Anyone who wants to believe that firing any round into the ground is a safe place to shoot should go see a machinegun range. Specifically because the tracers allow one to see PART of what actually happens. At ANY range they impact the ground,they richochet ALL over the place!! Big MG's,mid-size MG's,small MG's, they all do the same thing. Richochet like crazy and the bullets go damn near everywhere. Letting a round go into the ground intentionally within a town,village or city is at best ill advised,and ignorant. At worst injurious or deadly. It ain't what you would LIKE to think, it is downright dangerous and ignorant. No warning shots. The scene presented so far does NOT give excuse for such an act.
The advisability of a warning shot is not in discussion here. What is in discussion is its status as a crime in the present context. Context is everything. While it might be a crime to step out your front door on the Fourth of July and fire rounds from your AR-15 willy nilly, it's not a crime if the purpose is reasonably directed at stopping a felon in the act, and reasonable care (considering the circumstances) was taken not to endanger innocent third parties in the process, and this regardless of whether you agree with the advisability of warning shots under any circumstances. Crime and advisability are two separate questions.
