Default User wrote:

>
> >
> > > The myth was about bullets fired straight up, and indeed if they are
> > > fired straight up as in plumb bob straight up, it is impossible to
> > > get anything more than a nasty bump if they land on you.
> >
> > My question to Mythbuster is this, was there someone insisting
> > that drunk people were firing guns perfectly straight into the air
> > and presumably killing themselves or the person standing right next
> > to them? (laugh) Sometimes I don't get their point.
>
> It doesn't have to be perfectly straight up. It has to be to the point
> where the bullet loses ballistic trajectory and begins to tumble. I
> don't know what that angle is, and I don't recall them experimenting to
> determine it.
>

The size and weight of the bullet have a lot to do with it too. A .22 bullet
has very little mass behind it and when falling with nothing more than
gravity behind it there is not that much energy. Having been hit by a blast
from a shotgun fired from about 30 yards away I am all too aware of the
effects. Of all the pellets that hit me, only those that struck by my
shoulder blades broke the skin, and did not penetrate.