Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Small caliber velocity
Message-ID: <12825@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 Jan 90 04:08:51 GMT
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Sunnyvale, Ca.
Lines: 34
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: amdcad!cdr (Carl Rigney)
In article <12771@cbnews.ATT.COM> henry@hutto.UUCP (Henry Melton) writes:
>
>You commonly hear of police firing a warning shot into the
>air, yet I have never heard of such a random shell killing anyone.

I guess it has been a while since Kent State...


Police who've been trained properly don't fire into the air.  At least
not any more - the bullet *is* going to come down somewhere, and the
only person likely to be safe is the fleeing suspect.  Likewise you
don't fire at someone without knowing what your backdrop will be -
where will the bullet go if it misses?  Comments on actual training
levels found in police belong in a different group, no doubt.

>How safe is it to fire a gun into the air?

No safer than firing it in a random direction, for the most part.
A pretty good rule of thumb is to never fire your weapon without knowing
for sure what you'll be hitting.  Covering fire in military missions
and Vulcan 20mm Chainguns excepted, of course. :-)

>Henry Melton ...!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!hutto!henry
>1-512-8463241 Rt.1 Box 274E Hutto,TX 78634

--
Carl Rigney
cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM	{ames att decwrl pyramid sun uunet}!amdcad!cdr

"I know exactly what I'm going to hit.  That hill over there, and the
two next to it."