The annual Fourth of July celebrations always bring out an annual concern. Raining bullets can mar an otherwise wonderful time for friends and family, officials said Thursday just before the holiday weekend.
Stray bullets have taken more than a few lives in South Florida.
Gun owners who have the need to go beyond the thrill of fireworks fire their pistols and rifles into the air but as police and fire rescue officials said to a group Thursday, “What goes up must come down.”
Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson holds an event to warn residents about the random gunfire. The message every year at the “One Bullet Kills the Party” press conferences is very simple.
“Let’s party down, lets barbeque, lets do whatever you do on the 4th of July, we can celebrate without firing guns and bullets up in the air," she said. "When a bullet goes up they are coming back down.”
Injuries from falling bullets are not uncommon in South Florida. In 2009, Velma Foster was attending a family get-together when she felt a burning sensation in her upper thigh. She had been shot.
Police said the culprit was shooting off a gun in a nearby park.
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Almost annually there are TV stories about near misses, lead raining down on picnics and back yard events. Often the crack of automatic weapons messes with the boom of fireworks.
“We do not want to bury any of our young people this weekend," Pastor Gaston Smith said. "We want to make sure we have a time of celebration, that we put down the guns.”
