Comments on: And I Thought The Rattlesnakes Were Scary

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:23:16 +0000

How horrific. I’m so sorry to hear that, but I’m so glad that no one was hurt!! I hope it was just a stupid, random act by some crazy drunkards and that it never happens again to you guys. Take good care.

By: Kevin M

Kevin M — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:57:16 +0000

For what it’s worth, two things:

First, as Rusty notes, this is a big problem at certain holidays, where thoughtless fucktards think you make your own fireworks shooting bullets into the sky. In any city with guns, this is an issue at July4th, New Years, and any other time you’d see fireworks. Several years ago, a young lady was killed in New Orleans by a falling bullet which struck her on the head.

The second point is that it probably wasn’t aimed at you. There’s a researcher at Stanford who’s done some work in this area; he cited a case where a woman in Menlo Park was struck with a falling bullet (recovered). They were able to trace the gun ballistically and determined it was fired from a distance of 1.5 miles at a July 4th party. Given how hard it is to predict where the bullet would come down, I doubt they were aiming for you at all.

And given how wide a range a random bullet fired into the air might travel, I think Becky’s right, the chances of something like that happening again are remote, unless of course you have people in the neighborhood routinely firing guns into the air.

By: Rusty McD

Rusty McD — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:46:17 +0000

I had one of those stuck in my backyard picnic table after one of our shoot ‘em up holidays. July 4th most likely, I felt pretty bummed out about going outside at night. The fireworks holidays, forget it, I am in the house for sure during these “festivities”.

By: Margaret Dillard

Margaret Dillard — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:45:01 +0000

This hits home for me. Last September my son, Thomas and I decided to go to Sierra Vista on a Saturday for no particular reason. One of those spur-of-the-moment decisions that was an attempt to connect to teenage offspring. It was fun! We through nonsense banter and sang to tunes on the radio.
Out of nowhere an explosion (or so I thought). A weightless, noiseless period followed. I entertained the thought that I was dead… then we hit the ground. Thomas had disappeared and the passenger window was gone, too! I couldn’t bear the thought of living without him.
The car that hit us ran a red light at 45mph. Thomas was tranported to the back seat and our van was upsidedown and headed in the opposite direction.
We escaped with minimal injuries. Thomas had a burn on his cheek from the seatbelt that had failed. Had he stayed in his seat, he would have most assuredly sustained a head injury. The van roof was caved on that side.
Since then, it is sometimes terrifying to drive. I still haven’t replaced my van and it’s really hard to let Thomas go to Prom!
The world is a scary place.

By: Cobban

Cobban — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:04:25 +0000

Ha ha Becky! I was trying to figure out how to incorporate that exact scene into this post but I went off into another direction. It’s true, the chances of a random stray bullet crashing through my roof are very, very slim…I hope…

By: Becky Reyes

Becky Reyes — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:20:13 +0000

Did you ever see The World According to Garp? There’s a scene (I’m sorry, I never read the novel) where a plane crashes into the house they are viewing to possibly buy. After the plane crashes, Garp says, “We’ll take it”. Don’tcha see? The worst that could possibly happen has happened. The law of averages indicates that the chances of anything terrible happening again are very slim!

Feel safe, my friend.