Hi, I'm Cristen from "Stuff Mom Never Told You."
And if I take this imaginary gun and fire it straight up
into the air, [SHOOTING SOUNDS], what's
going to happen to those imaginary bullets?
Well, the old saying what goes up
must come down is an appropriate way
to start off this conversation, because that's
exactly what happens to stray bullets fired up in the air
if you want to go crazy and shoot your guns in the air.
If you shoot a fun up in the air,
that bullet's going to travel up to a mile high,
depending on the angle of the shot and the power of the gun.
And once it reaches its climax in the air,
that bullet is going to fall.
Now, air resistance limits its speed.
But bullets are designed to be fairly aerodynamic,
so the speed is still quite lethal if the bullet happens
to hit someone.
Now if you're in rural areas, say,
all of us firing guns out in the fields,
the chances of hitting someone is pretty low
because the number of people is low.
But if you go to a crowded city going
to someplace like-- I don't know-- Times Square,
and start firing off a gun, well, A,
you're going to get in a lot of trouble.
And B, the chance of hitting someone
is going to go dramatically up because the number of people
have gone up as well.
And the back of the matter is, people
do get killed quite often by stray bullets.
Therefore, most major cities have laws in place
to try to keep people from shooting guns
in the air in celebration.
So if you want to celebrate, I don't know,
think of alternatives like high-fiving or eating
ice cream.
That's a safe thing to do.
And you can throw your spoon up.
And it might hit someone on the head, but it won't kill them.
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