Episode #50 Bullets Fired up!

[BlackWidowNor]

I was going to comment on that but you beat me to it.  If a bullet falls very far away from the shooter, that's a clear indication that it was not shot straight up but at an angle. In cases like that the bullets speed will go way past terminal velocity.  BTW if shooting straight up was such a killer I doubt that police world wide would use the practice of shooting warning shots into the air.

Hate to tell you this, Dread, but your posts have been reported to me by more than one member for being argumentative for the sake of arguing and also for the fact that you produce nothing to prove your point.

They are called "warning shots" because they are WARNINGS - the police do not shoot in to the air for just any reason.

You're just repeating what I and others have said.  Is there anything else  you'd like to add (like links to research that we can actually read) to this conversation?

Here are the facts -

1.  Bullets fired at a 90 degree angle from the earth will go up... reach an apex and start coming down.  They will NOT reach the same velocity on the way down as they had on the way up.

2. Bullets fired at almost any OTHER angle from the earth complete a ballistic trajectory - they do not hit an "apex" where they stop and start to come down.  They come to earth at an angle and still have the ability to kill.

NEXT QUESTION.  Sorry to sound so curt, but here we don't take "because I said so" reasoning, if you want to convince us otherwise you'll have to do like six grade math class... and show your "work."

TheBlackWidowNor
Owner/Administrator
MythBustersFanClub.

[ModernRonin]

Pretty fun episode! Cool stuff got built, some unexpected results (confirmed and plausible and busted!!), and we got watch Jamie and Kari get half drunk. Admittedly, I was hoping to see them silly drunk. But having once put down 6 shots of vodka myself, and nearly having to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoining, I don't blame them one bit for not doing 8 shots!

A good solid episode. Fun to watch, looks like it was at least somewhat fun to make, interesting, relevant. Well done, guys, well done!

[oscardeuce]

No police officer I know fires "warning shots". The chances of hitting something not intended are too great. You need to account for every round expended. A warning shot violates 2 of the 4 rules of firearms safety.

If someone breaks into my house, there will be a verbal warning. No warning shots, but the bad guy will definitely know why he is in that warm place as I will have informed him of my intents, and if he does not immediately drop to the ground and assume the spread eagle position he may very well meet Sam Colt.

[river95]

I really enjoyed this episode!  The "bullets fired up" part was interesting, and I really admired the guys' tenacity in testing this myth in as many different ways as possible!    I, too, wondered why they weren't using a metal detector to find the bullets, but perhaps they couldn't, for some reason.  If they were back at the Cohen Dry Lake Beds (which I believe is a park of some sort) they may not be allowed to use them.  (Some national and state parks now prohibit the use of metal detectors, so that the land will not be dug up by amateur prospectors.) I will try to find out more about Cohen Dry Lake Bed and see if this is a possibility.

The vodka myths were great! Jami, Kari, and Mr.Blue testing the vodka was great!  But the funniest (Grant, forgive me!) was the bandaid myth!  I had never heard that one before, and I am sorry that Grant got "volunteered" to test it, but it was pretty funny!  The poison oak was interesting too - and statistically interesting as well as visually.  I would have been willing to bet that more than one of the guys would have been allergic to poison oak!  And poor John! Thank you for sharing that with us!  And, am I reading this right, that you had to leave the poison oak rash there while you were on break?  Now THAT'S dedication!

[Zarniwoop]

If they were back at the Cohen Dry Lake Beds (which I believe is a park of some sort) they may not be allowed to use them.  (Some national and state parks now prohibit the use of metal detectors, so that the land will not be dug up by amateur prospectors.) I will try to find out more about Cohen Dry Lake Bed and see if this is a possibility.

I live but about 20 miles from the lake bed they use. Nope, not in a park. I suspect they didn't use them because your scanning a area about 12 inches in diameter(depending on the detector) and trying to scan an area that could be a 100,000 sq ft or more.

[river95]

Thanks for the info, Zarniwoop, and welcome!

[ninjapirate]

"i saw that episode of csi too ninjapirate. alot of the so-called science on that show is dubious at best"

i dont watch that show. i find the idea that forensics lab personel are playing police man highly amusing and completly incorrect. this was a discovery channel show, the name of it escapes me.

[sallysocks]

                I also thought this was an excellence show! I was surspired at the number of people who weren't allergic to the posion oak!
                And I just have to say to Grant, " Is your name big enough on your calculator'?  LOL  It reminded me of when so much of grade school for some reason. I thought it was cutie.

~mama sallysocks~

[Dread]

  Nope no point arguing this further, I think I will stick to reading and not posting, being interactive on this forum seems to be a little too strict for me. 
As for proving my point, I guess actualy seeing the results of a person getting hit by a falling bullet does not count since no one else on the forum was there.
  Just a final suggestion, most of you have been very nice, and since I am new I have no idea what has happened in the past to make it the way it is now but it seems like the rules are so strict that one is in fear of posting anything but praises for an episode. Maybe a better balance would make things more interesting and get people more involved in the show.

I was going to comment on that but you beat me to it.  If a bullet falls very far away from the shooter, that's a clear indication that it was not shot straight up but at an angle. In cases like that the bullets speed will go way past terminal velocity.  BTW if shooting straight up was such a killer I doubt that police world wide would use the practice of shooting warning shots into the air.

Hate to tell you this, Dread, but your posts have been reported to me by more than one member for being argumentative for the sake of arguing and also for the fact that you produce nothing to prove your point.

They are called "warning shots" because they are WARNINGS - the police do not shoot in to the air for just any reason.

You're just repeating what I and others have said.  Is there anything else  you'd like to add (like links to research that we can actually read) to this conversation?

Here are the facts -

1.  Bullets fired at a 90 degree angle from the earth will go up... reach an apex and start coming down.  They will NOT reach the same velocity on the way down as they had on the way up.

2. Bullets fired at almost any OTHER angle from the earth complete a ballistic trajectory - they do not hit an "apex" where they stop and start to come down.  They come to earth at an angle and still have the ability to kill.

NEXT QUESTION.  Sorry to sound so curt, but here we don't take "because I said so" reasoning, if you want to convince us otherwise you'll have to do like six grade math class... and show your "work."

TheBlackWidowNor
Owner/Administrator
MythBustersFanClub.

[BlackWidowNor]

Dread, whole purpose of this board is to learn and discuss.  If we can't "see" where you're coming from - we can't agree with your points.

We ask that people do a bit of legwork so that the community benefits from the vast knowledge available online. 

I don't expect you to praise each episode, but if you're going to question parts of their experiment I do expect you to back up what you say.  They read this board, therefore, you'd also be showing your knowledge to them.

The Discovery Channel message board is full of people who just state "It's like this" and offer no proof and get huffy when people ask for it.  That's one of the reasons this board was created.  We want you to post, we also want you to show us where you get your information.

We have several people who are or were in the military on this board.  I personally have seen someone shot - it's not a pretty site.  This discussion is about what a bullet does if fired in a certain manner or direction.  I have seen what "celebratory" gunfire can do to someone who's not even involved in the celebrating.  It can cost lives.

Sorry you feel we're being too strict, we just want you to educate us to your point of view with more than just an "I told you so"

TheBlackWidowNor
Owner/Administrator
MythBustersFanClub.com

[edit - Check out this web page... http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=76196  For those who can't.. here's the story

Arab Girl Killed By Muslim Celebratory Gunfire, IDF Blamed
21:19 Jan 31, '05 / 21 Shevat 5765
 

   A 10-year-old Arab girl was killed Monday by celebratory gunfire as PA Arabs departed for their pilgrimage to Mecca. Her death was initially blamed on the IDF by PA and UN officials. 


The girl was shot as she stood outside a UN-sponsored school in Rafiah, in Gaza. Suspicion surrounded the initial claims that the IDF was responsible for the girl's death due to the fact that no IDF activity had taken place anywhere near the school.

It was later revealed by the Ynet news agency that hundreds of shots had been fired into the air by Muslims celebrating the departure of friends and family on the Hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime visit to Islam's holy cities, Mecca and Medina - incumbent upon every Muslim.

The girl was killed when one of the bullets struck her in the head.

And this... http://www.gcn.com/state/vol6_no2/news/614-1.html

Computers, not guns. In 1997, three people per day were killed by gunfire in Los Angeles County. More than 50 percent of them were bystanders. The Sheriff’s Department is trying to reclaim the streets from gang violence and drug-related crime—but not with guns.

In Willowbrook, a neighborhood near Los Angeles International Airport that is prone to gun violence, the county is testing the ShotSpotter gunshot alert system from Trilon Technology of Los Altos, Calif.

ShotSpotter is a network of acoustic sensors that pinpoint the source of gunfire to within 20 feet. It saves the sound on a PC as a .wav file within about seven seconds, and law enforcement personnel can replay it later, Deputy Bob Killeen said.

Erroneous echoes. “Echoes can confuse you,” said Dave Krikac, vice president of Dialogic Communications Corp. of Franklin, Tenn., which is providing the notification system for the project. “Did the shot come from next door or across the street? ShotSpotter pinpoints it to much greater accuracy.”

Officers chart the shots on a digital map made from orthophotos of the area.

“The map lets you see down to the rocks” on top of a store roof, Krikac said.

Created in a MapObjects interface from Environmental Systems Research Institute of Redlands, Calif., the map can be integrated with Visual Basic products.

Krikac and his team integrated the map with telephone data for the area. When gunfire has been confirmed, DCC’s Communicator system dials every residential and business phone near the sound. A message says, “There’s been gunfire in your area” and offers several options: report further information, follow up with a police officer anonymously, or wait to speak to a dispatcher.

Communicator runs under Microsoft Windows NT. “I don’t think we use anything that you couldn’t buy at CompUSA,” Krikac said.

Unhappy New Year. The county also has a problem with people shooting guns in the air to celebrate, Killeen said. ShotSpotter recorded more than 700 gunshots in the first half-hour of the new year.

“Believe it or not,” he said, “some people think that if you fire a gun into the air, the bullet disintegrates.”

During a Fourth of July celebration last year, a child was killed by celebratory gunfire, Killeen said.

—Trudy Walsh (emphasis added)

- end edit - Nor]
 

[firearrow31]

  Nope no point arguing this further, I think I will stick to reading and not posting, being interactive on this forum seems to be a little too strict for me. 
As for proving my point, I guess actualy seeing the results of a person getting hit by a falling bullet does not count since no one else on the forum was there.
  Just a final suggestion, most of you have been very nice, and since I am new I have no idea what has happened in the past to make it the way it is now but it seems like the rules are so strict that one is in fear of posting anything but praises for an episode. Maybe a better balance would make things more interesting and get people more involved in the show.

Are you implying that the rules here are too hard to follow?  If so, I have no idea what you're talking about.  This is only my second forum, and I caught on almost immediately.   Just a suggestion, but maybe you actually need to be more flexible.  The rules here are what keeps this place orderly and enjoyable.  Again, they are not hard to follow at all.  This is coming from someone who frequently has problems following orders, so it should mean something.

[SynjoDeonecros]

Personally, I find the decision of 'all of the above' for the Bullets Fired Up myth to be rather redundant. There are both cases where falling bullets HAVE killed AND done nothing, so I would say that - since the potentiality for fatality IS there, but is NOT consistant - the myth is no more or less than  . On that note, I also wondered why the Mythbusters were relying solely on the naked eyes and ears to find the falling bullets, instead of bringing along a metal detector.

I'm also going to have to question the result of the final Vodka myth; they had proven that, although there is no chemical change to a vodka with each filtration, it DOES make the vodka taste better, so with enough filtrations, it COULD potentially fool tasters into thinking it was at least a medium-to-high grade vodka.

Other than those two arguments, I quite enjoyed this episode. Wasn't the Mythbusters' best, but certainly not their worst, either.

[PretenderNX01]

By the way Pretender, great links!! Thank you!!!
Wolfy(who likes to shoot her guns at things, not at random, what did random ever do to me anyway?)

Your welcome, and funny.  I've been still arguing this over at IMDb- what it comes down to is the definition of "up" really. Does it mean "straight up at a 90 degree angle-" then no its busted, if it just means "not down or horizontal- just kinda up" then yeah its plausable and has been confirmed.

So when they say the myth is busted, plausable, and confirmed they're really talking about different variations of the myth. Its actually a very generalized myth. "Up".

On that note, I also wondered why the Mythbusters were relying solely on the naked eyes and ears to find the falling bullets, instead of bringing along a metal detector.

That was my first thought too- why no metal detector? Woulda been a heck of a lot easier.

I'm also going to have to question the result of the final Vodka myth; they had proven that, although there is no chemical change to a vodka with each filtration, it DOES make the vodka taste better, so with enough filtrations, it COULD potentially fool tasters into thinking it was at least a medium-to-high grade vodka.

Other than those two arguments, I quite enjoyed this episode. Wasn't the Mythbusters' best, but certainly not their worst, either.

Yeah it could potentailly fool average people a bit, but not people who know their stuff. And the myth was it tasted exactly the same as high grade, which it didn't. Also they said it was too costly to use all the charcoal filters- you could just buy good Vodka for that price. 

[ModernRonin]

Which information was that, exactly?

[ModernRonin]

Strange things are known to happen at weddings, but one North Texas woman has a story that can top most after being struck by a stray bullet fired from more than a mile away. Maid of Honor Kristin Campbell, who is an employee at NBC 5, was having a great time at her best friend's wedding in Houston and was about to make a go for the bouquet when she was shot. "I didn't hear anything. I just knew I had a hole in my arm," said Campbell. "It was painful, but it wasn't terrible, but it did feel like I was shot. There was really no other way to describe it."

The bullet traveled far, more than a mile, and had lost most of its power after smashing through the roof of the ballroom where the reception was being held, NBC 5 reported. The bullet fell out of Campbell's arm and onto the dance floor.
"Apparently, some man was upset and just fired his gun into the air about a mile away from where we were. The bullet just came through the roof and into my arm," said Campbell. "It's just a freak event."

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/9152403/detail.html?rss=dfw&psp=news