Image used for representational purposes
Firing your gun in the air is perhaps not the best idea to usher in the new year. Gunfire on New Year Eve is also against the law in most of the US, and heads of emergency departments nationwide are again telling citizens against it, USA Today reported.
Celebratory gunfire can result in the death of 32 percent of individuals due to stray bullets (National Institutes of Health published a study).
San Antonio Police Department Chief William McManus also cautioned the residents in a video posted on social media early this month not to shoot the shots.
He said that innocent lives, including children, are injured or killed every year due to stray bullets.
Jorge Valdez-Mezza, one of the victims of gunfire during the celebratory occasion who took part in the public service announcement, said that he was outside in the local park and downtown enjoying the fireworks when he felt that something struck his elbow.
Valdez-Meza said he was shot on his elbow, which was good, because I might have been shot right through, so that I would have been dead or crippled.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz has also encouraged the residents to call the authorities in case they notice an individual firing something to the air during the holiday.
Do not think that someone will report it, she said.
Aurora, Illinois, police are trying to reduce the number of celebratory gunfire by applying ShotSpotter Gunfire Data and Alerts. The technology relies on sound sensors to call the attention of the police to geographic locations of gunshots.
The officers will also be deployed in places where instances of celebratory gun-fire were the greatest during the New Year Eve last year. The release of firearms will result in any individual being found illegally to be arrested, according to a news release issued by the Aurora Police Department through Facebook.
Officials in San Antonio, Texas answered 361 calls about celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Day 2023 and 304 on July 4, 2023. On July 4, USA Today reported an increase in the number of New Year’s Day calls of 338 and 287.
A 32-year-old female in Houston was shot in the leg by celebratory gunfire on New Year’s Day in 2025, and a 10-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet during New Year’s Day 2025 in Miami.
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