By Rick Ector
Detroit, Michigan – -(Ammoland.com)- It is officially New Year’s Eve and citizens all over our great nation are gearing up to embrace the dawn of a brand new year.
Some are making plans to go out and be social at a bar while others are quite content to stay at home and watch “The Ball” drop in NYC’s Times Square on TV.
Regardless of the plans being made, there is a dangerous practice that will be performed tonight in cities from coast to coast that will unnecessarily place many in harm’s way – celebratory gunfire.
On this night in Detroit – and in other populous cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Baltimore, and others – you will typically hear the clarion calls by local public safety officials in the media urging their respective citizens to not “ring in” the new year with gunfire aimed at the sky. Personally, I also think that celebratory gunfire, at least in Detroit, is more of a liberty that some people take to make a dramatic announcement that their home is not safe to invade or burgle down the road than it is a celebration of a new year.
However, make no mistake about it, anyone who engages in the practice of celebratory gunfire is an idiot. The discharged bullets have to come down somewhere. As a child growing up in Detroit, I had often heard a popular idiom that drives home why celebratory gunfire is so perilous: “Bullets don’t have names on them.”
A stray slug may end someone’s life almost as soon as a new year is starting.
Thus, I implore all of you reading this article to not shoot your firearms at the sky in celebration of the upcoming year.
In all, be safe, be aware, and be armed.
Hopefully, I will see you all safely into 2015.
About The Author
Rick Ector is a National Rifle Association credentialed Firearms Trainer, who provides Michigan CCW Class training in Detroit for students at his firearms school – Rick’s Firearm Academy of Detroit.
Ector is a recognized expert in firearm safety, a gun rights keynote speaker, and has been featured extensively in the national and local media: Associated Press, NRAnews, Gun Digest, The Politics Daily, Fox News Detroit, The Detroit News, Lock-N-Load Radio, WGPR and the UrbanShooterPodcast.
If you really want this to be effective, you need to post this in Spanish.
its America learn to talk ourway
Nice article, Rick! Common sense advice–let us hope that folks have followed your suggestion sir!
Hard to believe this needed to be stated on Ammoland. I imagine the folks that really should read this do not even know this news source exists! Probably aren’t interested in firearm control and safety anyway. How could they be if they blindly shoot up the sky as a form of celebration?
I’ve always lived by the rule that ALL bullets have names scribed on them………..LAWYERS!! Be mindful of your target and what’s behind your target that also could be in jeopardy. Otherwise, one of them prosecution types may come knocking on your door (maybe CELL door)!
This > “Hard to believe this needed to be stated on Ammoland.” I agree. The author sounds like a condescending jerk.
Good sensible article. However, the dumb asses who don’t care, get drunk on New Years Eve, and are just plain deceitfully stupid, will not only endanger innocent bystanders, but likewise add more fuel to the socialist anti-gun agenda! I noticed revolver in photo appears to be a Smith and Wesson (K-Frame) Model 19 .357 Combat Magnum. As .357 Magnum revolvers can likewise chamber and fire .38 Special ammo, even a 148 grain lead target .38 Special wadcutter ,can carry a considerable distance, endangering people. And of course, a .357 Magnum can carry considerably farther than a .38 Special. It’s a… Read more »
This is for all of those people that just feel the need to celebrate in this fashion in the city or populated areas… Have you ever heard of BLANKS?… Find them and use them if you really need to do this in the cities and populated areas. Be safe.
I don’t know for absolutely sure but, I’m almost positive, discharge of a firearm is illegal PERIOD, within city limits. Regardless of whether they are blanks or not.