Happy New Year!!

I have slept through the past 5 New Year's (only to be awoken at midnight by my neighbors setting-off fireworks), but this year, I am determined to stay up at least until 12:01 CST.

The years roll by one by one until they don't. I will sit with my Wife, Dianne and when someone shoots off a gun or something that goes bang at midnight we will look at each other, share a kiss and hope we make it to another December 31.

To everyone - behold a new year as the last one was a bitch, and the new year needs to be better, I hope!

People shoot-off guns in California to celebrate the New Year??

Jehanne wrote:People shoot-off guns in California to celebrate the New Year??

YES, and there will likely be a news story on the 10:00 O'clock news New Year's Day about some little boy or girl getting hit by a stray bullet and ending up dead, or in the hospital.

MichaelaSJ wrote:

Jehanne wrote:People shoot-off guns in California to celebrate the New Year??

YES, and there will likely be a news story on the 10:00 O'clock news New Year's Day about some little boy or girl getting hit by a stray bullet and ending up dead, or in the hospital.

Very sad and very sick.

But, not to be coy about a terrible (indeed, epidemic) situation (and, not to re-introduce another "gun control" thread, derailing this one), it kind of reminds me of the Independence Day movie from the 90s when the local news cast was informing residents of Los Angeles to stop shooting at the alien spaceship that was hovering above their city; I wish that I could find the clip but I can't.  It's hilarious.

It is 11:35 PM PST on December 31, 2018 and I already hear the firecrackers, or gunfire, around my house.

I live in a part of San Jose that is upscale so most of the loudness is likely coming from illegal fireworks left over from the previous July 4th celebration. But, further to the north in San Jose and even further north to the East Bay and Oakland areas, be assured some of the pops are coming from pistols and rifles and shotguns.

What goes up, must come down - I hope the bullets and shot comes down in a field - but not everyone of those bullets will and there will likely be someone injured, or worse.

Happy New...

MichaelaSJ wrote:It is 11:35 PM PST on December 31, 2018 and I already hear the firecrackers, or gunfire, around my house.

I live in a part of San Jose that is upscale so most of the loudness is likely coming from illegal fireworks left over from the previous July 4th celebration. But, further to the north in San Jose and even further north to the East Bay and Oakland areas, be assured some of the pops are coming from pistols and rifles and shotguns.

What goes up, must come down - I hope the bullets and shot comes down in a field - but not everyone of those bullets will and there will likely be someone injured, or worse.

Happy New...

What is wrong with people? I live in an area where I constantly hear gunfire. Deer and turkey season it goes off all around me. Between seasons people are sighting in new guns or new sights they put on them. It's as much a part of the ambience as crickets and katydids on a summer evening, and when the mood strikes me I even add to those sounds with my dad in his back yard.

And they never fire them off in celebration. If they're in their back yard or field it's always into an elaborate setup designed to catch any stray bullets. I helped my dad move tons of earth to make a safe backstop for his targets. During squirrel season everyone knows better than to take a shot at one in a tree. If you see 100 squirrel in trees and none on the ground you come home empty handed. Nuisance birds are handled with air rifles that barely fire from one end of the yard to the other.

In other words, every gun owner here is incredibly responsible with every discharge. If there's even the slightest possibility that a bullet will go onto someone else's property they pass up the 30 point buck standing in front of them.

And then you have yahoos in California filling the air with lead just because the earth went around the sun one more time. I guess it's just a different culture. Here in MO we make sure that each bullet that leaves our guns either stops in a specific target, whether that target is wild game or a series of rings on a piece of paper, or in the ground not far from the target. I guess most Californians aren't responsible enough for gun ownership.

MichaelaSJ wrote:It is 11:35 PM PST on December 31, 2018 and I already hear the firecrackers, or gunfire, around my house.

I live in a part of San Jose that is upscale so most of the loudness is likely coming from illegal fireworks left over from the previous July 4th celebration. But, further to the north in San Jose and even further north to the East Bay and Oakland areas, be assured some of the pops are coming from pistols and rifles and shotguns.

What goes up, must come down - I hope the bullets and shot comes down in a field - but not everyone of those bullets will and there will likely be someone injured, or worse.

Happy New...

Fortunately, bullets, if they are shot more or less vertically, will lose their angular momentum before coming down, and so, they'll smart, but not kill, anyone they hit.  Still, very, very dumb.

Jehanne wrote:Fortunately, bullets, if they are shot more or less vertically, will lose their angular momentum before coming down, and so, they'll smart, but not kill, anyone they hit.  Still, very, very dumb.

Unfortunately, it does happen:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2356851/Seven-year-old-boy-dies-hit-stray-bullet-fired-air-walked-July-4-fireworks-display.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5228753/Boy-5-killed-bullet-fired-air-mile-away.html

https://www.journalnow.com/news/crime/child-struck-by-bullet-from-gun-fired-into-the-air/article_0997954c-ac83-5091-926b-b3dbc3eea76f.html

http://www.mlnlaw.com/articles/four-year-old-killed-by-rifle-fired-into-the-air-on-new-year-s-e/

and there are more.

That's terrible! And all so very young as well! I often wondered about that coz it's often seen on tv news in Iraq and that, Arabic groups, Kurds and that firing machine guns into the air! Dangerous!!!! Oh, Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Celia xx

Although the size of the munitions was much greater, there was a lot of damage done after the air raids of WWII, both in England and in Europe with the anti-aircraft artillery coming back to ground. some of the munitions had timers that would allow the shells to explode in the air, but they didn't work all of time.

I am always amazed when I see the guns being fired, mostly in the Arab countries in celebration of something. Where do they get all of the ammunition?

Happy New Year! I slept through this one and I wasn't woken up by gunfire but I have woken up to it before and I hear it sometimes.

...and they just completed a segment on a little girl in Oakland, CA who is in a local hospital with a bullet lodged in her skull shot last night, New Years Eve. No word on her condition, but at least she is alive.