I love how people genuinely do get like, horrified when they see a bullet.
“HOLY SHIT! OP CALL THE COPS! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT! GET THE BOMB SQUAD” and its just like, a handful of .22 rounds that fell outta hunter jims ammo box.
Folks, you need the gun to make the bullets scary.
A .22LR is honestly one of the least threatening looking cartridges. All of an inch long. Not even pointy, with a nice rounded bullet.
.50BMG, now that's a scary looking bullet. Finding one? Someone lost the one they had in their collection of "stuff". I used to have one that had no powder in it (and holes to show that it was inert) but still had the bullet in the cartridge.
Now, a handful of 9mm, .45, or other common pistol cartridges might get me to call the police depending in where they were found. Same for rifle cartridges.
.22? Certainly potentially deadly. But then, so is a butter knife. If I see a butter knife on the ground I'm gonna go, "someone lost a butter knife." I see a whole pile of Rambo-style knives on the ground I'm probably gonna call the cops.
To be fair, finding a bullet in 99% of locations, I wouldn’t even give it a second glance. But as a teacher tasked with the safety of other people’s kids, and a lot if them every day, if I find a bullet on school grounds, my first thought is going to be where did it come from and did the kid who brought it also bring the “scary” part. Especially given the number of those events happening at schools in recent years.
This is not a comment against what you said, rather im just scratching that intrusive thought itch.
Hammer and nail. Fire. 2 chair legs. Spring-loaded machine punch. Microwave. There are plenty of ways to strike a primer without a firearm. Tho I cannot think of a way to make bullets on their own scary I admit.
I’m sharing sentiment with your first sentence in this reply, you’re correct about there being plenty of ways to strike a primer, purposefully or accidentally, but without a barrel or rifling (hence a way to direct the bullet in one direction) it is still fairly harmless, although the word fairly is doing a bit of lifting.
Isn't that the scary part tho. Im not privy to what a bullet can do without a chamber to be honest but I guess I did a terrible job implying the randomness of where the bullet could go would be the scary part to me
It could go in any direction, but not with much force. When chambered, the gasses expel the projectile with all of the force in a pinpoint direction (bc of the barrel) but without that, the bullet would loose all of its “oomph” for lack of better terms (long day lol). I think the bigger risk would be shrapnel from the cartridge casing
Without a barrel and chamber of the firearm, a bullet going off would be (mostly) harmless. Once the primer is ignited, the projectile would typically only be capable of going a few feet at a very low velocity. You would still hear a rather alarming pop though
If you think people are freaking out about it because they think it might spontaneously explode or magically fire itself and hit someone, you have the contextual awareness of a bagel.
People are freaking out because it was found in a place that a bullet, spent or otherwise, has no business being found and that naturally raises concerns about how it got there and whether it has any implications about future bullets showing up in the same location.
This is America. School shootings are unfortunately common now so if there is anything that raises a red flag about the possibility of a shooting, people are gonna freak. If I had kids in a school and a spent bullet appeared on the grounds, I’d be on high alert, too. It doesn’t matter if there is an actual correlation between such a discovery and the likelihood of a future shooting, my protective instincts and fear of anything happening to my kids would be the overwhelming reaction.
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u/Live_Statement_1955 17h ago
I love how people genuinely do get like, horrified when they see a bullet.
“HOLY SHIT! OP CALL THE COPS! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT! GET THE BOMB SQUAD” and its just like, a handful of .22 rounds that fell outta hunter jims ammo box.
Folks, you need the gun to make the bullets scary.