How come there are no or minimal casualties from bullets that are fired carelesly in the air?

Answer 1

Actually there are cases of casualties and injuries.

Mythbusters the show on the discovery channel did an episode about this where they try to see if a bullet fired up into the air can come down and kill you.

Here is a synopsis.

Episode 50: Bullets Fired Up, Vodka Myths III

* Bullets fired up into the air can be lethal: busted, plausible, and confirmed.


The "all of the above" ruling on the bullets fired into the air myth was a new one for MythBusters. All of their tests showed that if you fire a bullet perfectly straight up into the air, it will not kill you as it will fall down on its side and have too low of a terminal velocity to kill, much like the Penny Drop myth. However, it is very difficult to fire perfectly straight into the air and they even found an international expert in falling bullets who was able to confirm for them that people have died from bullets fired up into the air.
Bullets Fired Up

Myth: A bullet fired up can come down and kill you
How high would a bullet fly up?

Adam's idea was to correlate the density of ballistics gel with the density of air (Jamie: "Huh."). Adam figured that if they could see how far a bullet traveled in ballistics gel, they could use the difference in density to calculate the distance it would travel through air. Adam calculated that the ballistics gel is 650x more dense than air, so, according to his theory, if a bullet fired into ballistics gel goes 1ft, it would go 650 ft through air. At least that was the theory: they would have to go to the firing range with some blocks of ballistics gel to see if it would work.

They lined up several blocks of ballistics gel end-on-end at the South San Francisco Police Department firing range (last seen in the Catching a Bullet with Your Teeth myth). They quickly ran into a problem. The 9mm round went through three blocks of ballistics gel for a total distance of about 5ft. The much more powerful .03-06 only went one block in. This wasn't so surprising given the results of the Bulletproof Water myth, though they didn't seem to anticipate the same happening with ballistics gel. The .30-06 rounds travel much faster, so they a greater tendency to break up on impact. Jamie managed to flip a block of ballistics gel with a final shot, finally putting an end to this particular avenue of testing: the ballistics gel was not going to help them figure out how far a bullet would fly up.

Based on the failure of the ballistics gel experiment, they used a computer simulation program to calculate how high the bullets would travel up into the air. The calculations: *.03-6 10,000 ft 58 seconds

* 9mm 4,000 ft, 37 seconds

Terminal velocity of a falling bullet

Adam built an acrylic wind tunnel (much like the one in the Penny Drop myth). Air was shot up through the bottom and a bullet was dropped into the chamber. The terminal velocity was calculated based on the speed of the air needed to make the bullet stop falling. They figured that the terminal velocity was 100mph (150 ft/s). The wind tunnel also showed that the most stable falling position for the bullets was on their side.
Firing bullets at terminal velocity

The rigged up an air hose to an aluminum pipe to launch the bullets at terminal velocity (150 ft/s). Their first shot put a good dent in the metal door. Their next target would be a pig's head, just as soon as they got the amount of air pressure tuned correctly. A chronograph was used to measure the speed of the bullet and a solenoid valve was attached to the tube to control the air flow.

They fired bullets from the pipe into the pig's head and recorded it all on the high-speed camera. At 166 ft/s, the 9mm bullet bounced right off of the pig's head. The .30-06 bullet did only slightly better, piercing the skin and then bouncing off.

It was looking like this was going to be busted, but, as it turns out, there is an international expert on falling bullets working in nearby Stanford. The expert, Dr. David G Mohler, told them about a case in Menlo Park where a woman sitting in a lawn chair was struck in the leg by a bullet that was fired into the air 1 1/2 miles away during a 4th of July celebration. Mohler recovered the bullet from her leg and the police were able to match the ballistics to a shooter.

Mohler also told them about a case of an elderly man in Alameda who was talking to his wife underneath a plastic corrugated roof in his carport. His eyes rolled up and his wife thought he was having a stroke. When they got to the hospital they found out there was a bullet in his brain and, unfortunately, he died.

"I know for a fact that bullets fired at a distance, returning to Earth, with terminal velocity, have the ability to kill people." - Dr. Mohler

This contradicted their findings so far, so it was back to the drawing board.
Mohave Desert testing

They figured out what was different from their original assumptions: the bullets in Dr. Mohler's cases weren't fired straight up into the air. They were fired at an angle, which meant that they remained spin-stabilized and on a ballistics trajectory.

It was time for them to figure out what would happen with real bullets fired into the air. They went out to the Mohave Desert, where they setup a rig to fire straight up into the air. They planned to fire a bunch of bullets into the air and hopefully find at least one of the bullets where it landed. To maximize their odds, they stationed their crew in bulletproof listening posts.

They first fired bullets straight into the ground as a control:

* BB: 3"
* 9mm: 6"
* .30-06: 12"

Jamie fired a clip of 9mm bullets up into the air. 39 seconds later they heard the bullets hit the ground.

Adam: "I'm searching across the desert for a pencil-sized hole"

The first bullet that Adam found went only 2" into the ground and appeared to have hit the ground on it's side. The bullet had traveled 330ft horizontally. Jamie found another bullet hole almost identical to the first.

Jamie then fired the .30-06 rounds. Big problem: after 40 rounds fired into the air, they weren't able to hear any bullets land. The .30-06 rounds travel over twice as high, so they were simply traveling too far for them to find.

Adam brought out plan B: a balloon attached to an instrumented platform that could drop bullets remotely. The platform had a wireless video camera that fed an image of the platform, including the altitude gauge, down to Adam.

The bullets were dropped in a bundle from a height of 400 ft. The .03-06 made a 2" hole. The 9mm made a 2" hole as well, matching up perfectly with the actual 9mm bullet firing.

For the first time ever, they deemed this one busted, plausible, and confirmed. All of their tests, from the pig's head to the 9mm firing to the balloon, showed that a bullet fired perfectly straight up into the air is not lethal. However, it is also very difficult to shoot perfectly straight up into the air and, with the cases cited by Dr. Mohler, they have confirmed that people have died from bullets falling from the sky.

Answer 2

After reading steelisre's answer, all I can say is WOW!!! He really covered the subject. All that he said is correct and you can take it to the bank. The one aspect that he left off was the probability of the bullet hitting someone upon its return to the ground. If you figure the total square footage of the area of the probable impact zone and then figure the square footage of the top surface of all persons likely to be in this area, you will find that the probability of the bullet actually hitting someone is quite small. That coupled with the low velocity of the falling bullet would account for the lack of reported injuries from falling bullets.

One other thing that he mentioned but didn't elaborate on was what conditions are necessary for a falling bullet to retain lethal force upon its return to the ground. For this ot happen, the bullet must retain a good bit of its initial velocity to add to the velocity gained from gravity. This happens when the bullet is fired in a more horizontal direction. One could fire a bullet at a 45 deg. angle to the horizon and upon its return to the ground it would still have enough retained velocity from being fired that it could well be lethal. As you raise the muzzle up from the horizontal to the vertical, the initial velocity of the bullet becomes less and less of a factor in determining its velocity upon impact with the ground. When you reach the point where the muzzle is pointing perfectly 90 deg, to the horizon, all initial velocity is used up in the bullet reaching maximum altitude and all that is left upon its return to earth is its terminal velocity from the effect of gravity as explained by Steelisre.

Interesting question and an excellent answer by Steelisre.

Answer 3

First, the subject with bullets IS gravity. they're going to sluggish as they commute upward until they momentarily provide up, and then, gravity will lead them to develop up lower back downward. There are 2 factors affecting the fee of a bullet. the 1st is gravity, and the 2nd is friction with the air. Any falling merchandise in an ecosystem could have what's observed as terminal velocity. it is the quickest that an merchandise can fall, and is the element the place acceleration simply by gravity is balanced with the slowing of the item simply by friction. If the falling of the item is with the aid of organic gravity, there's achievable of harm because of utilising being struck with an merchandise that's falling at it relatively is terminal velocity. Expirements have shown nevertheless, that such injuries from bullets are unlikely to be life-threatening if the bullet is only falling or tumbling as may be the case after attaining it relatively is apex, combating and then falling. plenty greater risky is while the bullet isn't fired promptly up. for this reason, the bullet keeps it relatively is spin and trajectory, and extremely quite some momentum. those are quite able to heavily injuring and killing a individual. in the tip, it relatively is by no skill risk-free to discharge a weapon in or around a crowd. One ought to consistently have a sparkling aim, recognize what's in front and at the back of that concentrate on, and not hearth until that concentrate on is sparkling. As many rifles can effectively hearth a around a mile or greater, they at the instant are not toys to be performed with gently.

Answer 4

The odds of being hit are minimal which is why there is not much media about this. If you do get hit serious injury or even death are not only possible, but probable.

One new year a .32acp punched through the hood of my patrol car in Houston, TX. It came straight down. During New Year's Day of 2004, at least two people stopped me on the freeway to apprise me of their car getting shot at. Again, it was returning bullets fired up.

Last New Year's my partner's new Ford Mustang convertible parked in her driveway had the Fiberglas hood punctured & splintered by a returning 7.62mm round. Her hubby recovered the round so we know what it was.

Believe me, it is dangerous to fire live ammo straight up. What goes up must come down, and in the case of a bullet, it comes down with lethal force.

People should NEVER SHOOT UP in the air during the holiday's unless they are firing blanks. Responsible gun owners should make this clear. Spread the word.

H

Answer 5

Is this a question you asked because you had nothing better to ask. The reason is that a bullet must hit a target to have any effect. But a gun fired in the air the bullet simply goes out and when it has no force left it harmlessly falls in the ground. And no damage is done

Answer 6

the police is trained for the same.they mostly use stun guns or rubber bullets to cause minimal harm.even the area where a real gun is fired is mostly open space mostly with less people residing.in physics you can study momentum and velocity to understand the theory better.

Answer 7

all of the bullets power and velocity has been spent therefore not causing much damage it allmost feels like a thud of bird sh!t when it hits you ,You would have a better chance of getting hit by lightning then from a bullet that was falling from the sky

Answer 8

Rubber bullets