<p>You've heard the story before: Some moron fires a gun in the air to celebrate New Year's, and the bullet comes down and kills a bystander.</p><p>Some call the story an urban myth, but physics experts say it is possible for such a sky shot to descend with the necessary terminal velocity.</p><p>The latest anecdote of such a death occurred Monday in Mableton, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. Just after midnight, a group of people outside a home fired guns to celebrate 2007. A bullet hit a 52-year-old man in the back, and he died later that morning.</p><p>Police are still investigating the death of Charles Duncan, and have not said whether the shot dropped from the sky or came at a more direct angle.</p><p>But press reports warned of the dangers of firing guns into the air like fireworks, and recalled past bullets-from-the-sky horror stories. Among them: A New Year's Eve incident two years ago, in which an 18-year-old woman attending a college bowl game was injured by a bullet which apparently came through the roof of the Georgia Dome after being fired into the air.</p><p>Some physics professors say it is theoretically possible to be killed by a celebratory shot in the air.</p><p>A bullet fired from a handgun can fly at about 1,000 feet per second. Such a shot, fired into the air, would reach a height of approximately 3,100 feet before gravity and air resistance would cause it to stop climbing, according to a calculation made by Dr. Unil Perera, a physics professor at Georgia State University.</p><p>For a moment, it would hang in the air before beginning to fall to the earth. The round trip would take about 30 seconds.</p><p>If there were no air or wind to deal with, the bullet would stay up in the air longer, and could theoretically return to earth at the same speed it was first fired. But because of air resistance and atmospheric conditions, the descent is slowed, several physics professors said.</p><p>What ends up happening: The bullet returns to the earth at a velocity of about 200 feet per second, or perhaps even faster, according to physics and forensics experts.</p><p>An average-sized bullet must travel about 200 feet per second to penetrate skin and potentially kill someone, said Dr. Vincent Di Maio, the recently retired chief medical examiner of Bexar County, Texas.</p><p>The amount of damage a falling shot causes depends on what part of the body it hits and what kind of victim ether you're wearing clothing, Di Maio said.</p><p>Some are skeptical that a bullet shot straight in the air can kill someone. "That's a myth," said Ronald Scott, a Phoenix-based consultant on firearms and ballistics.</p><p>But Di Maio said he has handled three or four such deaths. Rifle shots fired at an angle are the most deadly, because they start with greater velocity and retain some of it as they arch rather than climb straight up.</p><p>"You can stand at one side of Atlanta and fire a rifle at an angle and it will come down on the other side and kill someone," he said.</p><p>Some physics experts estimated the speed of a falling bullet at 300 feet per second or faster. "Quite lethal," said David Finkelstein, a Georgia Tech professor emeritus of physics, in an e-mail response to a reporter's questions.</p><p>Shot straight up, could a bullet return to the same spot _ in the Mableton case, could it fall back into the same party from which it was shot? Again, it's possible, physics experts said.</p><p>Where a bullet lands depends on the angle at which it was first fired and on conditions like the wind and weather.</p><p>The earth rotates while the bullet is in the air, but only slightly. "It's a trivial effect" that won't move the shooting site out from under a bullet that goes straight up, said Lou Bloomfield, a University of Virginia physics professor.</p><p>Bloomfield said a distant cousin of his was killed several years ago during Mardi Gras when a falling bullet pierced her brain.</p><p>If you're at a party in which people begin shooting in the air, it's a good idea to go indoors. Even one layer of lumber should slow a falling bullet from fatal speed, Bloomfield said.</p><p>In the Mableton death, 17-year-old Bruce Martin Jr. was charged with involuntary manslaughter, tampering with evidence and obstruction of law enforcement.</p><p>Five others at the party were charged with giving false statements, tampering with evidence and obstruction of law enforcement.</p><p>The suspects initially told police Duncan was the victim of a drive-by shooting, but police concluded that was a lie.</p><p>Police are not saying at what angles the fired guns were pointed. But it sounds like a fatal shot to the back would probably be more horizontal, Di Maio said.</p>
