What goes up, must come down.

Fla. Man Killed By Stray Bullet During New Year's Celebration
An elderly man was killed when a bullet from a high-powered rifle fell from the night sky and hit him in the chest, the result of the New Year's Eve practice of firing guns into the air, officials said.

Henry McDaniel, 75, was walking in a neighborhood near Orlando on Friday just before midnight when he collapsed in the street, witnesses and sheriff's officials said. He had been at a party celebrating the New Year with friends and had decided to visit another house.

Before he collapsed, McDaniel told friends who were standing with him near the street: "Boys, something hit me. Something hit me."

Doctors at Orlando Regional Medical Center later discovered the bullet, which struck his heart.

Officials blamed the death on a common but illegal practice by New Year's Eve revelers to shoot into the air, a tradition that is usually harmless, said Orange County sheriff's spokeswoman Crystal Candy.

"For some idiot to shoot a rifle into the air is crazy," said Dale Mayo, a friend of McDaniel who was at the party.

McDaniel, a Georgia native who moved to the Orlando area in 1951, was described by many neighbors as a father figure.

"You couldn't find a nicer guy," Mayo said. "He'd give you the shirt off his back."

There are far too many people that possess weapons with little to no regard for safety. Sure, at one point, everyone can take unsafe actions or be negligent. However, when handling a firearm you have to try and keep the four rules in your head at all time. Firing into the air is a clear violation of rule 4, Be Sure Of Your Target.
Fireworks, on the other hand, are generally considered safe, because what comes down after detonation usually isn't much more than paper scraps. However, this does not always hold true. When I was around eight, we lived in a small, relatively poor white part of the community. Ghettos are the same all over the world. So, yards were small, houses were small, people were packed tight onto small streets. Well, I had a small rocket left over from a bag of fireworks brought back from a Carolinas visit. One day in the summer, my mom and I decided to fire it off. Well, being young and cowardly, I fired it off and ran. It went high. Very high. Too high for that neighborhood. BOOOOOOOOOM! Too loud, much too loud. Run inside with mom. A day later, a friend from down the street brought me the remains. An almost intact rocket fell in their yard. If it would have hit them, it would have hurt. Put an eye out easily.
Just remember, what goes up, must come down. If you have no control going up, you will not have control going down. Safety.