Detroit leaders urge an end to celebratory New Year's Eve gunfire

[begingri]

By Darrell Dawsey

Guns don't kill people. Morons who randomly fire bullets from guns -- even when the bullets are shot up into the air -- kill people.

So it is that Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee and other city leaders are asking local gun owners to not be morons this New Year's Eve and hold off on the celebratory gunfire.

Dec. 30, Detroit Free Press: Members of the Neighborhood Service Organization's Youth Initiatives Project, joined by Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. and Detroit City Councilman James Tate, kicked off the sixth annual Hugs, Not Bullets campaign Wednesday.

The message: What goes up must come down, so a bullet shot into the air could injure or kill someone.

"We have to provide a better quality of life for our children," Tate said, cautioning any revelers thinking of firing a gun to ring in the new year. "You could end up being a murderer."

Excellent message, to be sure, but one that's certain to be lost on those who still argue that "falling bullets" aren't lethal. [[That myth has long been debunked.) And it's a message that's also almost guaranteed to be dismissed by the thousands in Detroit and its suburbs who are delusional enough to think of a gun as anything other than a tool of destruction.

Detroiters who remember the tragedy that befell Sandra Latham should know better, though. Latham was a grandmother who was killed while sitting in her home on New Year's Day 1997 when she was struck by a stray bullet fired during "celebratory" shooting. Her death sparked another initiative, the "Ring In The New Year With A Bell" campaign, that has also tried to quell gunfire around the city early on Jan. 1. Latham's daughter, Charlotte Jackson Bell, is among those involved with the campaign.

Personally, I've never understood the need to shoot up the late-night sky on Dec. 31. I've owned guns for years, some big-ass calibers, too. But I've always believed that you fire a gun for one of two reasons: to practice and to kill. In either case, you should have every intention on destroying anything in your bullets' path. In either case, you're not messing around.

This doesn't really jibe with my take on the New Year holiday, which I see as a moment to look ahead, to think about life and how and what it is I want to get done. Of course, that's just me. I don't really care if anyone else shares my maudlin take on New Year.

Like Godbee and the rest, I'd rather we could just agree on the seriousness of these guns.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...end_to_ce.html

[MikeM]

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showpos...6&postcount=30

[1KielsonDrive]

Screw all of you, I'm shooting my AK and 10m all night long. I may even set up my 50 cal for a couple hunnerd rounds. How much more fun can you have than shooting your guns? Especially on NYE when there are so many pedestrians and celebrants around?

[Johnnny5]

Maybe they should have requested a "Shotguns only" policy instead.

[Detroitnerd]

So, we can bomb wedding parties from drones in other countries, but can't pop off a few rounds here in good fun? Sheesh ...

[Lowell]

Good luck with that request chief.

My fantasy has been to lease a 155 mm howitzer and fire off a couple of rounds.... just to stop the gunfire and hear it replaced by a murmur of "WTF???"

[Detroitnerd]

I had an idea for a bar called "The Howitzer." You set your bar up next to one of Bing's "Dead Zones" -- which is all fenced off -- and any patron can fire a giant howitzer into the Dead Zone for $3,000. I love the idea of the remaining residents being woken up at night to another rich bastard blowing a few large.

[daddeeo]

Detroit-the city of Neanderthals.

[RYANGUARD]

I remember my father going out at midnight on new years to fire off a couple of .12 gauge rounds but I also remember hearing shotgun pellets raining down and realizing that it wasn't such a great idea to be out there with everything being fired into the air.What goes up must come down....

[Johnnny5]

I remember my father going out at midnight on new years to fire off a couple of .12 gauge rounds but I also remember hearing shotgun pellets raining down and realizing that it wasn't such a great idea to be out there with everything being fired into the air.What goes up must come down....

I've been rained on by 12G bird shot dozens of times while duck hunting. Traveling back down by the force of gravity alone it'll dent the hood on a car, but doesn't pose any threat to bystanders. [[Unless they're looking up with eyes open.. )

[roblinn]

does anyone know why city leaders abandoned the "bells, not guns" effort in favor of the "hugs, not guns" plan?

[Lowell]

Detroit-the city of Neanderthals.

We should be so lucky.

One of the bigger science stories this year was the completion of the DNA sequencing of the Neanderthal genome. It turns out that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals hooked up and we are 1 - 1.5% Neanderthal with Europeans have the highest amount.

Using the term Neanderthal as a derogatory term is baseless. They buried their dead with care and had larger brains than Homo Sapiens and, as far as I know, did not set up death camps for those of their own species.

[Jimaz]

The Darwin Awards

[1KielsonDrive]

So, we can bomb wedding parties from drones in other countries, but can't pop off a few rounds here in good fun? Sheesh ...

What are you, some kind of pinko, commie? You must hate your country.

[1KielsonDrive]

Good luck with that request chief.

My fantasy has been to lease a 155 mm howitzer and fire off a couple of rounds.... just to stop the gunfire and hear it replaced by a murmur of "WTF???"

C'mon up to Camp Grayling during the summer.

[1KielsonDrive]

No Man's Land - Camp Grayling.

[milesdriven]

The NRA should give out free blanks the week before NYE, then everyone can blow off hundreds of rounds without anyone getting hurt.

[Danny]

Basically there is nothing we can do to stop the deadly tradition of shooting weapons on New Year's Night unless we have community patrol in every last Detroit ghettohoods and arrest the preps. Community patrol is not going to happen because lots of people are going out in New Years Eve.

[Ray1936]

Been that way for decades. I remember back when the DPD had helicopters. Their crews grounded the aircraft for three hours before and after midnight.

Now I live in a 55+ community on the outskirts of Las Vegas. All I hear at midnight is snoring. 'S okay with me.

[Downriviera]

I'll be blasting away with my Johnny Seven.

Attachment 8208

[Whitehouse]

This is what we do with a few blocks of Calcium Carbide. These bangs a quite loud!!

Here's footage of a Carbide gatling.


This is a home made 3300liter [[about 750 gallon) cannon!! And yes, that's even illegal in the Netherlands. But what a bang!!



Two years later there were two. And indeed, the Netherlands also has it's own hillbillies.



Seems like a weapons race. A village up ahead made an even bigger one. Would you believe it; 1000Gallons!!

[Eastside]

This guy is an eastsider...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ2vrrFkgV4

[evergreen]

must come down. I had a guy look at my roof a couple of years ago. He found two bullets in the roof. He said that was not uncommon in Detroit; he found bullets in a slight majority of the roofs he worked on in the city. Somehow they don't usually cause leaks, but occasionally they do and given the weather in January, this can be quite a problem.

It's a rural southern custom which over time has acquired a sort of gangsterish overtone especially when people fire automatics. I feel sorriest for the kids, who get acclimated to the sounds of a war zone.

What a way to start the new year.

[jtf1972]

Just once I want to hear the story about how some guy shot straight up & got hit with one of his own bullets. Not killed, [[I'm not that sick!) but just hit maybe in the shoulder. Have a rare gun or something that would make it obvious that he fired the shot. Maybe a few idiots would see the story and not be complete damn morons at midnight.

[ggores]

Heh heh. I spent 1 minute too long trying to come up with a witty reply. Here is the best I could do:

Oh, and Happy New Year ya'll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LdJrpGGr-I