Re: Not always joking, it seems

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:35:43 +0000, "Marcus L. Rowland"
<forgottenfutures@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>My guess, for what it's worth, is that it's cultural conditioning. If 
>you live in a culture where everyone is told that guns are all powerful 
>(which seems to be the main argument of the "everyone should carry guns" 
>faction here) and a lunatic with a gun is shooting at you, your first 
>thought is not "I will get out my trusty .357 magnum and blow his tiny 
>brains out," even if you happen to be carrying a gun - it's "oh **** oh 
>**** I'm going to be killed, gotta hide!" I forget how many shots were 
>allegedly fired per person hit during WW2, but it was in the hundreds - 
>mostly because nearly everyone involved was too scared to shoot 
>straight.

I suspect that - outside actual warrior cultures like Sparta or
Chaka's Zulu Nation - charging someone who has a deadly weapon and has
demonstrated his willingness to use it on any targets that come his
way while unarmed yourself is just not something that is likely to
happen.

Dialog that occurs from time to time in some form or other in Westerns
oes:

"There's fifty of us and only one of him!  We can take 'im!"

"Yeah, you can.  But six of you aren't gonna be around at my hangin'."

As to shots fired to shos that his - a couple of sources i've
encountered claimed that at least 90% of WW2 fire was unaimed,
intended mostly to make the enemy keep his head down and spoil *his*
aim.

(But even that sort of fire can hit the jackpot; if i ever make it
back to London, i am *going* to make it by Bedlam {which is now,
strangely appropriately, the Imperial War Musem}, if only gaze with
awe upon the Enfield with a ruined barrel and blown-out breech and the
German bullet that entered the muzze just as the poor Tommy holding it
pulled the trigger...)