And here I thought the U.S. had screwy gun laws.  The Associated Press is reporting that “a motorcade in which guests fired celebratory shots from car windows as they sped down one of the city’s main avenues near Red Square” led to a round of three-dollar fines for the participants, with one shooter facing a whopping 2,000-ruble (65-dollar) penalty.  Gee, isn’t shooting guns out of speeding Ferraris kinda dangerous?  So what gives?

Apparently, firing your guns at weddings is an age-old tradition in the Caucasus—where people don’t live in sprawling metropolises or drive Ferraris, I’d assume.  (According to The Moscow Times, the motorcade also “included a Ferrari, Lexus, Porsche and BMW.”)  Or maybe not.  “Firing for the sake of pleasure doesn’t have anything in common with the traditions of the Caucasus peoples. It is simply ignorant,” Yunus-bek Yevkurov said, according to RIA-Novosti.  Sounds like they don’t shoot to thrill, either…

Russian President, erm, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has condemned the attacks, saying “There are various cultural traditions, but nobody has abolished legal norms, so you’re not allowed to shoot into the air — not in Moscow, not in Makhachkala, not in New York,” as per RIA-Novosti, adding that in NYC, the cops would probably shoot back.  But in Russia, the legal norms dictate that you’d hafta downgrade from a supersized to a slightly-smaller-than-usual bottle of vodka on your weekly booze run, since your wallet will be a whopping 100 rubles lighter.

Ironically, the driver of one of the vehicles was later given a 15-day sentence for “swearing in a public place,” as per the Times.  Because in post-Soviet Russia, you still can’t swear in church.  Just ask Pussy Riot…