Every year people are warned about the dangers of discharging firearms to celebrate holidays like Independence Day or New Year's Day, but there is another angle to consider.
Some people believe shooting a gun upward is safer if it's a smaller caliber. The idea is that no one would be hurt by a falling bullet that comes from a .22 long rifle rimfire round, that uses less propellant than a more powerful firearm.
According to John Ham, public information officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Kansas City, that's a myth that comes from fuzzy math.
"What we're leaving out of that thinking is the physics of a bullet that is designed to travel fast," Ham said. "When it goes up at a very high velocity, it falls at a high velocity toward a target. It's designed to hurt it."
Regardless of the angle from which the round is fired, it will come down at a high rate of speed. All bullets, large or small caliber, are designed to be aerodynamic, Ham said.
Ham and others are trying to prevent another incident like the death of Blair Laine, the 11-year-old girl who was killed in Kansas City on July 4, 2011. The bullet that killed her was fired as celebratory gunfire.
