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Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday November 20, 2012 @09:16PM (#4812438)
A bullet expends its kinetic energy via air friction. Unless it richochets off the drone, it'll fall harmlessly some miles away.
Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by AngryParsley on Tuesday November 20, 2012 @09:40PM (#4812501)
Only if the trajectory is almost vertical and the bullet is a small caliber. People get killed by celebratory gunfire all the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire
Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @10:20AM (#4814529)
Bullets fired at any verticle angle will fall 'ballistically' which is a fore-shortened sort-of-parabolic curve due to air friction. If the angle is large, then the fall is essentially at terminal velocity. A shot at a drone is likely to be at a large angle.

The reports of 'celebratory gunfire' deaths are all necessarily speculative - the angle of the shot is impossible to measure. We can resort to physics to get a better answer than that derived from headlines.

Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by asynchronous13 on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @02:29AM (#4813263)
Harmlessly? I know this is off topic, but....

A close friend of mine was killed by a stray bullet this year at a 4th of July celebration. She was in a crowd of thousands of people gathered to watch some local fireworks. The shooter was miles away and probably has no idea that they murdered someone.

http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2012/07/student_shot_...

Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by JoeAltmaier on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @10:14AM (#4814500)
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Re:San Diego Refuses To Answer FOIA Requests About Drones by notdrunkatall on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @03:46AM (#4813422)
How horrifyingly random.