If a shot is fired in the air, can it come through the roof and kill you?

Its completely possible, its not like a bullet from a handgun could travel all the way to space, and gravity has to take its toll, so yes, if someone coincidentally walked under it, it would kill them. D:

When the bullet starts to come down it will at most be moving at its terminal velocity under the foce of gravity. that could be enough to ill you it nothing slowed it down. However, if it hit a roof and came through, ….. it it is not likely to have enough velocity to subsequently get though the ceiling of the room that you are in, so the bullet is not likely to even reach an occupant of the house.

I think that, at least for an ordinary handgun bullet the answer to your question is a definite NO.

– Best wishes - Majikthise.

Yes, absolutely. There have been many deaths caused by people shooting their guns into the air. The bullet has to come back down and its coming down at a fast speed and can be deadly. In fact, because of the deaths being caused by this tradition on new years, most states no have laws against firing guns into the air.

Can you cite an example where a bullet that was first shot upwards and then came down again, then passed through a roof and killed someone. I suspect that you cannot find any such evidence

– Majikthise.

i was going to post the very same thing, if you remain outside while the bullet is coming down- death is very possible, however- IF SOMEONE IS WITHIN A STRUCTURE (SUCH AS A HOUSE)- THE BULLET WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PENETRATE. so i totally agree with you majikthise- NO- TO THE BULLET COMING THROUGH THE CEILING.

This was checked out on Mythbusters, and is both true AND (or?) false.

If the bullet is fired DIRECTLY up (hard to do), it will loose velocity due to the directly opposing pull of gravity and thus its spin; and therefore will start to tumble, and the resulting velocity as it falls will be less than fatal (but still will HURT - ouch).

IF it is fired at an angle, however, it will not lose its spin and will maintain a potentially fatal velocity

But a roof would stop it.

Wow, well I guess we better go inside @ 12 because we’re in the n side of Houston & everybody shoots off their automatics & shotguns @ 12, wish I knew this before, thanks everybody.

Ok, but what if it was fired at an angle with the bullet coming through the wall?

Yea, that’s what my brother was just explaining to me, he saw that episode.

Armour piercing rifles can pass through a tank and kill the occupants ! …..

….. but you are now changing the criteria so it becomes a totally different question.

You now need to say something about the type of gun and bullet, type of wall, range and angle of incidence, in order to give any sort of meaningful answer.

Yea, I see, srry.