Posted on 01/01/2005 6:51:50 AM PST by Ellesu
Despite police warnings that it's dangerous and illegal, some New Year's celebrants began welcoming 2005 with gunfire starting soon after dusk Friday and the shooting spread across the Mobile area.
Shots were heard as early as 6:40 p.m. when a Mobile police dispatcher reported shots being fired at Lincoln Boulevard and 1st Street in the Mobile Terrace area of west Mobile County. The area off Cody Road is within the Mobile police jurisdiction.
Early shooting also was reported in the Crichton, Toulminville and the Orange Grove neighborhoods of Mobile early in the evening, according a police dispatcher.
Paul Sadacher, who lives on Hannon Avenue in Mobile's Loop area, said at 9 p.m. Friday that he already had heard "tons of gunshots."
"Wait until 12," said Sadacher, 34, anticipating more intense shooting when midnight ushered in the New Year.
Sadacher said the firing of guns in that area actually began Thursday night, slowed down then picked by up at dusk Friday.
He said he has two bullets that fell in his yard last year, one a .38-caliber and the other a 9 mm.
"I think it's horrible," Sadacher said. "You walk outside with your kids and you don't want a bullet to fall on their heads."
According to police dispatchers, shots were fired at 6:50 p.m. Friday at Rice and Shell streets in the Crichton area of north Mobile.
Shots also were reported at 6:55 p.m. in the 500 block of Oak Drive Court in the Toulminville area of north Mobile off Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, and at 7:10 p.m. at Chinquapin and Monday streets in the Orange Grove public housing community near downtown Mobile.
Sporadic gunfire continued throughout Friday night, according to police scanner radio traffic.
The widespread practice of firing guns into the air to celebrate is illegal and it puts people and property at risk in the Mobile area and nationwide, Mobile police warn each year.
Bullets fired into the air can travel great distances and cause significant damage to property, and injury or death to a person, said police Cpl. Marcus Young.
Law enforcement officers across Mobile County stressed the dangers of bullets being fired into the air and promised to arrest anyone caught firing guns illegally.
Last year, Mobile police received 87 reports of shots fired at New Year's, said Officer Eric Gallichant, a Mobile police spokesman.
It is legal to fire guns in unincorporated areas of Mobile County, but it is illegal to fire them in an unsafe manner, Sheriff's Deputy Pat Mitchell said. Firing into the air is illegal because it is unsafe, he said.
Gallichant urged people to contact the Police Department if they observed anyone firing into the air or if a bullet fell overnight and hit someone or damaged property.
He said it's difficult for an officer to catch someone firing a gun, but a person witnessing someone shooting within the city limits can sign a complaint to have the person arrested.
Mitchell said that people in the county also can report a person for discharging a gun in an unsafe manner and the shooter can be arrested.
Depending on whether the bullet strikes someone's property or a person, the charges can range from reckless endangerment to criminally negligent homicide if it hits and kills a person, Gallichant said.
Over the last 11 years, falling bullets have killed or injured people in cities from Philadelphia to Chicago to Los Angeles, according to news reports.
What goes up must come down.
Remember kids, always fire into the ground, that way you
are acting in a safe responsible manner.
Shotgun with #8 shot. Much louder, deeper boom, falling projectiles are a little bigger than a grain of sand. Problem solved. Firing a handgun into the air in an urban area is just plain stupid.
You may be technically correct but getting your jollies by firing any gun into the air strikes me as a bit odd (I'm being polite here).
All was quiet here, good to live in a SMALL Texas town. Plus, we had a White Christmas, here on the Gulf coast we got about a foot of snow on Christmas eve and it didn't melt away totally for five days. But, alas, we are probably moving to L.A. again soon. I LOVE L.A., but it isn't small town Texas, and gunfire into the air for just about any stupid reason is common and DEADLY.
I expect to see an article on the death and destruction raining down from above. It is an exercise in basic statistics to calculate the odds of being struck by a random falling bullet. How many tons of meteorites fall on the Earth daily and how often is a person reported struck?
it's just anti-gun hysteria gone hyperbolic...
I hate Amateur Night.
"A pistol fired straight down from an airplane would start to slow down until it reached terminal velocity of about 64 miles an hour and like a penny falling from a skyscraper would hurt but would not penetrate your skin. This is a wives tale used by lazy police."
Sorry, but you are incorrect. A few people are killed each year by falling bullets. Do a web search on Google News, or on the web.
Whether you think it's possible or not, it happens. It's a rare event, but it happens.
From http://www.straightdope.com
Datum 2. Then someone sent me an article from the Los Angeles Times about the problem of falling bullets in L.A. around New Year's and the Fourth of July. According to the article, doctors at King/Drew Medical Center, a major L.A. trauma center, published a report in a medical journal (Journal of Trauma, December 1994) saying that between 1985 and 1992 they treated 118 people for falling bullet injuries around New Year's Eve or the Fourth of July. Thirty-eight of the victims died.
Excellent quote. A bullet falling down from a gun fired into the air would hurt about as much as a falling rock of the same size. Irritating... surprising... but hardly threatening.
From loadammo.com, who is reporting on US Army ballistics testing:
"Based on the results of these tests it was concluded that the bullet return velocity was about 300 f.p.s. For the 150 gr. bullet this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds. Earlier the Army had determined that, on the average, it required 60 foot pounds of energy to produce a disabling wound. Based on this information, a falling 150 gr. service bullet would not be lethal, although it could produce a serious wound."
And this is a .30 caliber bullet; larger rounds will fall faster/have greater velocity on impact.
So - it's not necessarily lethal, but neither is it a "wives tale". Let your kid stand outside during all of this, if it's "no big deal". "Shut up and fire you're .22 son! It's only a serious wound. Quit cryin'!"
Two posters above had the intelligent answers - either point your muzzle down, or use small shot in a shotgun.
I don't fire my weapons in the air on NYE because I think it's the mark of a hilljack/punk, at least in my area. I understand other areas are different, and to each his own. But don't dismiss it as "totally harmless/myth, because you're WRONG.
Fair enough. I've never done this either, and don't desire to.... I spend the fourth and new years trying to settle my dogs and horses down, not creating more noise. I still think the odds of getting hit by one alone make any warnings of risk of death seem overstated, but who cares, it isn't a valuable activity in the first place.
An old party here stepped out in his backyard a few years ago and was hit by a falling bullet in the side of his neck on New Year's Eve. He later died in the ER. The bullet had torn up his carotid artery.
I'm all for firearms but shooting at the sky at night violates a least two of the rules for gun safety.
People around my necok'o'woods fire shotgun blanks. Nice boom, no effect.
Now, this is a case where it was determined that the bullet by some strange trajectory did not go very high. What if it had come down from a distance of some hundreds of feet? Would it have had a deadly impact?
It's a much more common event over in the muslim hell-holes, where they're firing tens-of-thousands of rounds up in celebration, constantly.
We had a case here that turned out to be a murder. Autopsy showed the bullet came from the side, not above. Perp. boyfriend was hoping to use New Years Eve as a cover.
yes, if you fire at less than a straight up angle falling bullets are deadly, and even then can be injurious. If you wan t to fire a gun on new years do it with blanks! easy to make if you reload and the idea is just to make noise right? So why have live ammo that can cause injury. This was ok when we all lived in houses that were miles apart from each other but isn't ok now. And before you start jumping me let me say I own several firearms, have a carry permit, hunt, target shoot and reload also. I believe in the 2nd amendment but I also believe we have to be responsible about it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.