Cardiac Injury Caused by a Celebratory Bullet

[PT111]

I ran across this article and thought the comment portion of it was extremely interesting and points out a few things that have been debated for years, especially warning shots.

I thought it might be good to know that people right here in the good old USA have been killed by falling bullets from celebrations.

http://ats.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/full/83/1/283

The scientific literature reports incidences of celebratory firing as a major public health concern internationally. In Kuwait, after the end of the Gulf War, the Kuwaitis celebrated by firing weapons into the air—and 20 Kuwaitis died from falling bullets [3]. In Los Angeles, between the years 1985 and 1992, doctors treated 118 people for random falling-bullet injuries at King/Drew Medical Center, and 38 of them died [2]. Practically all of the injuries were due to happy holiday weekend revelers [3].

Bullets fired into the air during celebrations return at a speed fast enough to penetrate the skin and cause internal damage to other organs in the path of the migrating bullet. The bullet’s velocity required for skin penetration is between 148 and 197 feet per second. A velocity of less than 200 feet per second, which is easily obtained by a celebratory gunfire, is capable of fracturing bone and even causing intracranial penetration [4]. Spent bullets have the capability of reaching up to 600 feet per second during their downfall, and thus they have the ability to inflict damage to multiple body cavities [4]. The larger caliber bullets (ie, .45-caliber) reach a higher terminal velocity compared with the smaller caliber bullets (ie, .30-caliber), because of the proportion of their weight to their diameter [4]. Terminal velocity is difficult to calculate with falling bullets because wind resistance and updrafts can cause a spent bullet to land miles away from the initially fired site [2].

 

[jfrey123]

Mythbusters have busted this myth... Well, more precisely, they've put some science into it.


If a bullet is fired straight up it will eventually stop, then begin to fall back to Earth. That stop at the top kills the original velocity it had from the barrel, and when it begins to fall, the only velocity it picks up is the "Terminal Velocity", which is far less than muzzle velocity and was proven not to be fatal. They tested handgun rounds and rifle round (up through 30.06). This includes bullets fired straight up as well as the steepest upward angles, any angle that forces a bullet to stop before it comes back down.


If a bullet is fired in more of an arch (say, 45 degrees) it will retain enough of it's muzzle velocity to be fatal. Think of it almost like a long distance artillery shell, same type of arch firing. Those were proved to be fatal.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

This includes bullets fired straight up as well as the steepest upward angles, any angle that forces a bullet to stop before it comes back down.

Actually, the Mythbusters stated that "a very slight angle" could cause the bullet to maintain it's ballistic trajectory and remain lethal.

 

[divemedic]

All theories aside, I did see a woman who was hit by a bullet that passed through her roof and struck her in the the leg, while she lay in bed on New Year's eve. I believe the year was 1999-2000

 

[Drake Remoray]

The man with an experience is never at the mercy of the man with an arguement.




I'm not a Dr. but I used to play one on T.V.

 

[PT111]

Maybe all those people killed and injured should have been inside watching Mythbusters instead of outside getting hit.

 

[Hunley]

Since someone is citing MythBusters, I'm gonna cite "1,000 Ways to Die" on Spike. One of their ways to die was from a celebratory bullet on New Years. The story was of a man hit by a .45 ACP round (they didn't say ball or hollow point). It came down at an angle, went between his clavicle and the back of his ribcage, and pierced his heart. He died less than 30 seconds after being hit.

 

[SteelJM1]

As much as I love Kari Byron, mythbusters methods are a joke and hardly scientific. With a bullet coming back down travelling between 300-500 fps, they still have the capability to do quite a bit of damage. The 300 fps os for a .30 cal, and the 500 is for a .50. Not that I would imagine anyone wasting money shooting 50 cal into the air, but 750gn moving at 500fps WILL kill you.

Its a felony here in AZ, called Shannons law, because.. you guessed it! A girl named Shannon Smith was killed by a celebratory gunfire bullet coming down.

What really irks me is that NRA fought the passing of that law, which I think is simply stupid on their part. The NRA touts the safe gunhandling rules as if they were commandments from some diety, which is fine, but then they fight a law which severely punishes those who actively and knowingly ignore said rules, and people get killed because of it? Poor form, NRA.

 

[srt 10 jimbo]

I remember when I was a kid in Chicago, you can drop a quarter off the Hancock, Sears tower and it could kill you.

 

[Bud Helms]

Until you guys decide to go look some of this up and bring quotes and sources, I don't see much use in a thread that sounds like a bunch of tall tales around a camp fire. Nice atmosphere, but the truth is getting a beating.

... the only velocity it picks up is the "Terminal Velocity", which is far less than muzzle velocity and was proven not to be fatal.

(The bolding is mine - Bud.)

I don't remember it that way. How do you prove something is not fatal? I don't remember anyone standing for a falling bullet to smack them to prove it wasn't fatal? I'm pretty sure they surmised it through observation and maybe even some measurements (velocity or impact force). AsI recall, they thought it was dangerous enough that they wrapped that segment up with a "don't try this at home." I think the famous Mythbusters Crash Test Dummy was the volunteer. As I recall, that episode even tested the penny. It was judged to fail the myth but I don't recall why.

And a 230 gr .45 bullet falling at 300fps? It kills people everyday at 800-900 fps. Wanna be the crash test dummy for the 300 fps version? I don't.

 

[Hellbilly5000]

I have been peppered with birdshot moveing at terminal volocity on it's way back down from hunters not paying attention/hunting on private property where they should not have been. I will attest that it hurts like hell and leaves nasty welts and can break the skin. I would not want to find out if a fmj or jhp would break the skin much less injure kill or maim someone

 

[Crosshair]

This is exactly what blank ammo is for. If you're going to shoot guns into the air, use blanks. I've came across people who shoot guns into the air when I worked retail and I find I have more success convincing them to use blanks than to stop doing it altogether, which would be the better solution. Mainly what sells them on it is the lower cost.

You can buy it for a fraction of the cost of "real" ammo online. Grafs has a good selection.

Sure it still isn't perfect, but at least with blanks it's an improvement.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

With a bullet coming back down travelling between 300-500 fps, they still have the capability to do quite a bit of damage.

Problem being that the DON'T fall at 3-500 fps. They fall at about 95 fps.

It was proven, quite scientifically actually, by firing the bullets up in the air, visually verifying their impact angles and measuring the penetration depth and then calculating the height from which they would have to fall to reach the estimated impact speed and and then simply dropping them from that estimated height. The dropped bullets penetrated almost exactly the same depth and at the same angles as the fired bullets.


While I agree that a good portion of the way the Mythbusters go about their business is hardly scientific, anyone who doesn't believe their findings in this case will probably never let the facts get in the way of their opinions.

 

[PT111]

I haven't heard the 95 fps figure anywhere before. I have read Maj. Gen. Hatchers report and he says different. I don't feel like looking it up but a comment on it is below.

For further insight, we turn to Hatcher's Notebook (1962) by Major General Julian S. Hatcher, a U.S. Army ordnance expert. Hatcher described military tests with, among other things, a .30 caliber bullet weighing .021 pounds. Using a special rig, the testers shot the bullet straight into the air. It came down bottom (not point) first at what was later computed to be about 300 feet per second. "With the [.021 pound] bullet, this corresponds to an energy of 30 foot pounds," Hatcher wrote. "Previously, the army had decided that on the average an energy of 60 foot pounds is required to produce a disabling wound. Thus, service bullets returning from extreme heights cannot be considered lethal by this standard."

Other studies have found that it may require much less for a round to be fatal than he indicated.

On further investigation, it appears the 60 foot-pound injury threshold cited by Hatcher may be misleading — a falling bullet's kinetic energy (foot pounds) alone isn't a good predictor of the speed it needs to inflict a wound. B. N. Mattoo (Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1984) has proposed an equation relating mass and bullet diameter that seems to do a better job. Experiments on cadavers and such have shown, for example, that a .38 caliber revolver bullet will perforate the skin and lodge in the underlying tissue at 191 feet per second and that triple-ought buckshot will do so at 213 feet per second.

Some studies have found that a .50 caliber bullet may reach terminal velocity at 5-600 fps which can definitely be fatal. All of these are assuming that the bullet is fired straight up into the air which is seldom the case. Bullets fired on an angle which would be the probable case can be fatal for miles and that has been proven both scientifically and in actual cases.

A search for "fatat bullet lethal on google bring up some good stuff. Most of it is repeats and hearsay but there is a good bit of documentated evidence also.

 

[Bud Helms]

Problem being that the DON'T fall at 3-500 fps. They fall at about 95 fps.

Well, I got closer to 200 fps, but I may have gotten some units mixed up.

 

[MikeGoob]

Dont forget heavier things fall faster than lighter things--i learned that from Tom & Jerry

 

[publius]

I don't think I buy into the falling bullet being non-lethal theory. I was visiting my grandmother recently in jackson, Ms and found a .40 cal bullet laying on her concrete driveway. Not thinking anything of it i put it in my pocket. I pulled it out later and looked at it. it had obviously been fired intothe air (probably by someone celebrating his last drug deal). It was a FMJ mushroomed to half it's original length by the impact w/concrete permanently imbedded in it. I think it could have very well killed you and it definitely would hurt like the Hammer of Thor.

 

[divemedic]

Remember that the people who subscribe to the theory that falling bullets only reach terminal velocity are ignoring one fact: That theory only works of the bullet is fired exactly straight up. The more you vary from perpendicular, the more forward velocity the bullet retains.

A bullet fired straight down would strike the ground at full muzzle velocity (plus any gravitational acceleration, minus drag) and a bullet fired at an angle of 60-80 degrees above the horizontal would still retain quite a bit of energy when it struck the ground.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Citing Hatcher's articles:

He also reported on some Military tests, again, with bullets fired into the air. In several cases, the bullets actually remained stable and kept spinning all the way back to the ground (base first). As you might have guessed... those 'stable' bullets attained a much higher calculated terminal velocity than their tumbling counterparts.

I no longer have a reference for the excerpt covering this. If anyone knows of an online reference, it would be useful in this discussion.



With all the variables present between the rifle, ammunition, and atmosphere; it's like playing the lottery. Sure, you could fire 1,000 rounds into the air and never hurt a fly. You could also fire a single shot, and have it kill or injure an unsuspecting old lady while she yells at children, from her front porch.

 

[SteelJM1]

Problem being that the DON'T fall at 3-500 fps. They fall at about 95 fps.

Sorry, that doesn't jive. 95 fps is 64 mph, while a PERSONS terminal velocity is 125mph (183 fps) with feet and arms fully extended. A bullets terminal velocity (especially if it manages to flip over and come down nose first) is much much higher. And the heavier the bullet, the higher the terminal velocity. Not to mention the fact that the most likely spots that a falling bullet will hit someone, in order, are HEAD, shoulders, and feet. I personally dont want to get whacked on the top of my head with ANY bullet going even 95 fps, nevermind any faster than that.

If you really REALLY feel the need, theres all sorts of ME countries that would be more tha happy to let you unload a mag towards the clouds. Heck you can even to it on full auto! I recommend hiding under something strong though. Otherwise, Firing into the air is stupid and a felony (at least in AZ). Don't do it.