comment: >
  
  The trick is to shoot a bullet straight up, and then when the bullet is about 25% to its max height, shoot another bullet straight up at it to give the first bullet power. Continue to shoot bullets straight up at the power boost bullets until the very first bullet has received enough power to hit its target.
  duh
context: Well first you have to float up next to it with your own balloon and lawn chair… >
  
  Hold my beer…… >
  
  Your lawn chair has a beer holder, Uncle Bill! >
  
  That's for whisky. >
  
  The hooker from last night? >
  
  Whatchu call me?! >
  
  r/beetlejuicing >
  
  r/lawnchairballoon >
  
  Funniest line / most realistic part from Independence Day: a quick pan across a TV newscast announcing "Police are once again asking residents not to shoot at the alien aircraft." >
  
  if I recall the graphic was a hand gun too. Like that's gonna make it up there. >
  
  A 9mm is probably going to shoot at a maximum of around 4000 feet.  A far cry of the height here.  As well a hand gun's bullets are a bit less stable than a rifle and that roughly 4000 is a perfect system weight / energy calculation.  Probably not over 1500 feet altitude with instability and angle being much less than 90 degrees. >
  
  I enjoy that I mentioned ID and you gave us physics education to class up my 27-year-old reference. Thank you! 😁 >
  
  "Authorities are asking Los Angelinos to not shoot at the alien space craft" >
  
  “For they may inadvertently start an intergalactic war.” >
  
  We're not hosting an intergalactic keger either. >
  
  . . . Zed >
  
  
  Who's Zed?
  
  Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead. >
  
  It’s not a motorcycle baby, it’s a chopper >
  
  I had to crash that Honda baby, now will you please come on? >
  
  It's eleven (corrected) miles away. You're not going to hit it. 
  Even if you do, it will be months before it actually has a noticeable effect. 
  I was a blimp mechanic. We had to do bullet inspections every so often, when the lift calculations showed that our helium purity was dropping. Because of the very low pressures that kept the blimp inflated (about 1 inch of water pressure), it literally took weeks before enough helium leaked out for us to even notice a pencil-sized hole in a blimp the size of a barn. 
  And that's for a blimp at an altitude of 1000 feet, not 60,000 feet. >
  
  Finally someone who knows what they are talking about.
  We'll need thousands of people shooting at it, with the smaller bullets pushing the bigger bullets, to bring this thing down. >
  
  F-22 unclass service ceiling is 65,000 - We could have dropped this with an AMRAAM days ago if it really mattered.
  Alas, the nation has a slight problem with education and while a small portion of gun owners are VERY knowledgeable about ballistics - most people have no clue. >
  
  It doesn't help that right wing failed candidates are posting pictures on Twitter suggesting they're going to take out the balloon with a shotgun. Their indoctrinated followers with terminally low critical thinking skills see that and think "well if she's doing it too, it's my time to shine!" >
  
  Mitt Romney was talking shit about the balloon yesterday and he's supposed to be one of the sane ones >
  
  Hate to break it to you but there's no such thing as a "sane one" >
  
  He's a vulture venture capitalist but he doesn't like the whole dictatorship Trump deal. >
  
  He's fine with Republican dictatorship.  He just doesn't want it to be so crass and uncouth. >
  
  He wants an oligarchy not a dictatorship >
  
  yeah, much better to have like 15 capitalist overlords who are competent at oppressing people than one dolt grifter who gets puppeteered by whoever /s >
  
  Just shoot unparabolically >
  
  I think That might be impossible. Even if you shoot straight up. It will still make a very acute parabolic arc >
  
  Then why is the phrasing “if it comes down parabolically?” >
  
  It's like 65,000 feet in the air. There are no guns that can shoot that down from the ground. But I imagine there's a few rednecks with Anti air cannons in montana >
  
  There are only a handful of dedicated anti-aircraft weapons that can fire that high from the ground and most if not all of them are missiles. Even what is probably the most famous ant-aircraft gun the German 88 only had a ceiling of about 30-35k feet. So, even the rednecks with anti-air cannons are probably out of luck. >
  
  I mean, the 88 was pretty weak by today's standards for high calibre guns.
  The Rheinmetall 120 mm smoothbore gun for example has about 4-5x the muzzle energy of the 88 flak. The 88 fired a 9.2 kg projectile at 840 m/s muzzle velocity, the DM63 is a bit over 8 kg at about 1750 m/s and a far more aerodynamic arrow-shaped projectile.
  If we really really wanted to shoot at it with a cannon, we could probably reach the altitude. >
  
  Ah yes, I knew it was my time.
  Give me a minute to pull off the covers on my recreational Rh120 L/44 firing military surplus APFSDS and point it straight up.
  What could possibly go wrong. >
  
  Wasn’t there a Canadian guy who helped Saddam Hussein build some ridiculous artillery that would’ve reached way higher, at its apsis? >
  
  Yes, Project Babylon led by Canadian Gerald Bull. The supergun Big Babylon would of had a bore of ~1m and could theoretically shoot projectiles into orbit but it was never built. >
  
  if you tried to shoot an object into orbit directly it would follow an orbit that intersects the point where you fired it from, so whatever you shoot needs to have its own engine and survive the firing process, which they never even started doing
  the entire project was totally absurd, they were decades and billions of dollars away from even a serious test firing
  the canadian guy is hilarious though, he spent half of the 60s working on a much better funded version for the US, then got assassinated, probably by Mossad, because he was trying to build one for Saddam. This guys only loyalty was to the space guns. >
  
  
  This guys only loyalty was to the space guns.
  
  Wernher von Braun energy for sure. >
  
  That’s a very repetitive article. They repeat the same information in the article. The information is stated multiple times in different ways in this article. >
  
  I’d award this comment if I had one to give. At the moment I have no award. If I did I’d award this. >
  
  Thank you. Thanks. Screw you. >
  
  Random people killed or maimed by random bullets, coming soon to an area near you. >
  
  You will totally see a story of their defense trying to do what guvment wont >
  
  Why not use the Jewish space laser? >
  
  Um, it’s the Sabbath >
  
  Fine, we’ll use the Hindu space laser >
  
  Um, it's Thaipusam?
  In Japan... >
  
  Japan Space Lasers are for Kaiju only. >
  
  Surely they have a Gundam we can borrow? >
  
  Just drop a colony on it >
  
  Gipsy Danger reporting for duty >
  
  They’re trying to shoot it? What do they think it is, a hurricane? >
  
  Oh, great. Now we're going to have  Fox mulling over whether a nuke would be practical. >
  
  The effective range of an AR-15 is 600 yards or 1800 ft. The balloon is 60,000 feet. If my math is cOrrect, grandpas old 12g lever action oughta git it >
  
  Wait till Cletus there brings out his medicinal FIM-92 Stinger, that'll show 'em. >
  
  
  FIM-92 Stinger has an operating ceiling of 11,500 ft (3500 M). Cletus is going to have to bring out his surplus MIM-23 Hawk if he needs to hit 60,000 ft. >
  
  Just looked it up and oh my if it ain't some Tony Stark shit. The price is also Tony Stark level ($15M for the launcher and then 250k for each missile, probably in 1995 dollars). >
  
  I'll let you in on a little something they won't tell ya. Don't waste money on the launcher, get one of those long reach BBQ lighters and a pair of safety glasses. >
  
  Eh, the good ol’ safety squints should do the trick. >
  
  I remember when my dad was explaining to me to always use safety glasses then said “But if you don’t have any here’s what you do…” >
  
  It’s at 60,000 feet, how the fuck do people think they’re hitting that? >
  
  I bet there's at least one farmer fueling up his crop duster right now so he can get closer to the balloon. >
  
  And godspeed to him >
  
  "HELLO BOYS! I'M BAAAAAACK!" >
  
  This thread was really just tailor made for people to share Independence Day quotes. >
  
  First off, how the fuck can they even see it? Second off, The thing is at 60,000 feet, Chris fucking Kyle couldn’t hit it with the best rifle available. >
  
  You don't have to be able to see it to shoot in its general direction (up).
  Checkmate atheists. >
  
  Atheists got real quiet after this post. >
  
  They've been stockpiling guns and camo baseball caps for years for this, and now it's begun you want them to refrain?? >
  
  If it weren't so frigging dangerous to others, go ahead and waste $50 worth of ammo on a pointless endeavor. >
  
  As a non-American, how many bullets does 50 bucks get you? >
  
  Somewhere in the range of .25 cents to a $1/round. >
  
  You're getting hosed. Who's your bullet guy? I know a dude who works demolition at the old K-Mart on MLK that can get you half off that price point. >
  
  I have cash. Who’s your plug? >
  
  That’s real life story how I got out of front end cashiering and took the job as firearm salesman at Walmart, the previous guy stole ammo and sold it. 
  I guess he works at k mart now, at least he’s true to the game if not 100% honest. >
  
  I once stumbled across a Walmart that had American Eagle .223 marked down to around $0.12 per round. My cart was heavy that day. >
  
  I'm sad that Walmart doesn't sell ammo anymore. They always had decent prices, and they didn't fluctuate daily like the damn stock market. >
  
  I used to laugh at people that would stockpile tens of thousands of rounds or more. I’d always swing by a Walmart before a range trip and load up what I think I’d need for the day. NOW I understand and regret the good times. >
  
  This balloon is gonna get people killed from stray bullet fire. >
  
  Guns don't kill people, shooting at Chinese balloons does. >
  
  Correction, MISSING Chinese Balloons. Can't kill anyone if you got it. >
  
  This is why I'm always pushing for more STEM in the classroom. We should be shooting fricking laser beams at that thing not bullets. >
  
  Pretty sure laser beams diffuse too much over that distance and atmosphere to be useful for damaging it, last I knew. >
  
  That's a good point, but I think it really depends on how high you can throw the shark. >
  
  Just strap the laser to the Fonz instead >
  
  No matter how high you throw the shark, the Fonz will get just a tiny bit higher. >
  
  What if the Fonz keep throwing sharks? >
  
  
  "And finally, please don't take pot shots at it with your handguns in an attempt to bring it down on your own,"
  
  "Get the rifles!! '' - guys named Bubba everywhere >
  
  So this was the CCP plan all along. Fly a white and super reflective "spy" balloon up in the air, make it float over US, everybody lose their mind and die from stray bullets.
  Genius. >
  
  Yeah...if you think you're going to hit something 12 miles up with your nine, you need to put down the weapon, and not pick it up again until you've read the manual. If you're the kind of person that's going to aimlessly fire rounds into the air, you need to put down the weapon and just leave it there. >
  
  
  If you're the kind of person that's going to aimlessly fire rounds into the air, you need to put down the weapon and just leave it there.
  
  Word of reason there.  
  I was thinking they probably like having something to shoot at beyond the standard but in the end, whatever they shoot in the air must come down somewhere. >
  
  I think mostly they just don't understand what an effective range means, and they don't understand what being 12 miles up means. You're maybe...maybe at the bleeding edge of our most advanced anti-air weapons, so long as you exclude missiles, which for all practical purposes, can pretty much do whatever they want.
  And that's not counting that you're about 11 miles past the world record for an accurate pistol shot, which by necessity of physics, has to depend on what is essentially indirect fire, and using the force of gravity to hit the target, rather than working against it by shooting straight up. >
  
  Imagine if people could shoot that high. How many rednecks would be shooting down planes (40k feet) for violating their airspace. >
  
  All the Chinese have to do is float a few of these over America and we will shoot our own lights out getting bullets 1/12th of the way to the balloon. >
  
  You told a bunch of Americans there is a Chinese spy balloon above them. What the fuck did you think would happen?
  Suddenly Montanans would realize how far up 65,000 feet is? >
  
  Out of all the people in the world, Montanans should know better.
  You know, the state that is literally named after a mountain range? >
  
  On a serious note, these balloons are too high up for your gun to reach. >
  
  ...well what the fuck else are we supposed to do on a saturday? >
  
  It's 60,000 feet up. Lmfao. >
  
  I read elsewhere, didn’t read the linked Newsweek article, that the balloon is around 100k ft in the air. So yeah, waste of ammo and stupid for other reasons too. >
  
  More like 60k but well outside any gun's range. If anyone wanted the example of how fucking stupid are some Americans, this was it. >
  
  According to Wikipedia, the maximum ceiling for the German 88mm antiaircraft gun was 32,500 feet. Altitude of the balloon has been given as a wide range of values, with the lowest being roughly double that. An ordinary rifle or handgun will definitely not be able to shoot that high. >
  
  They rubbed bacon on it so it's extra powerful >
  
  The furthest sniper kill is 1/6th the distance of the altitude of this thing. Don’t try it. >
  
  As a trained gun owner, I am aware that me with my remington .308 would be unable to shoot a weather balloon down.
  I also know enough about gun safety from my 1980's NRA safety training (fuck the NRA today BTW) to know that shooting into the air with a rifle or handgun is criminally idiotic behavior, and those that are stupid and untrained enough do this DON'T DESERVE THE RIGHT TO OWN A FUCKING GUN.
  I also can comprehend the administration's explanation about their inaction, and that currently there are ever present Chinese spy satellites in low earth orbit, that have probably filmed me shitting in the woods.
  This whole social media shitpost session is moronic content, made by morons for even bigger morons, and promoted by evil geniuses. >
  
  If they really want to, they should at least make sure they only shoot when it's directly over head and wait to confirm the kill >
  
  Yeah this. Your gun’s range is limited enough that you really don’t want it traveling at an angle to the target. Ideally you face up, and shoot upwards, perfectly perpendicular to the ground, and continue looking upwards so you can see if it hit or if you need to make adjustments for your next shot