I'll leave the obvious metaphor to no longer so potent man "shooting" twice a week "just to say he's there" and stay in the phyiscal world.

A 155 mm Howitzer round has a range of 22.4 km (14 miles), a kill zone of 50 meters and a casuality zone of 100 meters. Do you think the US Army actually checks that there is no one in the kill zone when they fire? I wouldn't even bother to ask if they care.