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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

In the Netherlands you have to, before you are even allowed to shoot at someone, point the gun in the air, call out "Halt or i'll shoot!" and shoot in the air which you have to repeat 3 times. We had some hilarious TV about that.

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I think it is the same for german police. I.e. you at least have to shot in the air once and call out "stop or i will shoot you!". Obviously, this is not necessary if the life of the officer or someone else is at risk.

Obviously; if something is really threatening for yourself or others then of course. But this is not very common as far as I can see. Fleeing the scene is often not a threatening / deadly force situation.

In Poland too. A few years ago police man had to shout "Stop or I'll shoot.", then shoot 3 times in the air, then policeman could shoot in the legs, and only then shoot to kill.

People made fun of this, because when criminal has a gun, he won't be shooting in the air 3 times, nor targeting policeman legs, so law was changed to be less strict about cops shooting.

But we still have strict regulations about "allowed defence". For example courts judged a few times, that man that shot burglar with legal gun he had in his house was guilty of "overstepping allowed defence", because burglar only had knife. It's ridiculus IMHO.

Still - I've never heard or seen a real gun or knife fight in my life, and neither had anybody I know (or at least they had not told me about that). I think it's general tendency, that gun crimes and homicides in general are much less frequent in Europe.

Isn't shooting in the air potentially dangerous, since the bullet (assuming straight up in an empty space) will return to the ground with the same velocity it was fired at?

No, terminal velocity will limit the fall speed to be much less

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1199/can-a-bullet-f...

That link does not say that it's not dangerous. It is less dangerous than a bullet fired at close range, and it is not as likely to be lethal, but it still can be lethal, or cause serious bodily harm, and therefore it is still very dangerous.

Furthermore not all warning shots fired into the air are fired at high enough angles that the bullets decelerate to terminal velocity before hitting something.

Even if it reaches terminal velocity and doesn't hit anyone, in an urban area it can easily hit someone's property and cause property damage to roofs windows or walls.

True, but a bullet falling at terminal velocity may still kill:

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-12-20/news/30540094_1_a...

Edit: this particular bullet would have been on a ballistic trajectory and would have retained a significant amount of its original velocity.

Only in a vacuum, otherwise it's the terminal velocity IIRC it's much less than the firing speed for bullets.

Still somewhat dangerous, and the reason why celebratory gunfire, which is rather customary in some countries, is now frowned upon by the authorities.

"In the case of a bullet fired at sufficiently close to a vertical angle to result in a non-ballistic trajectory, the bullet would tumble, lose its spin, and fall at a much slower speed due to terminal velocity and is therefore rendered less than lethal on impact (the Busted rating). However, if a bullet is fired at a lower angle allowing for a ballistic trajectory (a far more likely case), it will maintain its spin and will retain enough energy to be lethal on impact (the Plausible rating). Because of this potentiality, firing a gun into the air is illegal in most U.S. states, and even in the states where it is legal, it is not recommended by the police. Also the MythBusters were able to identify two people who had been injured by falling bullets (fired from approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) away, and hence at a lower angle), one of them fatally (the Confirmed rating). To date, this is the only myth to receive all three ratings at the same time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2006_season)#Episo...

Yes, it is dangerous, and totally breaks basic firearm safety rules.

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