6 ms·
They were trying to shoot the air and missed!?
by matja 5y ago
They were trying to shoot the air and missed!?
- DoreenMichele 5y agoGravity. You shoot into the air and what goes up must come down. And still has velocity.
- willis936 5y agoTerminal velocity. What is that going to hurt?
- DoreenMichele 5y agoMost people are not shooting straight up vertically. In practice, they are typically shooting at a high angle such that it creates a long arc and this would not be first time something (or someone) got shot at a distance that no one intended to shoot.
- mschuster91 5y agoIn most cases, "celebratory gunfire" is harmless. In some cases though, people end up injured or dead - there's a decent sized list on Wikipedia [1]. The key issue is, you only have "terminal velocity" at play when shooting up straight at 90 degrees in the air. The more "sideways" you get from that, the more energy will be kept during the fall. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire
- nieve 5y agoAnd drag applies to any direction of travel, if terminal velocity for a small, dense object like a bullet was reached as quickly as willis936 thinks firearms would have much shorter maximum ranges.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoI had a projectile take out one of the PV panels on my roof. Judging by the hole it was a bullet, though I didn't find anything - if it was a meteorite I would be more excited (and more disappointed not to have found it).
- fmajid 5y agoAnd lethal, as with this senseless death a few weeks ago: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/21/british-man-killed-by-stray-bullet-as-he-lay-in-bed-in-atlanta https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/21/british-man-...
- anonfornoreason 5y agoThat was through the wall not the ceiling. Bullets fired into air and returning to earth (assuming straight up so little to no horizontal velocity) don’t have the kinetic energy to go through a roof and kill someone.