New Years Eve body count... unfortunately

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TexasRifleman

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Guess these guys didn't read the thread yesterday cautioning against shooting up into the air.... very sad.

Of course the media had to get in that it was an "assault rifle".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,319399,00.html

The caption on the front page says:

Killed by a Single Bullet
Police believe a New Year’s reveler fired one shot from assault rifle that struck woman, 11-year-old girl at a party.
Click to expand...

The story itself does not mention the firearm type.

DENVER — An 11-year-old girl and a woman were killed by a single bullet fired into a home from hundreds of yards away early Tuesday, possibly by a New Year's reveler, police said.

Police spokesman Sonny Jackson said the bizarre shooting, which came shortly after midnight, may have been accidental. No arrests had been made, but investigators said they did not believe a sniper was on the loose.

The victims' names had not been released. It wasn't immediately known if they were related.

Police said the pair were at a party with about 10 other people when at least one shot was fired from up to 300 yards away, possibly from across a park next to the home. Jackson said one bullet went through the front wall of the house, passed through the head of the woman, who was seated, and struck the girl in the side.

Jackson said investigators traced the trajectory of the shot to determine that the single bullet killed both victims.

A second bullet was found in a snowbank in front of the home.

The woman died at the scene and the girl was pronounced dead at a hospital.
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It greatly saddens me to see children bear the brunt of stupidity. I hope they find the shooter and maximize their punishment. Any one that has ever seen a shot child will agree with me I am sure!

I wish they would release ballistic info in a these stories.
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what would the point of that be?
 
the press screams "assault weapon" when there is NO weapon...

I would like to know what the caliber of the bullet is to substantiate a probably bogus buzz word.
 
If it traveled through a wall and then through two people, that definitely wasn't fired up into the air. Sounds like someone touched off at least two rounds more or less parallel to the ground (drop at 300 yards from an intermediate cartridge is going to be pretty minimal).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate 7.62x39, for all of the obvious reasons.
 
My mother has been a Children's PICU nurse for years, and almost every new years day, a kid comes in with a gunshot wound that got hit from some idiot poping rounds off in the air. Really sad for the kids, most end up having serious physical problems for the rest of their lives. Even more sad when they get hit in the head and are braindead because some yahoo got drunk and stupid.
 
the press screams "assault weapon" when there is NO weapon
Click to expand...
I did not see anything describing any thing about the weapon other than high powered rifle.
 
I did not see anything describing any thing about the weapon other than high powered rifle.
Click to expand...


Here's a screenshot of the Fox News website I just took.


fox.png
 
I'm confused.... 300yds... the trajectory was either very flat, so someone wasn't shooting up into the air at all, but quite level, or it was very steep, such that the round should've lost nearly all of its energy upon return to earth.

I'm thinkin' the former has happened in this case. Too much energy was delivered into the home and into these unfortunate victims. And if so, someone needs charged with negligent homicide.

Very sad. Very stupid.
 
lots of people do not realize how far a bullet can travel and still be dangerous

The shooter, if they even remember last night, probably thought the houses
were to far away.
If it was .223 or 7.62x.39 they will jump to assault weapons conclusions.

This is why we shouldn't let people graduate from high school without gun safety credits.
 
hey sorry I can not see the pic I am at work and most pics do not work here but I will take your word for it. However as of right now there is nothing stated about assault weapons on either page. So I can only conclude it has been corrected which is the responsable thing to do on the medias part. I look for the good out of this in a sea of bad news.
 
So I can only conclude it has been corrected which is the responsable thing to do on the medias part.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately it hasn't been corrected on Fox yet, still says exactly the same thing. Main page of fox/
 
Many of these "bullet up in the air" stories are simply false and irresponsible reporting.

Years ago in California, near where I lived, there was a story about a 9yo boy who was innocently playing in his backyard on newyears when a bullet flew out of nowhere and struck him.

That's how it was reported.

Then it became two bullets. Not at the same time either... minutes apart. Think of how many bullets must have been flying for TWO to hit one innocent kid just playing in his back yard. Stop shooting into the air you are killing kids! Those bullets are coming down into...

...well, into the kid's back...

So stop shooting up into the air!

...from fairly close range...

Don't shoot into the air people! You are killing kids.

...from his uncle's gun...

As far as I know the news media never revised the story to say that the kid was shot deliberately by a family member. It continued to be "stray bullets coming out of the sky" because that promotes general fear and general fear sells.
 
TexasRifleman I see that now sent you a pm
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No biggie.. Yes it's bad, Fox is usually better than this.

I sent an email to them asking to cite a source for that but they will probably ignore me.
 
Ed Ames said:
It continued to be "stray bullets coming out of the sky" because that promotes general fear and general fear sells.
Click to expand...
You nailed it. The general fear, in this case, is of a supposed storm of bullets that rains down upon the innocent every New Year's Eve and Independence Day. Throw "assault weapon" in there somewhere and you've got instant panic. This is all very much akin to the fuss about ammo burning in house fires.

The media doesn't sensationalize anymore; they just lie.
 
As a paramedic, I can tell you that it does happen. A few years ago, I ran on a woman who was struck by a bullet while sitting in her living room. There was a hole in the ceiling above her, and she was struck in the leg.

The odds have to be long, though.
 
I think we can all agree that shooting live ammo into the air is stupid, regardless of what the ballistics are. It's a bullet, it's got to come down, and Myth Busters info aside, someone can (and the odds in a city say will) get hurt.
 
As a former St. Louis city dweller/rehabber, bullet holes in roofs are a PITA...

I'm guessing what happened here is that Joe 'Burb took an SKS or something outside and blew through a clipfull... And since he saw a bunch of trees, he thought that'd be a backstop.

Guys, a stand of trees is rather porous. They may stop _some_ rounds. But they won't stop 'em all. Just because you can't _see_ something on the other side doesn't mean that it's bulletproof.
 
How do they know what kind of gun it was fired from?
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The corrected news stories now say high powered rifle. So that being said there is an index of bullet diameters and diffrent twist rates lands grooves twist directions ect if they recover the bullet in some cases they can recover this information cross refrence the information and tell atleast a group for guns it came from.
Not everything on csi is fake.
 
As of 5:45 PM Central, FoxNews had corrected the headline. Still poor legwork! Very unlike Fox.

Very sad issue. Hope they find and punish the shooter to the fullest.

My prayers go out to the mother and daughter and their family.
 
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