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Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."
They explained that in Unforgiven
Wrter: "But what if he draws first?"
Sheriff: "Then he'll miss. You see, you can only draw, aim, and shoot so fast. Me, this is about as fast as I can draw my gun and hit anything smaller than a barn. The guy that keeps a cool head, he'll come out standing."
That was from memory and is obviously not word for word, but the gist is there. It makes sense to me.
Free Martian Whores!
Does that mean the first poster gets shot? Wait, why am I bleeding...?
This must be why people can think up a comeback before I'm finished with the original joke.
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Did the submitter or editors read the story? At the end they plainly state that even though the second "shooter" reacted faster, they could not make up the difference in time.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
The mythbusters need to test this!
Basically if you have trained and know your weapon you fire faster if you don't think about it, it's a reflex thing and I have personally experienced the accuracy portion of this, meaning; if I know my rifle I can shoot without little or no thought/concentration and I am generally more accurate.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Miyamoto Musashi established this phenomenon quite well in 1645. Book of five rings.
Feudal Japan called, they want their news back.
meh
Before he died, Wyatt Earp was interviewed where he admitted he was no where near the fastest draw - but he pointed out that being accurate with your first shot was by far the most important criteria
mas cerveza, por favor politically incorrect stu
"Hans' hot first"
AKA "How I Learned To Enjoy Wookiee Lovin'"
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
The guy who draws first is the agressor, we can't let the agressor win.
That's the same reason that the guy on the roof of the saloon, aiming to shoot the someone in the back, always gets shot just as he's taking aim, and falls impressively to the street. Snipers and back-shooters are bad guys.
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
"It's not the first man to draw who wins. It's the first man to hit his target."
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Jon-Erik Hexum would like a word.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
It was always the intent of George Lucas to have Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan ride on Greedo's ship, The Manka Hunter, but Harrison Ford was cheaper than keeping famous actor Paul Blake around (who demanded more money for sitting in a rubber suit most of the day) so he decided to rewrite the script to have Han kill Greedo instead of the other way around.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
"Hans' hot first"
AKA "How I Learned To Enjoy Wookiee Lovin'"
You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Did you ever notice that if a movie shootout occurs between a guy with an Uzi and a guy with a handgun, the guy with the Uzi always loses?
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
They’re not that bad when fully shaved. ;)
After all, they evolved from hairy Greek women.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
...but Greedo drew first, so I guess the effect extends to space ruffians too.
More music, fewer hits
"The movie bad guy usually has 10 or 20 notches on his gun"
But that explains all! No wonder the bad guy misses the mark with such a notched unballanced gun!
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a better example of the real reason - it's the bad guy who gets shot. Lee Marvin (bad guy of course) baits James Stewart (good guy of course) into a gunfight. As Stewart draws his gun, knowing Marvin would win the gunfight, John Wayne (hero of course) shoots Marvin from across the street
Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don't care how it smells. GET IN THERE!
Only in the digital remake. I have the theatrical version on VHS, in it you don't see anyone shoot. The alien raises his gun, then the scene switches to outside the door where there is a BOOM and a flash and smoke and you think Solo has been killed, until he walks out and apologizes for the mess.
Free Martian Whores!
Obviously, dueling with pistols in the 18th and 19th centuries is well known. My point is that the quick drawing hired gun pulled his gun, shot his victim and the whole thing was over in 20 milliseconds. You could have a loaded gun pointed right at him with your finger on the trigger and still lose by a wide margin. Watch the video. Especially that last one.
That day, Palpatine was amazed to discover that when Vader was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you." And even more amazing was the day he realized he truly loved him back.
( Just burning off some real karma with this one )
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
"Cops shoot man 12 times" Of course, when you hear that the 11 shots were made by an officer kneeling down and holding face down a Brazillian electrician, those facts you bring up become a lot less relevant.
Howard Hawks gave his interviewers lots of bs, but this one was true. He hated the good guy drawing first scenario. He reasoned that if the bad guy was really a badass, the good guys put them down, quickly and with prejudice. Indeed the original Han-shot-first scenario was lifted straight out of two of Hawks' films.
Here's another thing Hawks said that I believe. He goes and sees "High Noon," and it pisses him off that Gary Cooper's character is going around asking for help. Hawks basically thinks that the sheriff is the professional and amateurs would be more likely to gum things up as help. So, he writes "Rio Bravo," where a US Marshall has to hold a prisoner and when the town folk offer to help, that's essentially what John Wayne says as he declines their offer.
Little known fact: "myth" != "fiction"... A myth can be true. By definition, a myth is simply unproven, but accepted as fact. So could have fallen under the category of myth. And creating an experiment that tries to emulate something that isn't even known to have occurred (regularly... I know it has been proven to have occurred at least once) does not prove or disprove anything. It just proves or disproves the idea being possible. This is why the Mythbusters so often come out with the result "Plausible" rather than "Confirmed"... because you can't prove that some things happened through experiment, only that they could have happened.
SIG FAULT: Post index out of bounds.
Interesting, but [citation needed]
Fistfull of Dollars.
Its an amazing scene. The one where he is complaining about them laughing at his mule, then he kills them all.
If you watch Clint you can almost see what he is doing while he is talking with them and making the joke; he is rehearsing his shots in his mind while keeping them occupied and laughing at him, going through the motions he will need to execute to draw and pull off a shot at each one. One-two-three, one-two-three then *bang* he executes the action in a single perfect moment.
He doesn't just draw and shoot; its immaculately practiced internally before being put into action. Thats how you draw first and win.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
The one who moves first is 'moving' (in place). That bit of action focuses the eye of a responder and gives them a better visual target than the first guy has. If you stand absolutely still when someone shoots you, you don't present as good a target as if you are moving your arms or making some motion (but not large enough motion that it would throw off the other person's perspective of your center of target.
It's like bull fighting -- if you stand still with the red-cape, the bull may or may not go at you or the cape. But if you wave the red cape, the bull goes after the target that is moving.
Our visual system is designed to pick up *differences* faster than 'sameness'. The motion of drawing the gun would often generate a 'difference' in an opponent's visual field, thus providing a better target.
At least that's my observations....I suppose I could read the article, but they are just researchers.
What do they know? :-)
-l
I have cop relatives. On more than one occasion, I've heard said that police are trained not to draw their weapon unless they intend to use it.
And when you think about it, it makes little sense for an officer to draw a gun and make an armed criminal *more* nervous. That is, unless he intends to put a bullet in the criminal.
Think about the typical cop-criminal standoff in the movies. Both point their guns at the other, but no one fires. Why?
In short, a cop gains no tactical or situational advantage by drawing his weapon but not firing. In real life, the movie standoff doesn't end with the criminal laying down his gun; it usually ends up much worse.
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Somewhere on the way this story changed from telling this:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18463-draw-the-neuroscience-behind-hollywood-shootouts.html
to saying the opposite. Perhaps people didn't read it closely enough?