A drive-by shooting (sometimes referred to merely as a drive-by) is an attack on a person carried out with a firearm discharge from a moving vehicle (or a momentarily stopped vehicle). They often result in the shooting of innocent bystanders because of a lack of accuracy.
Drive-by shootings are popular among criminals (and gang members in particular), because the shooter is already in the getaway car . It is believed that the first known instances of drive-by shootings in the United States starting in Chicago during the Race Riot of 1919. The Chinese may have propagated the first drive-by with automatic weapons, by stripping and replating a car with steel sheets, and attaching a Colt machine gun (potato masher) to the top of the car.