Ak ak ak budda budda blam blam blam akkakka
Posted on 10/02/2005 8:01:34 AM PDT by dennisw
Ak ak ak budda budda blam blam blam akkakka
Istanbul, 30 Sept. (AKI) - The Turkish government, police and media have come together to try and prevent the practice of celebratory gunfire which has recently injured, maimed and killed many citizens. The interior minister Abdulkadir Aksu sent a circular last week to all the governors’ offices, asking them to initiate campaigns against the firing of guns during celebrations. Shooting in the air, usually in wedding ceremonies and after football matches is a celebratory gesture in rural areas of Turkey, as well as in Middle East and in Balkan countries.
Public awareness of the issue increased after deaths of nearly a dozen people, mainly youngsters, in separate incidents. The most recent victims whose cases were covered extensively in the local media were a university student who was scheduled to go to France for further studies and a 6-year-old girl who was accidentally killed by a bullet from her grandfather’s gun at a wedding.
Public information campaigns in the Turkish newspapers, which began last month, has made some inroads, as even in the villages in the south east of Turkey, where the shooting off during celebrations in particularly popular, signs saying that 'Firing is Forbidden, and that 'Gun carrying is not allowed' are now seen at the venues of wedding celebrations.
The UMUT Foundation, founded by the relatives of the victims of such gunfire, has also been campaigning for individual disarmament for the past ten years.
The group organised a symbolic demonstration, called “Gait of Silent Shoes” in the Turkish capital Istanbul on 28 September, which was also the Individual Disarmament Day. The shoes of the victims of such celebratory gunfire were displayed at the event.
At a conference after the demonstration, UMUT declared the following proposals to deal with the problem:
1) Human rights and a culture of peace should be implemented in the school curriculum.
2) The laws on gun licencing and registration should be tighter.
3) As a long term target, no one other than the security forces should be allowed to own guns.
4) The validity of a gun licence should be decreased from 5 years to 2 years.
5) Psychological tests for gun licence applicants should be mandatory.
The issue will also be discussed in the opening session of the Turkish parliament on Saturday. The speaker Bulent Arinc is expected to concentrate on the issue of dangerous gunfire during celebrations in his opening speech of the new parliamentary year.
Two months ago, two deputies from the ruling Governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) were photographed firing their guns during a wedding and the news made headlines in the local media. Arinc, who is also from the same party, condemned their actions, but asked for time to pass the necessary laws to deal with the problem.
Firing guns in a way that endangers the lives of others is a crime that carries a penalty of up to three years imprisonment under Article 170 of the new Turkish Penal Code.
Every year, nearly 700 people die from stray bullets in Turkey according to a report by the UMUT foundation. There are nearly two million registered guns in Turkey and up to three to four times more unregistered ones in a country that has a population of nearly 70 million people.
ALLAH FUBAR!!
Idiots in my neighborhood in Minneapolis do shoot into the air to celebrate New Year's every year. Every year someone ends up getting hurt or killed.
Allah FUBAR 
i've still got a 9mm that hit the metal roof RIGHT OVER MY HEAD, then bounced off the car and landed in the gutter from when i was living on St.Croix...
Ok, one of you gun people clarify this for me: Will a bullet that has been shot straight up have enough force to kill someone when it falls back down?
My thinking would be that, due to wind resistance, it would reach some terminal velocity (maybe 150 mph or so) and that's it. Now I'm not saying I WANT to get hit in the head by a 150 mph projectile, and I can certainly see where it could cause some damage, but it would have anywhere near the force it had when it left the barrel.
Anybody have some insight on this?
It won't have the same force as being shot directly, but you bet that it will be enough to kill people. Bullets are aerodynamically shaped, meaning that terminal velocity will not be slow.
Someone told me, when I was young, that a penny dropped from the tower at Six Flags (Arlington) killed a person.
Here in Cleveland, they used to say that about the Terminal Tower.
My guess is that its an ubran legend though.
I learned once in a physics class that a penny dropped from the empire state building could indeed have enough force to kill, PROVIDED wind resistance, the rotation of the penny etc are left out of the calculation. Apparently a penny may ahve about the same mass as about a .22 projectile, but I have some reservations about that.
What is apparently not disputed is that it could indeed be dangerous.
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