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A Belated PSA

By TChris, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:25:44 PM EST
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Perhaps, as a public service announcement, TalkLeft should have reminded readers that it's not a good idea to celebrate New Years Eve by shooting firearms into the air. It is, in fact, a downright dangerous practice, given the prevailing wisdom that what goes up must come down.

According to this article, "celebratory gunfire is common in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve." Common or not, it isn't smart, as two men discovered after Baltimore's police commissioner saw them firing shotguns into the air. The commissioner gave chase, resulting in the arrest of the two men. They're in trouble for discharging firearms within city limits, but probably in greater trouble because the shotguns in question were sawed-off. The men could face federal charges for possessing sawed-off shotguns.

Moral: leave the guns at home on New Year's Eve -- particularly the illegal ones.

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    A Belated PSA | 17 comments (17 topical)

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    It's 10 PM..do you know where your weapons are? (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by steviez314 on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:41:15 PM EST


    A sad story (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Steve M on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:56:48 PM EST
    A few years ago in New York we had this tragic incident.

    A soldier, home on leave for the holidays, has a few drinks with friends and fires a gun in the air a few times to celebrate.  Tragically, one of the bullets goes through an apartment window and kills a woman.  Now two kids are motherless and the soldier is doing 4 to 12 years in prison, all for the thoughtless act of firing off a gun.  When will they ever learn?

    guns (5.00 / 1) (#8)
    by jharp on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:14:20 PM EST
    Someone correct me if I'm wrong but shooting a shotgun into the air isn't nearly as dangerous as a rifle.

    Shot gun pellets would at the most travel 200 yards while a rifle will travel roughly a mile or more.

    I know this because as kids we would fire shotguns straight into the air and listen to hear the pellets falling amongst us.

    To be sure though, it is a bad idea, really bad, to fire any gun without knowing exactly what your backstop is.

    You're not wrong. (none / 0) (#9)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:17:23 PM EST


    Parent
    Agree, though I've been pelted with (none / 0) (#13)
    by scribe on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:38:46 PM EST
    someone else's birdshot enough times (i.e., once) while hunting that I do not want to go through with it again.

    Rule one of gun safety always applies:  Never point a gun at anything you don't want dead.

    That subsumes within it making sure you know and properly identify your target and you have ascertained that the backdrop of the target (i.e., that which is past it along your line of fire) is a safe direction in which to point, let alone shoot, a gun.  Ask Deadeye Dick Cheney about that.

    It therefore follows that, if you are just pointing it randomly in the air, then by implication you want anything out there - dead.  And that's plainly irresponsible.

    Parent

    All you need to do is tilt that gun a few (none / 0) (#1)
    by tigercourse on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:28:58 PM EST
    degrees away from straight up, and you've killed someone half a mile away.

    "That gun" was a shotgun. (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:12:36 PM EST
    Assuming they were shooting shot, what they were doing is actually almost assuredly non-lethal - especially to someone a half a mile away.

    Not that I would suggest anyone should try do it, but realistically if you shot even the biggest sized buckshot straight up into the air and one of them caught you on your noggin on the way down, it would be not unlike frozen rain or sleet or small hail stones.

    The shot'd only go 200-300 yards up, and there's lots of wind resistance on the way down. Might maybe possibly slightly ding your car, if it's a thin-skinned Prius or something, but that's probably about it.

    Small shot, like birdshot, can travel only 1/3 or so as far up and would not be unlike dropping bird seed on your head from 100 yards or so up.

    However, a bullet from a rifle or handgun, or a slug from a shotgun, is another story altogether...

    Parent

    reply (none / 0) (#10)
    by jharp on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:24:32 PM EST
    Sorry but I missed your post until after I posted the same thing.

    As I posted, as kids we used to fire shotguns straight up and listen as the pellets fell amongst us.

    Parent

    What we heard... (none / 0) (#12)
    by Plutonium Page on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:37:18 PM EST
    ... sounded like a handgun (maybe a .45, definitely not smaller than a .40).

    Morans, I tell you.

    Parent

    Not my idea of fun.... (none / 0) (#2)
    by kdog on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:39:35 PM EST
    I don't even care for fireworks, much less ammunition flying randomly threw the air.

    Always been a mystery to me...mankinds love affair with "boom".  That being said, nobody should go to jail over it unless they hurt somebody...thats even more of a mystery to me, our love affair with cages and punishment absent a victim.

    It's probably not a good idea to... (none / 0) (#4)
    by EL seattle on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 01:43:33 PM EST
    ... get drunk before you shoot off firearms on New Years.  Or dress up in a WW-II German army uniform and then get drunk and shoot off firearms on New Years.  Or not immediately obey the police who respond to calls about someone wearing a WW-II German army uniform who's shooting  off a rifle on New Years.

    link

    Eesh. (none / 0) (#6)
    by scribe on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:01:06 PM EST
    Family related to me they had big TV ads on in Philly warning against shooting into the air.

    TL bete noire DA Lynne Abraham starred in them, they told me.

    It's an old tradition, but one which should be dispensed with.  

    Parent

    Albuquerque on New Year's Eve (none / 0) (#11)
    by Plutonium Page on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:35:42 PM EST
    My godmother lives in the North Valley area, and she said it was like a war zone on NYE.

    We live in a part of the city where you usually don't hear gunshots on NYE, but we did this year.

    No, they did not come from us.  The guns stayed in the safe, duh.

    But seriously, it's so stupid to shoot guns in the air. Any responsible firearms owner knows that.

    Seriously - if you want to make noise on (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by scribe on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:47:22 PM EST
    New Year's, save some firecrackers from July 4.

    Just don't burn anything down.

    Parent

    no no (none / 0) (#16)
    by Nasarius on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 03:39:59 PM EST
    After walking through the streets of Berlin on New Year's Day, the sidewalks everywhere practically covered in fireworks, I wouldn't encourage doing that in a city either.

    Parent
    I lived in Germany years ago and (none / 0) (#17)
    by scribe on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 05:45:21 PM EST
    Sylvester was always a hoot.  Dogs hid under beds until the fireworks were all used up.

    At least you only had to deal with fireworks - from the news it seems that in Leipzig/Dresden, their Sylvester traditions have gained "Krawallen" as a main attraction for the youts.

    That's street-fighting bands of youthful hooligans, to you non German-speakers.

    And, it seems, someone cleaned out an art gallery in Berlin while everyone else was partying.

    Parent

    4 dozen guns siezed (none / 0) (#15)
    by sj on Fri Jan 02, 2009 at 02:57:22 PM EST
    Seems like a low number based on what I heard the other night just in my neighborhood.  I was just glad my apartment wasn't on the top floor.  A colleague had warned me about this Baltimore "tradition" but I was still surprised.  

    My dogs hated it, too.

    A Belated PSA | 17 comments (17 topical)

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