No shots fired: Phoenix police remind people not to shoot into air on New Year’s

PHOENIX — Phoenix police are trying to end the potentially deadly New Year’s Eve tradition of firing a gun into the air at midnight.

“We are trying to get the word (out) on how dangerous it is,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Trent Crump said. “We are talking about what a lot of people construe to be celebratory gunfire and the fact of the matter is its illegal.”

Each year, there are reports of shots being fired into the air as the clock strikes midnight. It has led to injuries and deaths across the nation and there are laws, including Shannon’s Law in Arizona, banning celebratory gunfire.

Officers have been going door-to-door in neighborhoods that have reported New Year’s Eve gunfire in the past and are handing out flyers with information about the dangers of shooting a gun into the air.

“It is the old cliché about what goes up must come down and it has and it has proven to cause serious injury or death in some cases,” Crump said.

It is a felony to discharge a firearm into the air in Arizona and is punishable by more than five years in prison.

During the last year’s holiday, police received about 200 phone calls reporting gunfire.

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