Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: cash@uunet.UU.NET (Peter Cash)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Small caliber velocity
Message-ID: <12963@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 10 Jan 90 03:27:40 GMT
References: <12771@cbnews.ATT.COM> <12889@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: cash@uunet.UU.NET (Peter Cash)

In article <12889@cbnews.ATT.COM> hplabs!rick@hpfcdj.hp.com (Rick Greer) writes:

>From: hplabs!rick@hpfcdj.hp.com (Rick Greer)

>/ hpfcdj:sci.military / henry@hutto.UUCP (Henry Melton) /  9:25 pm  Jan  3, 1990 /

>From: henry@hutto.UUCP (Henry Melton)

>...  You commonly hear of police firing a warning shot into the
>air, yet I have never heard of such a random shell killing anyone.  The
>physics of figuring the terminal velocity of small tumbling bullets is
>beyond me.  Does anyone know of any real figures?  How safe is it to
>fire a gun into the air?

>A couple of years ago a man was killed in Denver, Colorado by a shot fired
>randomly into the air.  It was, I think, a shot from a .38 pistol.   Someone
>was simply using a firearm in lieu of a firecracker.   The odds of this man
>being a casualty had to be very small.  Nonetheless, he is dead.  IMO, it is 
>not safe to arbitrarily fire a gun into the air. 

It goes without saying that the last is true.  However, (as a purely
theoretical consideration) it seems doubtful to me that someone could be
killed by a pistol or rifle bullet fired at a vertical or near vertical
angle.  The bullet would rise until all of its momentum had been expended,
and then would begin to fall.  At this point, it would behave like any
falling object (just as though the bullet had been dropped from an airplane
overhead).  As I recall, air resistance imposes a limit on the speed to
which any falling body can accelerate, however I don't remember what that
speed is.  I have a hunch that it's below the threshold of doing serious
damage.  Anybody out there with a more recent physics course who can help
me out?

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             |      Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist.     |
Peter Cash   |       (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein)      |    cash@convex
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