My bullets dont work in my game >.<

I have a ship mc on the stage called "hero" and a bullet mc off the stage called "bullet". When you press space, the function below called fireBullets() is triggered, but its not working how I want it to, of course. When you shoot a new bullet, there should be another one following behind the first, but instead the bullet already shot disappears and a new one appears in front of the ship. Maybe Im just not using the right strategy, but this is really aggravating me. Any help appreciated!

var i;
function fireBullets() {
if (i >= 2) {
//this should happen AFTER the else statement
_root[newname].duplicateMovieClip(newname);
i++;
} else {
var newname = "bullet"+i;
bullet.duplicateMovieClip(newname);
i++;
}
_root[newname]._x = hero._x;
_root[newname]._y = hero._y-38;
var newname = "bullet"+i;
}