How Dangerous Is A Bullet Shot In The Air? DEBUNKED

Join us as we explore the physics behind 'What goes up must come down!

#fallingbullet #debunked #learnmore #moviemyths

CREDITS:
Stu K - Researcher | Writer | Editor | Illustrator | Presenter
Jacob T - Researcher | Writer
Ross G - Editor | Animator
Ian W - Scientific Advisor

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SOURCES:

[wcolby]

As a helicopter guy we fly over crazy parts of town quite often and I have come to accept that people are stupid and there’s nothing you can do about it.

[bz-winningitall]

This happened to my sister around 5 years ago. She was casually sitting in backyard when a bullet hit her in the foot. She didn't have any idea what happened but she came inside screaming she had been shot in the foot. Thankfully, it didn't fracture any bone in her foot and she recovered completely within 3 weeks. She never had a problem due to this incident afterwards, but this news had spread like crazy in our family.

[dubstepyahya]

As an Iraqi, this is my biggest fear ever whenever I'm on the streets. Because really Iraqi people shoot real fatal bullets inside crowded areas into the air not just for celebrating a football match win but also for engagements, marriage, having a newborn baby, someone precious passing away, someone recovering from a serious injury or illness, someone's son just got circumcised, and of course when two clans have a conflict for some silly reason and that is the worst-case scenario.

[merlinlucas]

As a retired roofer, I have seen the damage a falling Bullet can do. A bullet can go through shingles, and through the decking, and lodge into the rafter. Here in New Mexico, I stay indoors on New Years eve.

[probower]

Turns out my fears were not unfounded about falling bullets. Thanks for confirming them Stu

[nixdapogs]

This is a common occurrence in our country every new year’s eve and sadly with some fatalities. I don’t understand how some people can indiscriminately discharge their firearms like that thinking it will magically disappear in the air.

[VettaBoop]

This is one of those things I've always wondered, but didn't necessarily need to know. Great vid! 😊

*Thanks so much for the likes!!!* ❤️❤️🥰

[troyboy]

Several years ago I was the RN in the ER of a small hospital when an older man was brought in from a local golf course with an arm injury. The arm had been bandaged by the EMS so my concern was his overall condition since he was a heart patient. After assuring he was stable I removed the dressing while interviewing him to see how he was injured. I seems he was sitting in an open golf cart and was resting his arm on his leg when he suddenly got a severe pain in his arm just above his wrist. Upon removing the dressing, I discovered a round "hole" in his arm that went completely thru his arm. I recognized it as a bullet wound. Upon further examination he complained of his leg hurting. He had blood on his pants which I thought came from his arm but after removing his pants I discovered another entry wound and a thru and thru leg wound. When examining his pants I found a hole in the top of the leg but not in the bottom. Since the was now stable, I called the golf course and talked to the police who were there and asked if they had looked in the golf cart. They had not so I asked if they would because I believed this man had been shot. They found a bloody 223 cal bullet on the floor of the cart. The bullet came down almost vertically with enough force to go thru his arm, the first layer of his pants, thru his leg but could not go thru the other part of his pants. When he stood up to get out of the cart the bullet fell out of the leg of his pants onto the floor of the cart. If I wasn't there I would have a hard time to believe it but it happened. You can't make this stuff up.

[ryantheotaku]

Happened to a friend of mine when he was young living in the Philippines. He was looking up for whatever reason when a bullet struck him in the forehead, thankfully for him it didn't do much more then give him a slight imprint scar.

[Dusk-MTG]

As a 8 year old child I was worried about the bullets shot in the air during running competitions.
Only a couple years after did I realize those were blank shots, but anyway it's embarassing that an 8 year old me was more worried about celebratory gunfire than most countries in the world are nowadays.

[justeric]

Put it simply: Do you know where your bullets will hit?
Anything other than a "yes" means it's incredibly dangerous, case closed.

[Toobenator]

This is a common practice in my area. The local government tells people not to do it, but people do it anyway, because they’re… people. I’ve explained why it’s dangerous to a few neighbors, but I’ve learned that individuals prone to firing up into the air find it hard to understand the physics involved. I will refer them to this video in the future. I’m not getting my hopes up.

[rickintexas]

I’ve always assumed that falling bullets were dangerous, but it is nice to see evidence.

[tearlach]

I had this debate with a co-worker once and it just astonished me how this person, who did have some background in physics, could not see how dangerous this was. "It's just falling from sky" he said. He couldn't grasp the energy equation minus friction meant a still very dangerous projectile. I mean, in warfare, archers would shoot arrows up at a more or less 45 degree angle. Did not the enemy fear such projectiles?

[arodderz]

This actually happened a few years ago in an L.A area middle school. Students were on recess break and were making lines to buy snacks. All of a sudden out of nowhere, and without any gun shot sound, a 12 year old boy yelled and immediately fell to the floor. He had been struck in the upper shoulder/ neck area by a falling 9 mm bullet. He survived, but he was in critical condition for a while.

[MarkSmith-jspu]

I have always wondered about how many WWII civilians were hurt or killed by bullets expended during dogfights.

[GdaySport]

After a serious accident in the 90's I spent a few weeks in a hospital and shared a room with a Swiss Red Cross worker who had been shot in Afghanistan while working in an office. It turned out he was hit by a stray bullet from two brothers who had a falling out, and decided to have a shootout over a mile away. The bullet came down, went through a window, hit him in the back of the head and came out through his mouth. In the process it smashed his upper pallet and knocked half his teeth out. He was on his way to a full recovery when I got discharged.

[kaylor]

I once found an intact bullet on the roof of a parking garage, always wondered how it got up there. It had rifled grooves on the sides, and had clearly been fired, but evidently hit nothing.

[duanelavely]

I owned a machine shop in Houston, Tx. One morning, I opened my shop to find a bunch of assorted nuts & bolts scattered on the concrete floor. My 1st thought was a "small animal" knocked the plastic tray off of the shelf. I picked up the tray & found that it was broken. As I picked up the nuts & bolts, I found a "slug". I looked up & could see light coming through a hole in the metal roof made by the bullet. If a falling bullet could pierce a metal roof, shatter a plastic tray & knock the entire tray & its contents of nuts & bolts off of a shelf, then it could seriously hurt or kill you.

[james]

This happened in the town I grew up in back in the 1970's. A guy working on his roof was found dead. They first thought it was cardiac until they did an autopsy and found he had been shot. After figuring out the angles - they determined someone had fired into the air. Long story short detectives found that some people celebrating in a nearby park a couple miles away (4th of july party) had randomly fired a rifle, sometimes in the air - which one of the bullets found its way into the guy working on his roof, killing him. It took several months to crack the case.