January 04, 2022

Can celebratory gunfire kill a person?

 We’ve all must have seen well-armed ragamuffins and ne'er-do-wells glorifying their various victories with some good old-fashioned upwards gunfire. After all, nobody says “I ran a 10k” or “We just overthrew the government” quite like pointing your gun to the sky and letting it near rip. But is it possible that this apparently innocent expression of gun-based joy could unsafe?

Can celebratory gunfire kill a person | Can a falling bullet kill a person

So there you are chuffed to bits at the victory of your preferred political candidate and overcome with an irrepressible urge to celebrate in the only way you know how. You grab whatever loaded firearm you have handy, rush outside, and start gleefully firing off, round after round into the air just as nature intended, when suddenly, a chilling thought falls upon you. These bullets have to come back down eventually, right? Unsurprisingly, the answer to this question is emphatic.

Where are the Factors that determine the factor of a bullet's path

When a gun is fired, several different factors determine the bullet’s path through the air on the way to its target. One of the first things to consider is ‘muzzle velocity, which is very simple, the speed at which a bullet is moving the instant it leaves the gun cask, or ‘muzzle’.This can vary considerably relying on the type of gun and round being used. The ever-popular AK-47 for instance is capable of firing bullets at around 715 meters per second, or about 2,350 feet per second, while in modern rifles, some of the speediest high-performance cartridges can achieve muzzle velocities of well over 1,200 meters per second, or about 4,000 feet per second.

Due to the effects of air resistance, bullets slow down pretty quickly after being fired and follow a route determined by various factors, including atmospheric pressure, humidity, and air temperature. However, the thing that pulls a fired bullet downwards is gravity, which assuming those other previous variables aren’t having an overwhelming effect, ensures that bullets travel back to earth in an approximately parabolic path.

Can celebratory gunfire cause injury to a person?

Now, celebratory gunfire differs substantially from regular gunfire in that it is generally not directed at people you want to shoot, but upwards and away from those you’re celebrating with,  who you don’t want to hit  (well, not usually anyway). That way, the bullets just disappear up into space, right? At least, that’s what people used to think. Early, pre-seventeenth-century studies suggested that bullets shot upwards do somehow achieve escape velocity and peace out into space. We now know that all shots shot from the surface of Earth never even leave the troposphere, the lowest layer of our planet’s atmosphere and unless you’re watching this from the  International Space Station,  the one you’re in right now.

What happens when a bullet is fired from a gun?

In reality, when a bullet is fired directly upwards,  the upward force accelerating the bullet drops off entirely the moment it leaves the chamber.  At this point, the bullet is at its maximum velocity and has its maximum kinetic energy. From this point, downward forces from gravity and air resistance begin to slow the bullet's uprise. The bullet reaches its highest point when its kinetic energy has been transferred to heat and gravitational potential energy. Here Its velocity is zero. 

The only force that has now been exerted on the bullet is Gravity, which pulls back the bullet by 9.81m/s2 every second. As the bullet accelerates downward, its velocity increases; as does the air resistance, and when a bullet falls naturally it will often spin and tumble in the air, further increasing the air resistance and slowing its acceleration significantly. When gravity and air resistance balance out, the bullet will hit its terminal velocity, meaning it will no longer go any faster.

Are bullets falling at this speed still dangerous?

Well, the terminal velocity of a falling bullet will obviously alter depending on the kind of bullet, but generally speaking, yes! it does very much so. Before that let's travel back to the 1920s, the U.S. military conducted a series of tests on falling bullets and found that a 30-caliber round can reach terminal velocities of 90 meters per second or just over 200 miles per hour. According to forensic scientist Dr. B.N. Mattoo(Dir. Forensic Science Department Mumbai), a 30 caliber round can break through the skin while traveling at speeds as low as 37 meters per second, or 85  miles per hour. As you can see, falling bullets have more than enough energy to cause you harm, possibly worse. And that’s just regarding falling bullets;  In reality, people celebrating things with gunfire aren’t generally bothered about making sure that their weapon is totally vertical. 

If a gun is fired at a sufficiently shallow inclination, instead of stalling and falling the bullet will often retain its angular ballistic trajectory and will continue on its parabolic path, making it far less likely to begin tumbling in the air. As a result, such bullets will lose much less speed compared to a bullet in freefall and will be traveling much faster when they hit the ground or whatever gets in their way first. But if all that fancy maths and science talk isn’t sufficient to convince you that the threat from falling ammunition is genuine indeed, there are unfortunately numerous real-life examples of this happening. And as it happens, firing off a few rounds with the chaps is not a particularly uncommon phenomenon and is a culturally acceptable way to celebrate in several places around the world.

Some Real-Life deaths from Celebratory gunfire/ Falling bullets

In 2012, a study conducted in the United States (Violence Prevention Research Program University of California) found that a not-insignificant 4.6% of all deaths and injuries from stray bullets occur as a direct result of celebratory gunfire. The list of incidents is sadly not a short one and features examples from all over the world. In 2003, during a traditional Serbian wedding celebration, guests shot down a small plane while firing into the skies, injuring the two men onboard. In 2007, at least four people were killed and many more injured as a result of stray bullets from celebratory gunfire after the Iraqi national football team won the AFC Asian Cup that year. In 2021, militant leaders claimed to take control of part of Afghanistan.  Their resulting celebratory gunfire injured 41  people and led to the deaths of at least 17. Back in 1999, a teenager called Shannon  Smith was killed after being struck in the head by a stray bullet while outside in her backyard in Arizona. This provoked the state to enact ‘Shannon’s Law’,  which made it banned to unleash a gun into the air in Arizona's cities and towns.

Indeed, in some respects, falling bullets may even be considered more dangerous than regular gunfire. Between  1985 and 1992, a group of physicians at the Martin Luther King/Drew medical center (1985-1992) in Los Angeles studied victims of gunshot wounds,  identifying 118 who had been struck by falling bullets. Compared to those hurt in your average, boring, run-of-the-mill shootings, who died at rates of between 2 and 6 % the death rate of those unfortunate enough to be hit by fall bullets was around a third. This is because, despite moving at slower speeds, bullets falling to the ground vertically are far more likely to hit you in the top of the head compared to other less-lethal points of the body. 

As you can imagine celebratory gunfire is not particularly bizarre, and the risk that it poses is very real which is clear. So the next time your football team wins, or you’re just jazzed about it being New Year, it might be a good idea not to randomly pump the sky full of lead but instead stick to confetti cannons(Party poppers).

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