WHILE SEATED

Last night, at 12:03am on New Year’s, I stepped outside and recorded a few seconds of audio. We live in a neighborhood where celebratory gunfire is the norm, and I wanted to see if it’d show-up in a low-res recording from my phone.

Click the image to hear the mp3. The image is the waveform pattern from the sound of a not too far-off (semi-automatic?) weapon. You’ll hear plenty of gunfire, plus firecrackers, M80-type explosions and heck all.

I’ve lived in cities and the country, and places in between, but I’ve never heard anything like the guns discharged in Atlanta on New Year’s Eve or July 4th. What goes up must come down, and three years ago, 4-year-old Marquel Peters was killed while sitting next to his mother in church in Atlanta by a bullet fired from an AK-47 in celebration.

It all reminds me of this video from years back of guys in Eastern Europe celebrating with their guns and mandolins. There’s a bazooka / bouzouki joke in there somewhere.

This year, Pastor Warnock at Ebenezer Baptist had good things to say about how NYE is “no time to grab your weapon”, and APD said anyone caught shooting their gun would be slapped with a misdemeanor and a fine. Ooooh, same thing happens if you jaywalk.

Nothing will change unless there’s a cultural shift around guns, and it’s enlightening to know that this year’s gunfire (post-Newtown) seemed more intense than ever. Gun sales are up, ammunition sales are up, and heck, nothing says having-a-good-time with your man-friends like projecting some hot lead into the sky.

Way to go, Atlantans! Keep it up — it’ll never come down, right?