What goes up...

Some ridiculous conversation topics can float around for ages before reaching a satisfying resolution. They persist long after you forget how they came up in the first place.

For the past few weeks, dinners with friends have included repeated references to bullets being fired into the air. Do they come down with the same force as they go up? What happens when they come down? Don't people get injured?

Unfortunately, the answers lay out of reach of a group of solicitors, accountants and one teacher, all from gun-scarce Sydney, who retained only hazy memories of high school physics.

But at dinner tonight, the circle widened to include someone originally from Pakistan's wild North-West Frontier.

Yes they do come down very fast. Yes they hit things. Yes, people can get killed. On occasions, bullets even enter windows on the return leg of their parabolic journeys. Perhaps as a result of such damage, the practice is increasingly frowned upon. When it occurs at weddings in Pakistan, the groom is often carried by the police as a reprimand.


Next topic?