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- When you fire a gunshot straight up into the air, it can go up as high as 3 kms (depending upon the weapon, the size of the bullet, and a few other factors).
- After it has reached its highest point, it must come down because of gravity.
- When it is falling down freely, the air provides resistance and the speed is reduced to about 10% of the speed with which it was shot.
- But in a lot of cases, this 10% can also prove to be quite dangerous.
- For example, AK-47 is estimated to fire bullets that travel at a speed of 2300 feet/second & 10% of this speed would be 230 feet/second.
- Research suggests that a speed of 200 feet/second is enough to penetrate the skull.
- Free-falling bullets from the guns which fire at lower speeds (1800 feet/second or less) are unlikely to kill anyone unless it is a direct hit to the eye, ear, or mouth.
- This is true, however, only if the shot is fired straight up (at 90 degrees angle from the ground).
- At 45 degrees or less, even slower gunshots can be lethal, because they will fall at much higher speeds than 10% of the straight-up speed.
- A number of incidents have been recorded of people dying or getting badly injured because of randomly falling bullets.
- One of the most notable incidents happened when a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives Armando Martinez was hit by a stray bullet in 2017.
- A fragment penetrated the top of his skull and had to be removed through surgery.
Image courtesy of Bane.M through Shutterstock
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