Who, What, Why: How dangerous is firing a gun into the air?

[Gerald]

Libyan rebels have celebrated their advance into Tripoli by firing guns in the air. How hazardous is this?

It is, unarguably, an emphatic way to display one's jubilation.

Shooting an automatic weapon into the sky to signal an occasion one welcomes is a popular practice in much of the world, as the footage of Libyan anti-Gaddafi forces seizing the main square of the capital city has demonstrated.

But it is a potentially fatal activity, which regularly results in the deaths of bystanders.

"These bullets go a long way up when they're fired," says ballistics expert David Dyson. "But you don't know where they're going to land - there's always a chance of them causing serious harm or death."

Examples of fatalities due to celebratory gunfire abound.

Three people in the Philippines died due to stray bullets fired to welcome New Year's Eve 2011.

n 2010 a Turkish bridegroom killed three relatives when he fired an AK-47 at his own wedding. In the same year, Jordan's King Abdullah II ordered his country's authorities to clamp down on the practice after two people were killed and 13 more injured in one incident.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14616491


Note: 22 August 2011 Last updated at 12:19 GMT

[Oberon]

What goes up....

[Gerald]

....coming down

[August]

.....but only at terminal velocity.

[nikimcbee]

Lets go to Iraqi soccer game to find out. I hear when somebody scores a goal, the AKs come out.

Maybe a Raiders game would be closer.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Lets go to Iraqi soccer game to find out. I hear when somebody scores a goal, the AKs come out.

Maybe a Raiders game would be closer.

Problem being...the Raiders don't score very often

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Lets go to Iraqi soccer game to find out. I hear when somebody scores a goal, the AKs come out.

Maybe a Raiders game would be closer.

Actually the AKs come out after a wedding in Iraq.My brother did two tours over there and until they get used to it the new guys who have never been get antsy on I think it is either Fridays or Saturdays when most weddings are hearing AK shooting in the air is normal(every house hold is allowed one AK or similar long arm.) Of course the bullets could still be deadly if you where in there path I suppose.I am going to assume that they are not using blanks.

Of course during New Years,4th of July and similar events I hear guns going off and I am pretty sure that they are being aimed skywards and I live in rural Florida.Well I know they are not being used safely because I can sometimes hear someone yell out in slurred English "**** yeah" or "Now we can party".

[Sailor Steve]

And here I go again.

Please use language that you would use around your mother. No vulgarities, obscenities, hate speech, or foul language. Do not use *******ing w*rds with aster*cks, that's the same thing as vulgar languge. Express yourself with respect to others.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/faq...._item_language

[Betonov]

There was an incident a few years ago, when at a wedding in Bosnia they fired AK's into the air and shot down a low flying Cesna on aproach to an airstrip. No one was killed luckly, the pilot managed to put the aircraft down safely

[Growler]

Not too many civvies can claim an anti-aircraft kill today.

[August]

Bullets dropping out of the sky fall no faster than they would if they were dropped from a 3 story building.

Like a penny dropped from the Empire State building they accelerate to terminal velocity and that's it. At that speed they are not likely to kill anyone.

[Sailor Steve]

What exactly is terminal velocity for a bullet? For a battleship shell it's still supersonic. Of course a bullet doesn't weigh almost a ton, either. Just wondering.

What exactly is terminal velocity for a bullet?

Depends entirely on it how heavy it is what size and shape it is and which way it is falling.
A heavy but narrow bullet falling pointy end first will have very little drag and so will achieve a higher terminal velocity than the same bullet falling backwards

Like a penny dropped from the Empire State building they accelerate to terminal velocity and that's it.

two identical pennies dropped from the empire state building can have very different terminal velocities....and that's it

[Penguin]

we had this discussion almost exactly a year ago: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show....php?p=1463682

I linked a surgeons report there, which states that a falling bullet can indeed kill you: http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/83/1/283

@Steve:

Bullets fired into the air during celebrations return at a speed fast enough to penetrate the skin and cause internal damage to other organs in the path of the migrating bullet. The bullet's velocity required for skin penetration is between 148 and 197 feet per second. A velocity of less than 200 feet per second, which is easily obtained by a celebratory gunfire, is capable of fracturing bone and even causing intracranial penetration [4]. Spent bullets have the capability of reaching up to 600 feet per second during their downfall, and thus they have the ability to inflict damage to multiple body cavities [4]. The larger caliber bullets (ie, .45-caliber) reach a higher terminal velocity compared with the smaller caliber bullets (ie, .30-caliber), because of the proportion of their weight to their diameter [4]. Terminal velocity is difficult to calculate with falling bullets because wind resistance and updrafts can cause a spent bullet to land miles away from the initially fired site [2].

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by August

Bullets dropping out of the sky fall no faster than they would if they were dropped from a 3 story building.

Like a penny dropped from the Empire State building they accelerate to terminal velocity and that's it. At that speed they are not likely to kill anyone.

If bullet falls directly downwards then propably but often that is not a case. When people shoot to air they rarely take care that they are shooting exactly upwards. If there is even a little bit angle then bullet flies in arch like artillery shell.