Do You What Happens When Bullets are Fired Towards the Sky? See This

According to an article by the Guardian, Bullets are mostly fired into the air in scenarios where there is a need to scatter a gathered crowd.

Source: Google

To better explain the action and reaction of a bullet fired into the air and how it behaves, the popular saying that what goes up must surely come down best explains this phenomenon.

Once the trigger of a gun pointed upwards is pulled, the bullet travels in a straight path in the sky and reaches its terminal velocity (about 90 meters per second or more), and begins to fall back to the ground due to the force of gravity acting on it which opposes its upwards movement.

As the bullet falls to the ground, its speed is reduced and it travels downwards with the force of gravity(10 meters per second).

With this new speed, such a falling bullet cannot penetrate the skin of a person but can only cause bruises to such a person on impact.

Another factor to consider is the angle at which the bullet is fired.

A trained weapon handler like a military or paramilitary personnel has been educated that his gun must be pointed exactly 90 degrees upwards else such a bullet would have a parabolic path which can lead to its hitting someone at a particular distance along its path of travel as shown below.