The starting guns used for races: has anyone ever gotten accidentally shot?

Bad Wigins wrote:

old guy 72 wrote:

Something I've always wondered about: When you see armed idiots shooting automatic weapons straight up into the air celebrating, where do the bullets come down? You would think a lot of people would be hit.

Well obviously they don't come down then. They are in outer space somewhere.

Also it might be that they don't fall down as fast as they go up, because of terminal velocity.

Correct. They would only come down at the basic pull of gravity that earth has. For many years uneducated ppl have been saying that if they toss a penny off the empire state building, it will kill the person below. Wrong.

Also, I don't care how high up you are falling from space. Landing in water is never fatal. Landing in water and making a nice splash is always better than landing on concrete

Voyagers! wrote:

not shooting blanks wrote:

People have absolutely gotten shot and killed by blanks. An actor thought that "pretending" to commit suicide like that would be funny, except it actually worked. At point blank range and bullet-like speeds, anything aimed at your head is deadly.

I have not heard of anything like that at a track meet, however.

But that was a different kind of blank. The blank that killed Jon Erik Hexum was designed to look like a real gun and ejected material out the barrel. A starter's pistol does not have an open barrel, so there's nothing that comes out at "bullet-like" speeds.

You can certainly get injured from a starter's pistol, but that's related to the explosion.

Same thing happened to Brandon Lee. Although he didn't do it to himself. The prop gun was defective and expelled the fake bullet into him.

Bad Wigins wrote:

old guy 72 wrote:

Something I've always wondered about: When you see armed idiots shooting automatic weapons straight up into the air celebrating, where do the bullets come down? You would think a lot of people would be hit.

Well obviously they don't come down then. They are in outer space somewhere.

Also it might be that they don't fall down as fast as they go up, because of terminal velocity.

Studies suggest that, although the velocity of a falling bullet is lower than that of one which has just been fired, it is still sufficient to be fatal.

According to a 1962 study, .30 calibre rounds can reach terminal velocities of 300 feet (91m) per second as they fall. More recent research has indicated that 200 feet (61m) per second is enough to penetrate the skull.

Principal Skinner wrote:

Starter pistols really should not be allowed on school property. Zero tolerance.

In the USA's totally PC world and ultra liberal USA educational system I'm really surprised that they allow "starter pistols" at school track meets.