Watch Out for Falling Bullets

Is it dangerous to fire a gun into the air?

By Brian PalmerPosted Wednesday, March 30, 2011, at 6:43 PM ET

How dangerous is it to fire a gun in the air?A crowd of Libyans fired guns in the air and chanted slogans in support of Muammar Qaddafi at a rally in the city of Sirte on Monday. Isn't it kind of dangerous to shoot bullets into the sky?

Yes ... well, probably ... maybe ... it kind of depends. The Explainer is far from being the first to ask this question. Everyone from the U.S. military to The Straight Dope's Cecil Adams has probed the lethality of falling bullets. That includes forensic scientists, cardio-thoracic surgeons, and the hosts of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters—which devoted nearly a whole episode to the matter. And yet, no one has been able to come up with a straightforward answer. The general consensus is that a bullet fired straight up—at precisely 90 degrees to the horizontal—is unlikely to kill a healthy adult when it returns to Earth. That's because, on the way down, air resistance prevents the bullet from returning to its initial velocity. The bullet would deliver a painful wallop but could only have a chance of killing you with a direct hit to the eye, ear, or mouth.

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Centre of Criminology Blog named a top 50 forensic science tech blog

Top 50 Blogs for Forensic Science Technicians

Forensic science includes a number of interesting parts from a variety of disciplines. In fact, in order to be a good forensic science technician, it can help to have a basic understanding of a few different areas of science, as well as a working knowledge of criminal justice policy and procedure. Here are 50 top blogs for forensic science technicians:

General Forensics Blogs

If you want a basic overview of forensics, these blogs can give you a great look at what the world is like when you are a forensic science technician.

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Report: Real-world police forensics don't resemble 'CSI'

By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The investigators on the hit CBS show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation make it look easy, but the science employed by real crime labs has "serious deficiencies," according to a federal report requested by Congress.

"CSI is television. This is reality," says Constantine Gatsonis of Brown University, co-chairman of the National Research Council team that crafted the report. Though judges allow prosecutors to present unreliable scientific evidence as "free from error," he says, "many forensic science disciplines have low or non-existent reliability standards."

Released Wednesday, the report calls for a "massive overhaul" of the science tools behind criminal convictions. In particular, the report finds:

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