about the bullet coming back down? And could it injure someone upon its decent?
Comments
Yes, and yes.
It’s happened before
Happens all the time – especially around New Years. The bullet comes down somewhere
There is a Mythbusters about this. Very dangerous.
Oh yeah, people have been killed and others seriously injured by falling bullets. It’s an idiotic thing to do.
Yes. Yes.
Shout?
The friction from the air will slow a bullet down. In a vacuum the bullet would come down at full speed but not in our atmosphere. That being said a bullet could still kill you coming back down.
Absolutely. The lethality of the bullet depends though on exactly how it comes down. It if goes straight up and stops and falls it’s dangerous but not deadly. If it falls in an arc, very bad day.
Yes and yes. Unfortunately, too many idiots with guns never properly paid attention to lessons about gravity. What goes up, must come down.
Straight up and no problem at all, even a slight angle and it doesn’t scrub that much speed …. so yeah kinda murdery
Yes but the probability of it is almost zero
If you shout a gun in the air there will be no bullet…. If you shoot a gun in the air the bullet will land far away from you! Depending on location, timing and circumstances then yes, the potential of the bullet hitting someone on decent exists, but would be slim!
Talking nearly straight up here. -Depends on weight and shape. A typical sleek high powered rifle bullet would probably be life threatening. A round or flat handgun bullet could perhaps equal a rap with a ball peen hammer, which could crack a cranium. Birdshot, notsomuch.
Unless the bullet weighs over 200 grains and is pointy my gut feeling is a hard hat would save you. Ps: Or rather, let’s rephrase that to unless it has a G1 BC higher than 0.500.
An arrow, however, now that is scary.
People who do this, don’t do consequences.
Yes and yes.
The chance of hitting someone with an unaimed bullet is pretty tiny, but it is definitely a danger.
And that doesn’t count the potential property damage that could occur should that bullet hit a building, car or other structure – you may not immediately notice a hole in your roof, but it will make itself known next time it rains…
You should never fire a gun without complete certainty regarding where that bullet may end up – at an appropriate target with suitable backstop, and absolutely not unaimed into the air.
yep. Saw a vid where some guys were celebrating their friends release from prison, shooting their guns to the sky. Dude who was just released crumples to the ground, dead, and the morons just look around like “what happened?”. GRAVITY HAPPENED!
New Years Eve… = innocent lives taken while they also celebrate without shooting stray bullets.
Yes and many people have been killed by this.
Technically no. If you shot a gun straight into the air, the bullet would only come down at the same speed as if you dropped it from that height.
However, if you have any angle, it is very dangerous
Shouting a gun in the air doesn’t make the bullet come out. You need to pull the trigger.
Generally the earth rotates fast enough that you won’t get hit when it comes back down. /s
My uncle’s a ballistics expert and I asked him this exact question last Christmas.
Yes. That’s why its generally frowned on in the gun community.
in June of 1999, a 14 year old girl was killed by a stray bullet, that had been fired by a unknown person.
this became a Arizona state law referring to Shannon’s law.
violation of Shannon’s law is a class 6 felony offense in Arizona.
stray bullets do come down and have injured and killed many people across the planet. source is Wikipedia. celebratory gunfire and Shannon’s law
Yup
Correct to both. It’s traveling roughly the same velocity when it hits the ground at it does when it leaves the barrel
What goes up must come down
👆
A piece of metal falling out of the sky is definitely dangerous. But it won’t be anywhere near as fast as when first fired because of air resistance.
It will come back down at terminal velocity; but that terminal velocity will still be much higher than a tumbling piece of metal (as mythbusters found it keeps its spin so it will still be travelling point first)
If shot at an angle, then it’s likely to keep its spin and most of its kinetic energy for as long as it’s in the air, and so even after a kilometre or two, could easily kill someone. Depends on the bullet and gun of course, plus the angle it’s shot at.
If shot vertically however, then it would lose its kinetic energy at a certain height and then fall back to the ground under the influence of just gravity and air resistance. It would also lose its rotational stability and so would more likely tumble as it falls, rather than maintaining its aerodynamic point-first orientation. This dramatically reduces its terminal velocity, so while it could cause an injury, it’s less likely to be fatal.