It's 5 minutes after midnight and the shooting has stopped.

[birdguy 3,955]

I watched a late night episode of Law and Order and shut off the TV set.  Then the shooting started.  That's how Roswell celebrates the New Year.  Everybody goes outside and starts shooting their guns in the air.  It lasts about 5 minutes or so.  We don't have a tower to drop a gilded ball from out here on the frontier.    We take out our six guns, shotguns, and rifles and shoot the sky.

When it gets light in the morning and warms up a bit people will be on their roof tops picking up any stray bullets that might have rained down on them.

Deadwood.  Tombstone.  Roswell. 

Noel

[Bob Scott 7,745]

In Chicago they *stop* shooting for 5 min to mark the new year.

[vadriver 248]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

stray bullets

what is a stray bullet if you can help me understand ...... recyclable perhaps in the weekly collection ?

downunda, shooting in the air they can't rain down.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

5 hours ago, w6kd said:

In Chicago they *stop* shooting for 5 min to mark the new year.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/12/31/us/chicago-murders-drop-2019/index.html

[birdguy 3,955]

Well, John, stray bullets are bullets that don't go where you intended them to go.  When you shoot up in the air that bullet has to come down someplace, but the shooter doesn't know where.  That's a stray bullet.

Are you telling me that down under bullets shot into the air don't come down?  Isn't your physics the same as ours?  Or am I misunderstanding you?

Noel

 

 

[Joe L 62]

6 hours ago, birdguy said:

I watched a late night episode of Law and Order and shut off the TV set.  Then the shooting started.  That's how Roswell celebrates the New Year.  Everybody goes outside and starts shooting their guns in the air.  It lasts about 5 minutes or so.  We don't have a tower to drop a gilded ball from out here on the frontier.    We take out our six guns, shotguns, and rifles and shoot the sky.

When it gets light in the morning and warms up a bit people will be on their roof tops picking up any stray bullets that might have rained down on them.

Deadwood.  Tombstone.  Roswell. 

Noel

I live in Rio Rancho - same here, as it was when I lived in Santa Fe many years ago.

Tragedies do happen, in 2005 a baby being held in someone's arms outside in their driveway was struck in the head by a stray bullet on 4th of July.  She survived, but it was touch and go.

[Christopher Low 5,387]

That is crazy. You can't just shoot bullets everywhere without considering where they are going to come down. People can be killed or seriously injured by that sort of nonsense

Edited January 1, 2020 by Christopher Low

[Penzoil3 480]

Gravity, what's that ?

[charliearon 3,037]

I guess in certain areas it's considered "cleansing the gene pool"!  Most of the idiots that do it don't realize that those  bullets come down at the same rate as they go up.  They can go through the roof and nail someone on the inside!

[overspeed3 410]

Chicago's gunshot casualty rate has declined?  Maybe that's because there's been a big decrease in moving targets?

[stans 706]

A few years ago we had a child killed by celebratory gunfire.  A 40 caliber pistol bullet fell from the sky and pierced his skull.  Neither the weapon nor the shooter were ever found.  We now have a law that makes an injury as the result of celebratory gunfire a felony.

[birdguy 3,955]

Puck said it best in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, "What fools these mortals be."

 

Noel

[Bob Scott 7,745]

OK, folks, let's not venture into the realm of politics, gun control etc.

[jon b 2,051]

15 hours ago, birdguy said:

  That's how Roswell celebrates the New Year.  Everybody goes outside and starts shooting their guns in the air.  It lasts about 5 minutes or so.  We don't have a tower to drop a gilded ball from out here on the frontier.    We take out our six guns, shotguns, and rifles and shoot the sky.

Probably hitting the odd passing UFO causing it to crash?

Edited January 1, 2020 by jon b

[charliearon 3,037]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nurse-shot-to-death-on-new-years-eve-likely-by-celebratory-gunfire/ar-BBYwsQz?li=BBnbcA1