You're forgetting the part about the bullet that hit the woman in the leg (they called it .30 caliber, from the looks of it-longish, with a round nose- I'd guess a .30-30, certainly an odd choice for celebratory fire) was fired from a mile away. Meaning it was fired at an angle other than vertical.
Fired at an angle, the bullet will retain it's spin and nose first attitude. This is much more aerodynamically effiicient than tumbling sideways, and it's going to be going MUCH faster when it comes back to earth.
One thing they could have mentioned, but didn't: back in the olden days, machineguns were sometimes used in the indirect fire role. Line up a group of belt-fed water-cooleds, elevate to the proper elevation, according to published ballistics tables, and let fly. The spread of the firing guns coupled with dispersion of the rounds by the wind would create a good size beaten zone.
I'm sure the armies of the world wouldn't have done this is they didn't have a good chance of inflicting some serious wounds at a minimum.