Once again, police remind Tampa's dumbest residents not to fire guns into the air on July 4th

It's that time of year again, when local law enforcement needs to ask Tampa's biggest dipshits not to pop off a few rounds into the sky during Fourth of July celebrations.

Thanks to 20-plus years of Republican control, Florida is flush with untrained morons with firearms, so it makes sense that yesterday the Tampa Police Department (TPD) felt compelled to share a  public service announcement video across social media, pleading with locals to not commit manslaughter this weekend.

"We want to remind you that celebratory gun fire is not permitted," said an officer in the video. "What goes up must come down...bullets can reach as high as 9,000 feet, and you don't know where they're gonna land. So while we're keeping you safe, do your part and keep bullets out of the sky."

Gun fire during the Fourth of July is a real concern in Tampa.

Last year on July 4th, a 7-year-old boy was shot and killed near Ben T. Davis Beach over a jet ski fight. In 2020, a woman was arrested in Citrus County on Independence Day after she fired her gun into the air and it hit a child.  Also, in 2018, a man was shot in the shoulder from a stray bullet on July 4th while walking around in Busch Gardens.

At this point, TPD asking residents to have common sense gun restraint has become sort of an annual tradition.

 In a 2018 social media post , the department issued a similar request, and included some relevant statistics: "A single bullet fired into the air can come back at speeds up to 300 feet per second." (According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a bullet traveling that fast can penetrate the human skull.) That bullet can cause "injury or even death anywhere within a 2-mile radius of the shot."
Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.

Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter