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The gunfighter's dilemma

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#41

Post by bwhite »

blasdel wrote: post #37
bwhite wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Glock will certainly fire with the slide immobilized. If the slide cannot move with respect to the frame the current round will not be ejected and the next round will not be chambered, but it will certainly fire the chambered round. It is not clear from "grab the whole barrel" what you were doing. Glock is like many (most?) semiautos in that the trigger cannot be pulled when the slide is not all the way forward, is…

It's pretty clear he meant that he was holding the slide back, preventing the hammer from moving forward. But would that always work on a Glock, which has an odd striker arrangement instead of a traditional exposed hammer, and doesn't have a way to decock it without pulling the trigger?

Holding the slide is not what prevents the hammer from falling. A semi-auto handgun with an exposed trigger that is placed out of battery has its trigger immobilized by mechanical linkage, regardless of the hammer's position.

Because of the way Glocks have their lug linkage, many will actually fire even when slightly out of battery. Knocking the slide back 1/10" and holding it there is probably not going to be sufficient to disengage the lug that prevents trigger pull.

Even if one could manage to pull the trigger with the gun significantly out of battery, I imagine that this would be a non-event with an exposed hammer because as you say, the hammer would fall onto the slide, not the pin. Still, firing out of battery would seem to be a function of the linkages, not striker-vs-exposed-hammer-ness.

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#42

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jcl wrote: post #14
mattheww wrote: post #3

You can't skip the story about Niels Bohr at the bottom.

In a series of mock gunfights with colleagues Bohr always drew second and always won. Heh... Considering that all the participants were scientists, I'm surprised they concluded that one event caused the other.

Did he play with Heisenberg? "We knew where both people were, no idea how fast they drew."

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#44

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ajuc wrote: post #38
ErrantX wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend who does Aikido says it's not explicitly taught quite like that - but that he does train to watch, for example, an attackers shoulders for slight movement prior to their attack.

I don't know any martial arts, but it reminds me of basketball - dribbling is exactly the same - every second you decide to start or not, you can make fake moves, and your oponent has to guess and react faster. And if his guess is wrong he allows you to pass him. Sometimes you can just feel the rythm in which oponent will react, and then passing him is easy and pleasurable at the same time. And looks cool. That's why…

It's the same in [association] football, rugby, volleyball, netball, [field] hockey. Presumably true in other sports too - so is that really why you love playing basketball?

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#45

Post by philwelch »

dmv wrote: post #32
philwelch wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which implies that you could probably throw off someone like that just by, for instance, feinting the shoulder movement.

Having the body control to produce false, seemingly involuntary signals - while suppressing true involuntary signals - implies a level of physical mastery to the extent that you, likely, already possess a substantial advantage in the bout. This is like selling a fake tell in poker while not actually having a tell - even James Bond would tell you that's hard.

You could just sell enough fake tells--produce enough false signals--to throw your opponent off of whatever actual tells you have. I wonder if this is similar in concept to the "drunken" kung fu style.

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#47

Post by cunard3 »

mattheww wrote: post #3

You can't skip the story about Niels Bohr at the bottom.

This link to an audio interview was posted previously: http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4325.html Gamow talks about meeting Bohr and his wit: He says that he was startled to see a horseshoe nailed above the door to Bohr's house. Gamow asked Bohr why he had it there. Bohr said "I've heard that it works even if you don't believe in it."

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#48

Post by [deleted] »

v3rt wrote: post #24

Apparently, it's incorrect that the winning strategy is to move second - while the drawing motion take ~20ms less when reacting, it takes ~200ms to react in the first place, leaving you quite dead. See http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/why_does_th... Did the BBC misinterpret the data, or did the scienceblogs article make a mistake?

[deleted]

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#49

Post by run4yourlives »

v3rt wrote: post #24

Apparently, it's incorrect that the winning strategy is to move second - while the drawing motion take ~20ms less when reacting, it takes ~200ms to react in the first place, leaving you quite dead. See http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/why_does_th... Did the BBC misinterpret the data, or did the scienceblogs article make a mistake?

I was just thinking the same thing... the 20ms difference only matters if the start time of the action is less than 20ms before the start time of the reaction.

Just because you can do something faster, it doesn't always mean you finish faster.

Re: The gunfighter's dilemma

#50

Post by electromagnetic »

v3rt wrote: post #24

Apparently, it's incorrect that the winning strategy is to move second - while the drawing motion take ~20ms less when reacting, it takes ~200ms to react in the first place, leaving you quite dead. See http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/why_does_th... Did the BBC misinterpret the data, or did the scienceblogs article make a mistake?

Not necessarily, it depends what causes the defender to draw. It may take you ~200ms to react, however it also takes the drawer time to act on their decision, and may take longer as there's an incentive to aim as there's no point in shooting first and missing.

Button pressing /= drawing and aiming.

The defender has less incentive to aim, and besides your brain already has the calculations made. In hunting the snapshot is a frequent killer due simply to reaction with no conscious aiming. IIRC the NRA has ~40,000 bullseye shooters who have to have rapidfire accuracy on multiple targets to attain the grade. This requires the ability to make snapshots.

I'm not going to believe any result on gunslinging until someone picks up a properly weighted pistol that has to be aimed and fired (whether it be a blank or using an LED sighter). Otherwise it's not scientific, you're fucking with the variables and the very nature of the experiment.

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