Firearms, knives, police and fellons

[MMI]

OK - I accept it is reckless to fire a gun into the air, and that a person should pay the consequences for whatever reasonably foreseeable harm results from shooting into the sky. I confess I am utterly ignorant about guns and their handling. I can see that it is quite possible that injury or death might result from firing over the heads of rioters (rather than upwards). But is it a reasonably foreseeable consequence that someone three kilometres away and at right angles to the line of fire is going to be hit by a bullet shot into the sky? Wouldn't the shooter be more concerned by those directly underneath the point in the sky the shot was pointed towards?

Is your postion different where the victim is within normal range, or where, due to the weather and/or other physical conditions the bullet is carried far beyond its normal range.

Again, the question is whether or not the firearm was discharged in a reasonably safe manner following legal guidelines. Under any conditions, firing one's weapon into the air is unsafe.

I have accepted that firing into the air is unsafe and potentially culpable. However, are you saying that, because I have fired it, I must accept the consequences even if the death could not have resulted but for the effect of additional factors. Let us imagine that I fire tha gun into the air where conditions are apparently normal for the location. However, higher in the atmosphere, winds are unusually strong. In ascending, the bullet I have fired is deflected from the vertical to some extent, and in descending the bullet, its power spent, is deflected a bit more. Just as it is about to hit the ground, the victim moves into its path and is killed by the energy the bullet has gathered in its fall. Now I, as the shooter, must be aware that some "drift" will occur, but where the bullet lands far beyond the normal range of "drift", can I not defend myself by saying that, but for the effect of the strong winds at altitude and the extra energy gathered by the falling bullet, the death could not have occurred? Perhaps there is a mathematician here who could calculate the area around the point of firing within which it would be reasonable to expect the bullet to land.

Otherwise, you seem to be saying that, even if the bullet was carried by freak winds to Australia and killed someone there, I would be wholly responsible.

(I suppose I should state that I am assuming that for a person to be killed by a bullet 3 km from the shooter is an extraordinary occurrence and beyond the gun's normal range.)