Thursday, June 18, 2009

You couldn't pay me enough to be on either side of that line

The Firearm Blog posted a video.

The video includes a photographer positioned downrange, targets at either shoulder, as a live fire exercise takes place at close range.

That is; there was a person-- a real, live human being-- sitting next to the targets as the targets were shot at with real bullets fired from real guns, fired by real, live human beings.

Steve comments;
I know I will *never* be skilled enough to guarantee I would not make a mistake.

Don't fall for this fallacy! "Skilled" is not the word. The word is "STUPID."

You do not-- rpt; NOT fire a gun with a live human downrange, unless you are ready to live the possibility of shooting that person!

This isn't about breaking one of the four rules of firearm safety for training purposes. You, dry firing at your teevee, or practicing shooting positions in the living room when someone walks in front of your barrel is VERY different than DISCHARGING LIVE ROUNDS WITH A MAN STANDING THREE FEET FROM YOUR TARGET!

Steve notes "the counter argument is that the elite military units train with live cross fire." The military is a whole 'nother animal. If your CO commands you to shoot at that berm with people behind it, or fire over the heads of people crawling in the dirt, you either do it, or you get thrown in jail. And I'm quite certain they have safety blocks in place to prevent accidents, because they don't want their valuable human soldiers being killed in training that could have been made safer.

So, to recap;

YOU DO NOT VOLUNTARILY SHOOT AT A TARGET WITH SOMEONE STANDING THREE FEET FROM YOUR INTENDED TARGET!

This isn't rocket surgery folks.

This is how "accidents" happen!

Screaming, "Oh god, that never happened before!"

Just.

Doesn't.

Cut it.


Hats off to The Firearm Blog for making a copy of the offending video before it was taken down.

1 comment:

NotClauswitz said...

I know where I'll never-ever take a training class. How can you even draw wearing such a hair-shirt? From what I've read about them, they can't hear the sound of gunfire over how AWESOME they are... Sheesh.