Roomie and Turk had gone out for their New Year's Eve shindig. I was curled up at home on the sofa with a book and nodded off peacefully probably sometime around 11PM...
...when I was awakened from my tranquil slumber at midnight, not only by the expected sounds of fireworks and the rattling noise of gunfire from the 'hood to the south, but also by some truly earth-shaking rumbles of thunder. Ma Nature apparently decided to join the noisemaking at the stroke of the New Year, and when you combined the rumble of thunder with the bang of the mortars and the rattle of the Lorcins, it sounded like a remarkably good war movie soundtrack. Good surround sound; I was impressed.
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Looks like visitors to your fair city were a tad surprised-
http://sailorcurt.blogspot.com/2011/01/bringing-in-new-year-with-bang.html
HNY!
The bozos across the interstate from our house (35 miles West of Mordor) lit up the sky at Midnight with various small arms. It was amusing to parse them out - one guy clearly had a revolver and 2 speedloaders, 6 quick, regular shots, a reload pause, 6 more at the same interval, pause, 6 more at the same interval, and then he was handloading and the pauses were long and variable. But he always maintained the rate of fire once he topped up. Reminded me of the old joke, "How do you reload a revolver? First, disassemble the revolver..."
The strangest one was what I would swear was a Garand, sounded right, and 8 shot patterns. But the absolute atypical rifle for that particular crowd. Latin Kings just don't go for C&R rifles.
It's been a problem here in Arizona. But the gov't refuses to address the cultural meme from the Latino community that feeds it. Except Glendale, who made a concerted effort to both educate those neighborhoods and advise same of serious consequences of such behavior. They already have
triangulating microphones and community finks in position. As to my neighborhood (not in Glendale) sounded like fireworks, only. And, my house has bullet holes as evidence of past years!
And, I have heard full-auto use!
Same here in Murderapolis, Minnesnowta. At 12:02 (by my clock...okay, I'm two minutes fast) the barrage began, starting with really-small-arms fire to the northeast, followed by some banging-and-booming from straight east. Not too many rounds, and no full-auto. And it was apparently too durned cold-and-windy for 'em to last more than a single magazine or tube's worth.
I used to think that this was a side-effect of banning fireworks...that people wanted to make noise for the New Year, and this was their next-best way.
When we were kids we used to go out with pots, pans and spoons and bang away, yelling "Happy New Year" at the top of our little lungs. I supervised the young-uns in such an endeavor several years ago...only to hurry them inside my sister's house once the shooting began from other neighborhoods. Ah, good times.
Beats me what all was actually going off, but you should have gotten the effect I did when I took an Ambien (which makes me hallucinate if I don't immediately drop off) right before the cocaine party in the hotel room catty-corner from us acquired a megaphone.
Lived on the East Cleveland shore of lake Erie, in one of two high rises that half-faced each other and the the Lake. New Years Eve, 1975: the opposing building's balconies, across the intervening parking lot, were in full fire fight mode, shooting out across the Lake. Really impressive to see twelve stories of eight balconies each, blazing off firearms into the near-Arctic night. As noted above, most everything from pop-pop-pop's to some good sized blammo handguns.
I was inconvenienced in properly joining in, not having fully unpacked from a hunting trip, but managed to empty a couple magazine-tubes of 12ga slugs out over the dark waters.
It was a most agreeable bit of somewhat safe firearms anarchy. Never did it before, nor since, not ever having had another uninhabited lake-sized range fan available.
'polit' --yup..lots'uv 'em
I have a particular aversion to the indiscriminate firing of guns in a densely populated area by drunken idiots.
A few years back I was patrolling one of the local "hoods" when the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, immediately followed by all manner of fireworks and small arms fire. My patrol car was actually struck by shotgun pellets, causing me to call for reinforcements. We made some arrests for "Illegal Discharge" most of which were also accompanied by "Convicted Felon in Possesion of a Firearm" and "Knowingly Possessing Stolen Property" charges. It seems the gangbangers just couldn't resist stepping outside and capping off a few from their illegally possessed stolen guns even with the popo right there in the street. (I'm still not sure if my car was hit intentionally or not...)
I mind a time a few years ago when the change of the year occurred, and I decided to celebrate it by making loud noises. There was a stack of sodden-wet newspapers in the back yard, so, not being a Mexican and thus being careful of other folks's safety, I emptied the cylinder *downwards* into the stack of soaking-wet paper.
If you are a law-enforcement person, please believe that everything I wrote just above is fiction.
P.s. I later recovered one of the bullets. It was about an inch deep in the ground, after having passed through about 16 inches of soaking-wet newsprint. It was from a low-velocity Cowboy-Action-SASS round, but penetrated right well.
.45 Colt is the definite Marlboro, or Cowboy-Killer.
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