We’ve all seen them - videos of well-armed ragamuffins and ne'er-do-wells
celebrating their various triumphs with some good old-fashioned upwards gunfire.
After all, nothing says “I ran a 10k” or “We just overthrew the government” quite
like pointing your gun to the sky and let ‘ner rip. It’s essentially the gun-lover's fist-pump.
But is it possible that this seemingly innocent expression of gun-based joy
could actually be… dare I say it... dangerous? Perish the thought!
I’m Stu, this is Debunked, and we’re here to sort the truths from the myths,
and the facts from the misconceptions.
This video is brought to you by Atlas VPN.
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 an emphatic
“yes, you idiot!”
When a gun is fired, a number of 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 simply, the speed at which a bullet is moving the moment it leaves the gun barrel, or ‘muzzle’.
This can vary considerably depending on the kind of gun and round being used;
the ever popular AK-47 for instance is capable of firing bullets at around 715 metres per second,
or about 2,350 feet per second,
while in modern rifles, some of the fastest high performance cartridges can reach muzzle
velocities of well over 1,200 metres per second, or about 4,000 feet per second.
Due to the effects of air resistance, bullets slow down pretty quickly after they’ve been fired,
and follow a route determined by a variety of factors,
including things like ATMOSPHERIC pressure, humidity, and air temperature.
However, the thing that pulls a fired bullet downwards is plain old gravity,
which, assuming those other aforementioned variables aren’t having an overwhelming effect,
ensures that bullets travel back to earth in a roughly parabolic path.
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 bullets 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.
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 ascent.
The bullet reaches its highest point when its kinetic energy has been transferred
to heat and gravitational potential energy. Here Its velocity is zero.
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.
The question is, are bullets falling at this speed still dangerous? Well,
the terminal velocity of a falling bullet will obviously vary depending on the type of bullet,
but, generally-speaking - yes, very much so.
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Right, 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 metres per second, or just over 200 miles per hour.
According to forensic scientist Dr. B. N. Mattoo, a .30 caliber round
can break through skin while travelling at speeds as low as 37 metres 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 perfectly vertical.
If a gun is fired at a sufficiently shallow angle,
instead of stalling and falling, the bullet will often retain its angular ballistic trajectory
and continue on it’s parabolic path, making it far less likely to begin tumbling in the air.
As a result, such bullets will lose considerably less speed
compared to a bullet in freefall, and will be travelling much faster when they hit the ground…
or whatever gets in its way first.
But if all that fancy maths and science talk isn’t sufficient
to convince you that the threat from falling ammunition is very real indeed,
there are unfortunately numerous real-life examples of this actually happening.
As it happens, firing off a few rounds with the lads is not a particularly uncommon
phenomenon and is a culturally acceptable way to celebrate in a number of places around the world,
In 2012, a study conducted in the United States 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 prompted the state to enact ‘Shannon’s Law’,
which made it illegal to discharge a firearm 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 centre 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 percent,
the death rate of those unlucky 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 see...
...celebratory gunfire is not particularly uncommon,
and the risk that it poses is very real indeed.
So the next time your football team wins, or you’re just jazzed about it being New Years, it
might be a good idea not to randomly pump the sky full of lead. Stick to confetti cannons instead.
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