Grrl Power #326 – All assembly required
Surely not the typical method for arming soldiers, but there was a lot of concern about arming Sydney in the first place. Never mind the fact she’s already armed with weapons far more dangerous than a pistol, but this method of making her work for her sidearm was agreed on to see if she had the discipline to put the thing together, and in the meantime drill into her all the training they can.
I’m almost reticent to mention it because there are about as many opinions about guns are there are people, but I finally decided on a FN Five seveN for her for a few reasons. It’s a relatively light pistol with relatively (it’s all relative, everything is) low kick and 20 rounds in the magazine. Also they’re hoping she’ll rarely ever touch the thing outside of training and certifying with it, so a light pistol makes sense for her. People had suggested basically everything else, glocks, M1911’s, HK45’s, M9’s, basically anything used by the military, and I’m sure they’re all perfectly acceptable weapons, but for some reason I fixated on the Five seveN sort of early on. It’s possible I’ll only even draw it outside of her holster a few times, but if I do then that’s the gun I’m planning on drawing.
Also I’ve fixed Peggy’s chevrons, she’s a Lieutenant, not a Captain. I’ll correct the previous pages when I get a chance.
Now for some pimpage:
Superbitch is one of my favorite webcomics, and now she’s got her own Patreon. I’d joke about people diverting funds away from my own Patreon to hers, but honestly I think it’s more of a rising tide situation.
Another project that could use some eyeballs is Stjepan Sejic’s Death Vigil. Apparently it’s struggling along which seems super weird to me since it’s Stjepan’s awesome art in it, and it has a mix of action, humor (mostly bad puns) and sweet looking Cthulhu-esque monsters in it. Anyway he’s posted everything so far for free on his DA page, which I’m linking here, but I’ll also link the Comixology page so you can buy DRM free PDF or CBR versions as well. They’re $2 each except for the current issue, that’s cheaper than most comics these days. (You can also get them on Amazon if physical comics are more to your tune, plus the Amazon link gets me a few cents on the dollar as well.) Anyway I read through them and enjoyed them (then bought them) so I thought I’d re-pimp him here.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Soo… are you going to have Sydney go limp-wrist when she finally starts firing her semi-automatic pistol?
Speaking from experience, her frame and strength in a real-life scenario would cause her to limp-wrist whenever she fired the gun, which would make the gun recoil upwards too much and catch the empty cartridges in the release mechanism. That isn’t to say she’s incapable of eventually using a semi-automatic pistol, but personally I think she’d prefer an old-school revolver, like me.
Either that or a .22 rifle.
He did say he picked it for, among others, it’s relatively low kick.
“He”? When did Peggy come out as a trans man?…or do you mean DaveB?
Gordon was referencing DaveB. It’s in this pages commentary.
https://davebarrack.deviantart.com/art/Peggy-PG-Wallpaper-433932532
If Peggy is a man-gone-trans, then he’s got a very good surgeon…
Point of etiquette: “…She’s…” not “….he’s…”.
But, yep. :-)
I’ll have to let this one go since MDS has muddied the waters so much I honestly don’t know how you meant that…
Actually a very bad one since trans men are men.
“Trans” can be an abbreviation of two words, in this context. You are taking it as being transvestite, a man who likes dressing up as a woman. But MidnightDStroyer is intending it as transgender (or transsexual), by contextualising the term as being someone born male, who has had gender reassignment surgery, to become female.
My point of etiquette comment above stems from the default assumption one would have under such circumstances, which is that the individual would wish to be addressed according to the gender of their choice, rather than that of their birth. And, if confirmed, they should be thought of as such too.
I phrase it that way, because things can get very complicated in this area. But typically, if someone has had gender reassignment surgery it is because they (in this case) identify themselves as being female, even before the hormone treatments and surgery.
After it, of course, for all intents and purposes, they are female. Sadly unable to bear children, but that technology will come eventually. And no different to other women who may not be able to.
Peggy almost certainly is not transgender mind, unless the Grrl Power universe diverged from ours. Given the issues the US military had with LGBT personnel.
Nope, I was using “trans” to mean transsexual man: someone who identifies as the gender male as opposed to the female gender they were assigned at birth due to genetics. My statement was meant to be a correction of MDS assumption that Artimesia’s comment (the one he was replying to) was talking about a trans man (transsexual man) rather than the “man-gone-trans” (transexual woman) that he assumed for his joke with his link to a scantily clad Peggy looking very much like someone assigned the gender female at birth due to genetics/outward genitalia. I worded it such to mimic MDS’s own comment in what I hoped was a fun/non-aggressive manner?
I wasn’t sure how to respond to your comment until I knew if you were also half referring to Artimesia’s in an attempt to correct MDS’s or were going along entirely with MDS’s comment alone as it turned out was the case. So I was right to not correct you as we were talking about two entirely different things. (Artimesia + MDS’s comments vs. MDS’s comment taken by itself)
Ahh, missed that you might be referencing things further up the thread. Sorry. Wasn’t getting any aggressive tone off your comment, at all. It just came across as light-hearted banter.
Yea, strictly replying to MidnightDStroyer‘s comment myself.
RandomHobo had already covered any serious question which might have been intended in Artemisia‘s comment. And there was not much to run with there, so I passed on that one.
I think this would be a good time to step aside & enjoy the rest of this particular discussion about gender confusion & multiple meanings as wrought by how badly the Politically-Left has screwed up all meaning & context in using our language.
…And to also enjoy the fact that I’m the one who got it started…
Yep, I’ll just be right over there…
Hi MidnightDStroyer, welcome to the shadowy corner, where those of us who like to play with gender confusion and misidentification like to hang out. We are just about to watch Victor Victoria.
Ooooo! A movie I haven’t seen yet! I hope it’s as good as Steve Martin’s performance in “All of Me.”
Well, good news is I could recognize the pistol from its bag of parts (before reading the comments by the author) and really, the pistol discussion is real. The only bad things I have heard about 5.7x28mm are things like “It’s expensive and you can’t reload it reliably” and some stuff about bullet weight and stopping power, which, hey, I know I wouldn’t volunteer to get shot by it. The Five-seveN is a new design, but it seems to be mostly well made, well designed, and user friendly. And if the first shot doesn’t stop a bad guy, maybe the other NINETEEN will.
As for the concept of limp-wristing a semiauto, it happens, yes, but it is a bad habit you can get over easily in most cases. If you have the upper body strength to carry around boxes of comic books, you can handle a 1911 in one hand.
My only wonder is, given enough training in firearms safety, can Sidney use the lighthook as a support/brace? It has the strength to throw Anvil around, I don’t think it worries too much about heat buildup…. but the thought of Sidney roving the battlefield with a goddamn Ma Deuce scares the hell outta me.
Well the ammo for the 5.7 was originally designed through a larger barreled P90, to pierce body armor with specialized ammo. Those where it’s main selling points.
I’m sure Dave’s gonna use it for Punching paper primarily so not really that big a deal, and there’s some interesting commercial loadings out there for it. The recoil is probably forgiving for a first timer, and FN does build a classy well made design far as I know so, overall, why not?
So it’s not a horrible choice, but it does come with cavets:
It is less forgiving in some ways, when it comes to using it as a defensive weapon.
First you need to be very good at grouping and placing your shots because they don’t cause a lot of damage individually. You can’t necessarily hope for the kind of radical damage I can get out of say, my .454 casull or my twelve gauge, or even my .45acp because the wound channels are so small. The original round as I understand it was meant to pass through armor and fragment and/or tumble around wrecking havoc, something the non AP ammo doesn’t really do. I do recall there some being some promising all-copper bullet offerings from Barnes though, so there’s decent stuff out there if you look for it.
I know the argument about the other nineteen, but fact remains you have to group said nineteen in such a way that you create the trauma you are seeing to induce, which means tight cluster, not scattering them all over a B-29 etc. In short, practice a lot because you need to be good with it to be effective. Not a gun you just want to be an “Ok” shot with. The cartridge puts you in the hole somewhat because it’s not very powerful. It was meant to come out of a significantly longer barrel in bursts which compensated for its weakness. This is the exact issue we had for 9mm for most of the 20th century, it’s only really in the past decade that the offerings are finally doing a good job of leveling the playing field.
Far as how expensive is it? No clue, never bought the stuff, but the advice is always the same regardless of caliber: buy in bulk and shop extensively for a deal.
Ive seen ballistic jelly tests for that 5.7 mm round.
They make 2 civilian legal rounds one that tumbles another that deforms/fragments on impact.
both with comparable energy transfer and exit wounds to a .45
Neither penetrates body armor.
There are other specialty rounds for Law enforcement/ Military including AP rounds that; if used as intended, (defeating body armor to the point of breaking Trauma plates, or shooting through a car for example) it will do the job.
That being said… I have made the mistake of being on the wrong side of angry .45 user. That was like looking down a train tunnel. This ‘can’ work as sort of ‘last chance’ deterrence of the “Oh SHIT that is a fucking Cannon pointed in my general direction!” kind.
In comparison,having someone point a 5.7 at me is very different.
If it was painted with an orange tip i would have thought it was a BB gun.
And treated it as such.
Definitely something I wouldn’t draw unless I expected to pull the trigger. Period.
But getting in the habit of pointing guns at folks to “let them know you mean business” “scare em into giving up” or “respecting mah authority” is a terribly Bad Idea. If you disagree then dear reader you really need to improve your problem solving skills and tool sets. Right now.
First rule of guns. Don’t point a gun at something you don’t intend to shoot. The reasons supply themselves.
Theoretically she could use it off hand as both a rest and stock simultaneously.
My question is this: most groups like ARCHON tend to standardize on weapons, uniforms, etc, and assume that if they’ve recruited somebody for a role, that person had darned well better learn to use the same weapons as everybody else (it makes resupply a lot easier, and allows for simpler cross-loading in the field, among other reasons). So…have you decided what other weapons ARCHON uses? I mean, clearly the FN Five seveN is the standard sidearm for ARCHON, which could make a lot of sense, and the standard sniper rifle seems to be a Barrett Light 50. But have you picked the assault rifle, CQC weapon (the US Army uses shotguns for this, because, among other things, that big barrel scares the heck out of people), etc?
For what it’s worth, while I haven’t ever heard of people being handed their gun disassembled, I HAVE heard of them being required to assemble, disassemble, clean, etc their weapon before being allowed access to ammunition, so I don’t think what you’ve portrayed is all that far from reality.
By the way, kudos on your research for this strip. I may not have been able to identify the gun by the parts bag, but I could clearly identify most of the parts, and could clearly tell that the rest weren’t just random junk. That had to have taken a LOT of work to get right.
I don’t think they have a standard sniper rifle, or at least seeing Peggy with it doesn’t mean it’s standard. Peggy is an expert sniper, and has her own custom equipment. I seem to remember Dave saying that Peggy prefers the Barrett because, among other things, it’s much more compatible with her small frame.
On the other hand, it’d be a good choice for a standard sniper rifle because Harem can’t hump anything bigger.
“Harem can’t hump anything bigger.”
*rolls for saving throw against sexual innuendo joke*
Whew, I made it this time.
Looks like Harem failed her roll: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1280
Dammit! I rolled a crit failure.
Um…My name is Barrett…
Do… do you have a gun for a prosthetic arm?
If I had a gun for a prosthetic leg, then I’d be the Scotsman, not Barrett…
https://www.watchcartoononline.com/samurai-jack-episode-11
Or you’d be in the Quentin Tarantino movie, Planet Terror.
https://infinitecoolness.com/store/moviepostershop/planet_terror_movie_poster002.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-16aq8tUVw-8/TyV-Q3czkYI/AAAAAAAACMY/qkzMuYgkIag/s1600/Planet_Terror_5.jpg
Nah, I wouldn’t be like her! She’s wearing something under her kilt…
I have to point out they don’t come much bigger than the Barret .50 without talking about heavy machine guns.
As for standardized gear, they worry about that for ease of resupply because the military has to supply hundreds of thousands of troops and tracking hundreds of different types of ammo so the right stuff goes to the right people would be a nightmare. Archon is a much smaller situation. It looks like something around company strength, maybe 50 to 100 combatants and all working out of the same base. At that level a competent quarter master can easily keep up with personal gear requirements. My guess would be they do have a standard weapon set that they have on hand but can acquire anything else the troops deem necesary within reason.
standard weapons yes all the space marines will have a standard Armour weapon assignment like a normal soldier and they probably make a large company by themselves the swat group will be specialized to go with there own powers/ abilities much like GI Joe and I believe fit the limits of a platoon in size.
Your comment about standardisation is very good and true for real world military. And is probably good for Archon, for anyone who fits nicely in the bell curve. The way the real world deals with anyone who does not, is they wash out. If unable to handle the standard weapon or carry the required load, needed for selection.
Of course, for folks like Peggy, if you might be under the ideal height/weight to handle a weapon or carry a load, you just train harder, work out more and keep it up until you can. And then make sure you maintain your fitness at that level from then on.
Sydney though will be fighting with her mind. Quite literally. She mentally commands the orbs and all their powers. And can fly a lot easier than anyone can route march. Investing the amount of time needed to bring her up to competency with a standard issue firearm (assuming that the FN five seven is not that), is simply not sensible. Even if it does cause the quartermaster supply problems.
Mind you it is used by police and military in forty nations worldwide, so it should never be too hard to keep her in ammo. Not that she is likely to have much call to use it, outside of routine practice. Hopefully.
Never heard of that myself Whildsa, but that’s a terrific teaching method. I’d expect ARCHONS TOE to be somewhat in flux, nobody has ever been the “Supervillian police” before so it’s hard to say what gear works best for their needs yet. The 5.7 isn’t too far out there. At least according to the wiki Nato almost adopted it to replace 9mm.
Sorry to go off an a tangent, but your comment includes a typo that sounds like something that would be uttered by Thor in battle: “ARCHON’S TOE!”
Whoops sorry, wrong mythology. Archon: a Greek word that means “ruler” or “lord”. I am surprised that the media did not comment on that name for an organization of super powered humans.
I would imagine a P90 as back up PDW’s for members Not expected to fufill a duty akin to Line infantry
For anything else i guess you can ask what these folks are carrying in panel 3
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/385
Well, if the Five-seveN is their standard sidearm, the standard assault rifle would probably be the P90, since they were designed from the start as a pair. In fact, the entire point of the 5.7x38mm ammunition was that it could be fired both from the rifle and the pistol. It’s also a bullpup design, so it would work well for CQC.
Plus, Archon is a military organization, so they can get the AP rounds (even if they don’t penetrate armor out of the pistol). Since they will be going up against tougher-than-normal bad guys, better penetration can be a good thing.
looks like they have a lot of FN hardware F2000 assault rifles, the FN5.7 pistol, i wouldn’t be shocked to see a benelli M4 or a P90 somewhere.
Well good news then, 5.7 mm is as close to .22″ as doesn’t matter. Basically this is a .22 Super Magnum but centerfire with a shorter but fatter cartridge.
Got a small girl of asian origin in my shooting club. Smaller than Halo in comparison. And, I’m absolutely sure, not as strong as well.
She never had that problem when firing 9mm Para. Granted, she was trained well from the start and has a talent for it. And I don’t know how the SIG 220 and 210 compare to the FN Five-seveN when it comes to kick. But still: Small and not very strong does not automatically equal problems when shooting anything above a .22lr.
Yup. Size doesn’t matter if you pick the right gun. As long as it fits her hand well chances are she can learn to control recoil well enough. It’s not like we’re talking about a sub-machinegun.
I *really* like Peggy in this one. I can practically hear her voice in panel 4, not a grain of condescension, but pure professionalism.
Yeah, she really does seem like she’s dealt with this before, doesn’t she?
It’s also the way Sidney takes it. She’s not feeling talked down to but taken seriously here. And I get it.
+1
This is my rifle, this is my gun…
But it is a pistol.
And the gun in that song is definitely not referring to a pistol. Also, in general military boot camps, as far as I know, enlisted aren’t issued pistols – those are only for officers. Enlisted only get their rifles, plus whatever other equipment is deemed necessary.
ARC is obviously a different case, being part law enforcement. If you armed all your law enforcement grunts with rifles, I’m willing to bet police weapon usage policies would be very different.
Speaking as someone who went through Army basic training, the answer is “Yes, that is exactly what they do” when it comes to being able to name all the parts, take it apart and put it back together again, and learn safety before you ever get handed ammunition. Even then, you get issued your ammunition on the range, and may the lord have mercy on your soul if you behave unsafely, or do something like chamber a round before you’re told to. Because the drills won’t have any.
Except they don’t make you learn the full detail strip, just the field strip… which is good, because I’m pretty sure the M-16 has a tendency to launch tiny little springs all over the place at that level. I KNOW both the 1911 and most S&W revolvers do.
The last thing I wanna see is a squad bay full of Marine Recruits trying to find safety detents and extractor springs…
Um, yeah, they did. It’s the “clean the rifle” part, where you have to take out the extractor from the bolt assembly, clean everything in there, then get into the lower receiver unit, clean that, and then get it all back together. Usually done at 4 AM after the “night maneuvers training.” Yes, it was just as big a PITA as it sounds. In later training, there was the “tear apart an M1911A, clean it, and put it back together again.” Oh, and the “field strip, and get it back together in less than a minute.” By that time, when it came to cleaning the rifle, I’d learned the joys of WD 40.
Sounds like you don’t do all that different from the Swiss Army then. Although we rarely did the full disassembly of the SIG 550 including removal of the firing pin from the sled (the 60s disassemble-reassemble was without, if I remember correctly), we had to learn how to and do it every now and then. And yes, we were warned about the spring action and not to lose our firing pin. And yes, the first time we did it on our own, at least one firing pin went flying all over the cleaning space.
The SIG P220 is way easier in comparison. Unless you count in the two pieces of the grip cover and the four parts of the clip, it’s a mere five parts plus clip. Anything that requires further disassembly is to be done by a gunsmith only anyway.
One additional part for the P210 only as well. And that’s a small lever.
*muttering to self*
I must resist. I must resist!
*walks off, stiffly, then weakens, and turns around*
So did you have to disassemble your knives too?
Do I get army cookies if I can disassemble my mobile and put it back together really quickly again?
Well, the original soldier knife has a few parts less than most Swiss Army Knives. ;)
The one I got had knife blade, awl and both bottle (cap, not cork) and can opener each with a single slot screwdriver on top.
The new one since 2009, which I bought because it’s an outstanding pocket knife, has a waved knife blade with locking mechanism and operable with one hand only. Also an awl and the above mentioned bottle and can openers. Newly added are a saw and a cross slot screwdriver. And the whole thing fits the hand very well and is more comfortable to use (also bigger though).
And no, we don’t have to disassemble that. ;)
And why should we. All those knifes have life long guarantee on them. And I mean life long. I recently sent in my nearly thirty years old knife I got when I became in the boyscouts. Had a side cover missing, the blade was shortened because the original point broke off once. And the whole mechanism didn’t go very well anymore. Got back a knife back in perfect condition with only a few very minor dents proofing it’s actually my knife. Cost? Zero.
Very impressive.
I do note no mention of that thing to get stones out of horses’ hooves. I knew that was just there, for laughs, on the export models!
wd-40 forbidden. clean rags, wipe cloths from cleaning kit, and if there was any available clp only to clean. shave cream forbidden. shower water forbidden.
Were you a member of the Dirty Dozen?
“soldier why is that sand bag leaking?!”
“DS! because you shot it! DS!”
“wrong. now why is that sand bag leaking private?”
“DS! I have no idea! DS!”
“because you released the safety before instructed and I chose to give a warning now drop your mag, clear the weapon, turn in the rounds, AND GET OFF MY RANGE!”
I, too, approve of giving her a bag of parts. “Learn it, respect it.”
There’s a couple of good reasons to issue Sydney a weapon. One is that this is a military AND police unit. Another is that guns WILL come up both as things her comrades use and the bad guys have. It will also give Sydney some self absurdness in herself and give her some much needed focus. And a real percentage of those she comes against will have minions, or be “glass cannons” like the fire guy she broke.
Also, the PPO is hella scary. It EXPLODED a TANK. The
molestorblight hook isn’t a weapon directly and has limited range and strength. It also doesn’t work INSIDE the shield (of course a ricochet inside the shield would probably hurt a LOT.)Most cops and military don’t ever fire a weapon outside training (contrary to what the current state of news says), it’s just that more and more are getting caught on camera. (This is a good thing, as it’s also showing which cops shouldn’t have a badge.)
Another reason for Syd to have a gun is that at least some of the people she goes against may not know her or her reputation and powers. Wave an apparently colored glass ball at a real bad guy they’ll go “WTF?” and have no respect, or at least very little. But everyone knows what a gun is and respects what it can do, except for the bullet resistant ones, of course.
And nothing is bulletproof. You just need more bullet. Oh, Hello, mister PPO!
“Not enough gun.”
Psychological weaponry:
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2003-03-15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIpLd0WQKCY
And why you learn (real) safety FIRST!
https://youtu.be/VgofpOwtpJk
“Dude my mom is gonna kill me!”
Not if your shot just killed her.
That video also repeatedly shows safety rule #5, that doesn’t show up on the posted note in the comic.
Recoiless rifles…aren’t.
I don’t think things ricochet off her shield. So far the shield just seems to eat the force, although everything that’s hit it has been attached to an arm or exploded, so I don’t know how bullets would behave.
Still, it’s a good idea for her to have a sidearm in case anyone gets inside her shield for any reason (shadow boxer). She can’t use the orb’s powers inside the shield, and a pistol is a bit more reliable than smothering them in balls.
Reminds me of an old (DOS era) real-time strategy game called War, Inc. The top-of-the-line armor (Armor research, tier 8) was literally singularity armor. It didn’t so much “bounce” the rounds off, as suck them over the event horizon of micro-singularities. (Just don’t lean up against it when it’s energized!)
That’s actually a legitimately good point. Especially since she can and has embiggened her shield to protect civvies and trap villains alike
Her comic book training might lead her to learn it all, and then never truly use is beyond that since it’s in a wrapper…
Well she is co-owner of a small retail store, completed scuba-diving certification (one assumes without incident), and managed to keep multiple power orbs a secret for quite a while. She is also very savvy and intelligent. If anything giving her a challenge like assembling a gun is only going to be more dangerous, since now you’ve given her knowledge that you CAN strip a gun down that far and HOW to do it. She may now be incentivised to strip down other weapons.
She almost certainly will, which may be why she has to strip it down that far–I don’t know about Sydney, but I have a nasty tendency to experiment when bored, and it’s probably a good idea for her to know how to fix her mistakes.
Without incident? She had stitches for a while.
Nah making her learn the gun will give her a focus point. That way she’ll learn rather than just ADHDing off with a weapon.
Focus points are very important when training ADHD people
I’m just imagining her ‘unlocking’ an upgrade to the tentacle orb that lets it do like fine work (maybe sprouting multiple small tentacles from the end, like fingers) and training to pull a Flash on enemies carrying guns with her taking it apart while still in their hands.
Probably a little too unrealistic, but it’d be hilarious.
The light hook as is is probably suitable for ‘field striping’ the pins from grenades carried by hostiles.
It’s not as impressive as field striping a weapon, but it offers a more exciting outcome.
and we return to the law there is no friendly fire
I definitely agree with Peggy’s training method; the one thing that was drilled in to me as a kid before I was even allowed to touch a .22 long rifle is: Firearms are tools, no more, no less. And, like “any” tool you could possibly name, they are extremely dangerous in hands of an incompetent.
I figure once Sydney gets over the “BANG!” (A lot of folks shy away from learning firearm use because of the noise and recoil), she’ll get competent with. She might even get to like it.
I’ve always found it bizarre how people treat Firearms as some sort of mystical ‘power object’. I mean, you pick up an axe, you’re not going to go windmilling it around your head if there’s anybody remotely close to you- even nailguns get more respect- people don’t pick up pneumatic nailers and immediately go ‘haha, I’ma press this into your thigh because lolz!’. So why is the first instinct people have when picking up a gun to point it at someone?
Because people are stupid?
If you don’t verify that the gun is unloaded first, pointing a gun at anybody is definitely stupid.
If the gun is unloaded, if the magazine has been ejected, and if the safety is on, then it’s not as stupid but it still isn’t a good idea. There’s a reason why they teach you not to point the gun at anything you’re not planning to shoot.
(Pointing it at your own face to verify that it is unloaded, is beyond stupid. I wish I could say that nobody was that stupid, but I’d be lying.)
The problem can be boiled down to Hollywood. Hollywood portrays guns as toys with people spinning them around on their finger and firing trick shots that ricochet off improbable angles to hit their targets exactly where they want them to. Combine that with toy guns and the average person just doesn’t have enough respect for guns. One of the biggest things they try to drum into peoples’ heads during firearm safety courses is respect for the weapon.
It doesn’t take a gun to make some people go stupid…
https://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1996-07.html
Um… just so you know, that story isnt actually true.
whether or not that was a true story or not, it merely points out that this is not a safe world (or a safe universe, for that matter) that we live in. The only measure of safety you can have is to develop a sense of respect for it & to act accordingly.
Any time the government says that you have to trade off liberty for safety, their lying to you…They can’t make you safe no matter if you retain your liberty or not.
I’m just saying, there was never a guy who made a bet to show how manly he was by chainsawing off his own head. :) Seems more like a ‘Polish people are so dumb that…’ joke.
True story, I knew someone who, while wood-carving, saw a large ant and stabbed it with his knife. Alas, it was on his pants at the time, which he was wearing.
Guns don’t make people do stupid things. Guns are however primarily designed to inflict bodily harm, thus people respect them. Woe unto he who doesn’t respect a soda machine that steals his money, and thus tips it over onto himself (best to emboss ‘misadventure’ in reverse onto such machines so coroners can read the cause of death off the corpse).
Ok, this is a story that I can believe happened :)
It happened twice, actually, to two different people.
You’ve probably heard me talking about Air Force callsigns.
DASH – Dumb Ass Stabbed Himself.
Because he did.
For exactly the same reason as Torrenal’s friend (except it was a spider, not an ant.)
Anvildude reminded me of an episode of “Modern Marvels” (History channel) where the subject was axes. Part of the footage was taken at an axe-throwing competition, and one of the contestants said “Throwing an axe is a lot like a free-throw in basketball.”
Word of God says that the narrator ad-libbed the line, “Perhaps, but when throwing a basketball, if you miss, nobody is going to die from a gaping basketball wound,” and the show’s producers thought it was so funny, they left it in.
I know Peggy’s signature look is the facial scars, but since they have an actual enhanced healer on staff has she ever considered trying to get them reduced to some extent? Even something like dermabrasion sessions followed by speeded skin regeneration might help.
Well the healer might have healed it as much as she could… (It seems established that she has limits to the amount of healing she can do in a given time… and it might simply be that it’s considered more important to conserve that power for use on debilitating injuries, and even then it seems probable that she can’t regenerate missing limbs…)
When talking about Jiggawatt’s hearing in the last comic it implied that she can’t do much if she doesn’t get to them right away. At the very least it out-right says she has limits on what she can heal.
Yup. Likewise as scantrontb says below.
All Super Doc can do is accelerate natural healing. Peggy suffered her injuries years before she even met Super Doc at Archon, and had already done her healing. I have many scars, and none of them will ever ‘get better’. Some narrow with time. Others fade. But the scars remain. And limbs do not regrow. Not on adult humans anyhow.
There is nothing more that Super Doc can do.
Perhaps she favors the intimidation-factor of scars which, while prominent, aren’t disfiguring.
It may be the same reason some people get facial tattoos – they’re considered “bad-ass”.
i’d say that it’s a case of “pre-existing conditions” Peggy had probably already lost the limb and had the scars when she met Maxima (in the hospital) since she was most likely NOT in Archon back then, so that when she met the Doc in Archon for the first time, that is her baseline for the Doc to heal her back to. I’ll bet that the Doc is unable to go BEYOND that condition in order to heal anything that happened before the first time the she met the patient, unless it is still actively bleeding and such… I’m sure things like diabetes and high blood pressure are things that she couldn’t cure either…
I assumed either they HAD been ‘super healed’ as far as possible. Scars like that would usually present some hypertrophic (or worse keloid) growths. As she doesn’t even seem to have even (very) mild atrophic scarring, this would tend to indicate either that she was VERY lucky or that some healing beyond current medicine is in effect.
…
I’m over thinking things aren’t I…
I’ll go stand in the corner and be quiet for a while :-)
Maybe she likes them?
Since we are told that most of what that doctor does is accelerate natural healing maybe it is unwise to overuse it. Certainly there are situations where making weeks or even months of healing fly by in a session or 3 would not only get your super troops back out there faster but some injuries may benefit greatly from healing in a controlled environment where the patient would feel no urge to repeatedly stress the injury or the connected tissues as they are being healed in the time it takes them to sit in a chair and hold a conversation. (or whatever the timing is on that power)
But if it is merely accelerated natural healing then wouldn’t the tissues affected be prematurely aged by the sped up cell division? Too many treatments like that to the face might be like trading in scar tissue for early wrinkles, age spots, whatever. Might as well just have a regular plastic surgeon do it and live with having your face bandaged up for a while. (they are pretty good at keeping healing time down)
If she can speed up tissue growth I wonder if the place where she would really be useful is in that research they are doing on threading lab grown tissues through a structure in an attempt to “weave” crude working fascimilies of organs and appendages so they can give people a replacement part that is functional with zero chance of rejection. Definitely something the unpowered ARCHON soldiers and glass canons could come to appreciate greatly. I bet she could bring that research ahead by leaps and bounds just by speeding up the growth of tissues in the matrices let alone whatever aspects of her power Dave has yet to share with us.
Yea, even if there is no artificial way to replicate super powers (which is probably wise, but that is just my games master instincts speaking up), then super powers can still aid many fields. And yours is a very good suggestion.
There is no absolute need for accelerated healing to be associated with ageing however. A super power could regulate the process to avoid cancers growing, and prevent replication errors, especially if dealing with a localised injury, rather than needing to affect the whole body.
But, even if the whole metabolism was being affected, to some degree, it is interesting to note that many of the age related traits are all connected together. Sadly I never can remember the correct term for it. But a whole bunch of genes can all be controlled by a single mechanism.
It can be spotted through epigenetics. Offspring of mammals (and this has been shown to apply in humans too) who have had a period of starvation have their ageing switch flipped, and live measurably longer lifespans. And it is not because one gene has changed. Various ones which all have some minor influence on ageing, all change at once.
Of particular interest it is not just cosmetic, they do not just look younger (skin remaining firm, for instance), but they also remain fitter and more active. And are more resistant to the age-related diseases.
Researchers (when I last looked into it, which is a while back) were rather puzzled, as to why this might be happening. Not that such has ever stopped me from hypothesising, of course. :-D
I figure that evolution prefers short lifespans as a default. The quicker the turnover of the generations, the more adaptive the species can be. Whilst this could be done independently of long lifespans, there would be a problem. Overpopulation would kick in very fast, if a species bred fast and lived long. So evolution would require fast breeding but early death, to minimise the strain on the ecosystem.
However, there is also an evolutionary advantage to be had, for big-brained social animals, like most mammals, that goes with a long lifespan. In that the older generations can help the younger ones. Which is of particular use in times of crisis, such as famine. They can pass on tricks for how to find scarce food, for example.
So, it would make sense that epigenetics, through whatever tricks it operates, would flip the switch to “long lifespans” under such circumstances. Given that, presumably, much of the population would be dying off from starvation. So, at this time, the advantage of having older, wiser, individuals and families comes into play.
As such, even if the healing required speeding up the body’s metabolism, the super power could do the same trick. Of course, it only extends the lifespan by a degree, as opposed to offering immortality. So your points about not overdoing it remain valid, even if that is the case. But it does allow more wiggle room.
Yeah, I seem to remember somebody talking about a series of place keeper molecule strands at the end of the DNA who’s purpose was to protect the strand from damage by breaking off in place of the DNA that was actually important with each replication. The longer they were the longer the creature had before this planned obsolescence kicked in. And it was the sort of thing that could be modified during reproduction. If that is true then maybe we have a clock that can be set at conception.
And the good doc’s powers would have to add to that clock and any other similar mechanisms to keep from causing premature aging to kick in due to speedster cell division.
The “place keepers” are called telomeres, by the way. Every time a cell divides, the telomeres get a little shorter. When they disappear entirely, the cell stops dividing. The short version: Every time a cell divides, it must make a copy of its DNA first. Just like copying an old video tape, errors happen. If the cell divides often enough, a critical error is inevitable.
That’s what the telomeres (theoretically) do: After 50-70 generations, the telomere is short enough that the cell stops dividing, thus stopping cell division before an error can cause the cell to become cancerous.
(Just in case anyone out there is a biologist: Yes, I know I’m over-simplifying. But what do you want, a brief explanation of what telomeres do, or an entire 100-page term paper?)
I would’ve suggested a Walther. Probably PPK or Q, but an FN is a good second
I would have suggested a BFG 9000.
The sidearm for the REAL professional.
Amen brother!
Any gun made by the weapon shops of Ishar. They do not allow user error or hostile use. Plus are pretty powerful weapons too.
I think I might not have enough nerd cred to know what ishar is. At first I thought you wrote ishtar, then wondered what a bad movie had to do with anything.
Fortunately google explained it to me. But I never actually played those video games :)
Heh, I did not even know there had been games made under that name. I was referring to the The Weapon Shops of Isher novel by by A. E. van Vogt.
It is classic science fiction, which is well worth reading, and explicitly deals with the right to bear arms.
If you hear someone saying “The right to buy weapons is the right to be free” they are, knowingly or not, quoting the book.
I’ve learned something!
And yep, apparently there are three Ishar games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishar
I have no idea if they have anything to do with the books, since I have not read the books or played the games :)
Halo already has one of those, in compact form.
Well then it’s hardly B, is it. Hmm? HMMMM? :)
and I want to link in a poster from bing on this. best search/ bfg motivational poster mami tomoe but max may want one for herself and halo will demand one if I do
The “Barney Feeding Gun 9000” is nice. Just ask people who tried on the Barney the dinosaur mod for DOOM, lol.
I…. I have no snarky comeback for this.
Okay… is it just me or does that Photographer look kinda like a lighter haired 70’s Stan Lee to anyone else?
Might be just us, but it’s not just you… :D
^
Did cross my mind too…
Not just you.
Well Stan Lee does love his cameos :D
What you see is /after/ all of the healing…
Nope. Just a generic sleazy photographer. Per DaveB, above.
Although he looks ALOT like notoriously sleazy photographer Terry Richardson.
The power of Stan Lee can force DaveB to put him in the comic even when DaveB himself does not realize it. Such is the power of Stan Lee. That power, and parkour of course.
Amen.
Hey Sydney, be sympathetic about the Sarah Conner remark. It is not as easy as it sounds. There was an arrest in Ohio this week about a man who hired a hitman to kill a potential witness in an organized crime ring. The hitman got the victim’s name, found the address and killed the guy. Unfortunately, it turned out he actually killed another man in the city by the same name. No word on whether the person who hired him got a refund.
https://news.yahoo.com/ohio-sheriff-hit-man-killed-wrong-victim-targets-190129763.html
No way should there be a refund! If the client only specified the name and city, the contract has been fulfilled, to the letter. He or she would only have a basis for action if the address had been stipulated too.
I don’t really see them taking this to court though…
Well of course not. One should not waste the court’s time, until regular arbitration procedures have been exhausted. Provided the client had a legitimate complaint, the appropriate path would be to instigate the complaints procedure, appropriate to the relevant professional organisation.
Doubtless they would not want to see their profession fall into disrepute, so would instigate correctional proceedings. For a nominal fee.
“One should not waste the court’s time, until regular arbitration procedures have been exhausted.”
Yep! The first step in the Due Process of Law is “an attempt in Good Faith to settle out of court.” What’s really terrible is how many people don’t even know this. Of course, any out-of-court settlement that involves a professional assassin may not be the best way to go…
Actually a lot of people learn this as soon as they go to court, because most courts spell it out to them that ‘they can try to settle in mediation’ beforehand. But by that time the parties are often all ticked off at each other unless it’s some sort of bill dispute.
There’s no requirement in the courts that says you have to try arbitration (or mediation) first though – it’s a choice. Plus…. hitmen – there’s no settlements with them. Because they’re hitmen, not a phone company that mistakenly disconnected your service. :)
Also…. hiring a hitman is an illegal contract, and illegal contracts are void as a matter of law, so they won’t be getting a refund. :)
They actually teach that in first year Contract Law when they teach about Void and Voidable Contracts.
:-D
I suspect that wishing to evade prosecution for conspiracy to commit homicide might weigh heavier, in the equation.
Out of curiosity, do US states have equivalents to the UK’s Proceeds of Crime Act? Which gives provision for the Crown to confiscate ill gotten gains. Were the same to happen in the UK, the contract fee could be seized, in addition to whatever criminal proceedings took place.
Yes, the proceeds of an illegal crime (ie, criminal forfeiture) can be seized as evidence, and do not have to be given back to the criminal party afterwards. IF the person is convicted.
There’s also a civil version, but in that the party who has their proceeds forfeited has the ability to file a judicial claim within 35 days of the forfeiture. With criminal forfeiture, it’s automatically forfeited to the government (and handled by the Department of Justice and the US Treasury Department) but only if the person is actually convicted of the crime. Usually the proceeds are either destroyed (ie, counterfeit money, etc) or sold at a public auction.
Thanks for the info.
One aspect of this which interests me is the use of laws like that (where possible) to make claims to be made against individuals profiting from crime by means of writing a book or selling the movie rights to a story about the crimes.
In principle I feel that such should go to the victim, rather than the perpetrator.
Although I also realise that one must tread warily here, because we should not block people from being able to publish autobiographies, simply because it includes a crime. But if the bulk of the story, or it’s advertising focuses on the crime, then the victim’s suffering is being exploited.
Perhaps allowing settlements where part of it goes to the criminal, to reflect aspects that deal with their life story, but with the rest going to the victim?
Just my rhetorical thoughts on the ethics and principles, rather than being a question on the practical legal application of the same.
Well… that’s what civil lawsuits come in:) Monetary compensation.
Criminal cases = jail as a potential punishment (sometimes fines too, but the fines are paid to the state, not the victim). In criminal cases, the crimes are considered to be against ‘the state’ or ‘society as a whole’ – even if it’s against a single individual. The prosecutor files the case on behalf of the state, not on behalf of the wronged victim.
Civil cases = monetary damages / orders to do or not do something (specific performance or injunction). In civil cases, the wronged victim (plaintiff) makes the lawsuit directly (ie, they hire an attorney, who sues the defendant), not a prosecutor.
A single person can be charged in both types of courts. Usually they will try to convict in a criminal court first, since there’s a more stringent standard of proof in criminal cases (‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ for criminal cases vs. ‘by a preponderence of the evidence’ for civil cases). If you can get a criminal conviction, you can pretty much definitely win the civil case.
Basically…
Murder is a crime. If you’re found guilty, you go to jail.
Wrongful Death is a civil case. If you’re found guilty, you pay the plaintiff money.
You CAN be found guilty of both murder and wrongful death. Or you can be found innocent of murder, but still be found guilty of wrongful death.
Mmm. Writing a book, or a script, is not illegal.
But making a profit from a crime is. So, even if a victim did not make a civil claim, should not the state act to seize whatever proportion of the proceeds were deemed to derive from having committed the original crime? In order to prevent this further crime.
Bearing in mind that this would apply to crimes where the victim died, possibly from the crime itself, and has no heirs. Likewise as for crimes committed on society as a whole (lots of different types possible, but let us say tax evasion, as an example).
An underlying principle that I see, justifying state initiated action, is to deter crime.
“Oh, what the heck, I am going to risk it. Even if they catch me, I can make millions selling the rights to the movie!”
Actually there are laws on the books collectively known as ‘Son of Sam’ laws, but it’s not federal – it varies from state to state. You see, in the United States, each state has its own laws – especially when dealing with criminal penalties and treatment of profiteering from one’s own crime (in the unlikely event that no one has also made a Wrongful Death suit (ie, how the Goldmans made a civil wrongful death suit against OJ Simpson even when he managed to not get convicted for the crime – he did get convicted of the wrongful death suit because it’s a lower standard of proof, like I said before).
Basically, Son of Sam laws basically say that the victims of crimes are to be notified whenever a person who was convicted of a crime receives $10,000 or more from ANY source (upon which time they could have an extended period of time to make a civil lawsuit for Wrongful Death for the convicted criminal’s crimes, which they might have not done otherwise if the convict had no money anyway. It also sometimes allows the state to act on the behalf of the victims via an agency (Crime Victim’s Board, although this aspect has some legal problems in many states in which Son of Sam laws have been used).
Texas has been pretty successful in using it, New York has had some successes and some failures, and I think California found the law unconstitutional because it was overinclusive and overbroad. There’s no real conclusive determination though, mainly because a lot of the time there ARE civil lawsuits already so there’s no need to use the applicable Son of Sam laws.
Take note Vehemence!
“The murder’s intent follows the bullet.” – it’s a saying in most criminal law classes in law school when they’re explaining mens rea.
If a person hires a hitman to kill someone, and that person kills someone else, the person who hires the hitman (as well as the hitman) can still be charged with premeditated murder (aka, Murder in the 1st Degree – an intentional killing which was premeditated or planned) – it doesnt have to be reduced to Murder in the second degree (an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned) – just because the hitman got the wrong person.
Absolutely right. This has also been expanded in some cases to cover any kind of ambulatory or unmanned weapon bought or hired for the purpose of killing someone, i.e. a dog, a robot, an unsuspecting person who administers lethal medication, etc. There are almost no new crimes, just old crimes using new methods.
Posted on DeviantArt? Well there’s his problem! Seriously, DeviantArt is nice for looking at posters and stuff, but it’s terrible for long-form comics- there’ve been more than one awesome looking, cleverly written comic that I’ve just nope’d at as soon as I saw they were hosted there- and I’m a member myself!
I’d bet if Stjepan set up a site on _any other_ free webcomic hosting site, or set up his own bare-bones site, he’d get a ton more traffic and get better known.
Actually the main problem with deathvigil was that it sold very well initially, comicbookstore and like took in a large amount of the first edition, and stjepan did not realise that after that they mainly take in on order only and as a result second and third issue did not do as well.
Anvil – The comic is NOT a webcomic, its a print comic! “Death Vigil” is a classically printed comic book that Stjepan made the mistake of failing to promote enough. Now that its about to be canceled do to low sales…. he posted the entire thing to DeviantArt to promote it. The reason why he posted there instead of to another site is that he has another comic (Sunstone) with a wide fanbase on DeviantArt already.
Oh, and Sunstone wasn’t originally a webcomic either. It started as some sexy doodles to help him get over some artist block a few years ago. The doodles got repeating characters in them. The characters got a short comic strip story. Then a long story…… then a webcoimic. Then a printed book that hit the Amazon bestseller list! Woot!
Understood- but the thing is, Webcomics can be profitable in ways that print comics can’t. Look at Girl Genius- started as a print comic, but the Foglios had an explosion in popularity (and thus, sales) when they went Freely Available Web Comic. Schlock Mercenary would never have made it as a print-comic (the first couple years’ worth of art were, frankly, terrible) but as a free webcomic, it became popular enough that there’s now an entire business built around it- same with Least I Could Do.
If you want to be profitable in comics in this day and age, you either need to get in with a major publishing house, or focus it as a webcomic. Even Fred Perry’s released the first 200 editions of Gold Digger online. You need popularity and wide recognition first, then afterwards you can leverage that into Patreon or Kickstarter contributions for either ongoing support or print editions, and self-publish for online orders or the slower orders from comic stores.
I don’t think I’ve been in a brick’n’mortar comic store in a decade, but I have over 50 webcomics which I regularly read, and I’ve purchased all the comics I own through interest I found online, through mail-order.
DeviantArt, while a pretty nice art-sharing site, is not the best way to get widespread attention as a webcomic- and you need that widespread attention if you want to compete, and therefore make money, as a comics artist.
I’m pretty sure that if the shield is air tight, it’s not going to let a bullet, or the smoke out either. Yea, gun sorta bad for Halo
She’s not going to have it up all the time…
Some months later…
*BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG-*
Newly trained ARCHON “space marine” in his first supporting action ducks down to look in that direction: “What the HELL?!”
“- BANG BANG BANG!!”
Regular also ducked down next to him: “Aaand 20.” Pops back up to head for the next bit of cover while gesturing for the newbie to follow. “No worries. Sydney just ran out of air again.”
https://youtu.be/DvcJLHuTTTc
IF ONLY Arianna hadn’t banned that shirt… TT
The Five seveN annoys me because of its cutesy capitalization. Firearms should not have cutesy capitalization.
I ignorE iT.
The Five seveN is a great pistol but Sydney might have issues with it, she is rather small and it is a really big with a wide grip that people with smaller hands have had trouble with.
Aside from that the only big drawback is the cost which Sydney doesn’t have to deal with.
On the plus side the Five seveN uses the same ammo as the P90 so if they also use that weapon they can buy ammo in bulk.
Inb4 Syndey already has a firearm and pulls the parts out of the bag, naming and describing each one in order, before assembling, stripping and re-assembling it within a minute.
Just because it would be funny, and you should never underestimate a Nerd.
I expect her to do some heavy studying with Dabbler, so that she can disassemble it, rebuild it, and improve it in the process.
I have seen my uber nerd friends doing just that. Not with guns, but other things.
For example one friend left his lights on at a party. So he asks the host if he can borrow the insides of the sound system. Then makes himself a trickle charger, from the parts. Leaves the car wired up overnight. In the morning, it starts first turn.
The sound system was rebuilt in minutes. And everything worked perfectly. Which was noteworthy, as the CD player had not worked in years! Due to an electrical fault, out of interest, rather than a mechanical one. So required a bit of improvisation, given no extra parts were available.
> I expect her to do some heavy studying with Dabbler, so that she can disassemble it, rebuild it, and improve it in the process.
Halo: “Ohh… Dabbler, what did you do? The trigger pull is now so light and crisp”
Dabbler: “I removed the magazine disconnector. Nobody wants it, nobody needs it. It was added just because of US product liability issues.”
Halo: “Curse those money-grabbing lawyers. They spoil everything nice and force us to have 12-pound New Yorker triggers.”
Sydney –just for grins– needs to spread out the parts and check her unknown orbs for “instant repair feature”. We already know one ball does gross manipulation, maybe one of the other two does fine work and only with parts to a whole.
While she is doing this she can lean over and try them on Jiggawatt and see if her hearing is healed. Its not like she has opportunities every day to check these kinds of options out.
JIGGAWATT: Why is everyone looking at me funny?
PEGGY: Your head has been turned into a frog head!
JIGGAWATT: (speaking more loudly) Sorry, you will have to speak up more. That did not seem to cure my hearing!
PEGGY: Well Sydney we now know what the green orb does. Want to see if the brown one will reverse the effect? Or might it give her a horse’s head instead?
Peggy: Did a close up on her panel and now I have to wonder if the two scars are self inflicted (as body mod) ? The vertical could be a dueling scar, but is far too perfectly oriented vertically for accident. The horizontal also appears to hug the contour of the nose all the way around but without a dent or change in the nose’s profile –which is like impossible for an accident. That suggests some form of body modification –which works well with the tattoos but not so much with the military. Next we will find out she has a subcutaneous watch that glows through her wrist skin when pressed.
It might also suggest that it was drawn to be viewed at normal magnification. :-P
Besides which we know that she got her injuries, in the line of duty, in a helicopter crash.
Leg injury in Iraq. Facial scars were not canonically mentioned.
I’ve often wondered about a panel from this particular comic:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989
The ‘classified’ picture looks like active duty, and makes the timeline interesting. To quote from the bio, Peggy and Maxima met in the incident that cost Peggy her leg. Guessing by that statement and the picture, they were both likely assigned to a (classified) mission, and Peggy ended up injured. That said, notice that Peggy’s scars are already there in the picture. Thus, the scars were likely inflicted before the helicopter crash.
Interesting reasoning.
Peggy’s leg under pants could be in that picture but it still feels like the scars could have served as a body mod that could pass in muster. He ink may have been minimal. The could in fact be inkless tattoos…
Lol I looked at that and thought the Spellcheck had hit me again. Nope, unless it stole the comma after leg and again after pants. As it stands, the spell check left the post alone as it saw no need to add insult to injury (self inflicted)
3rd panel in the yellow ball has skipped ahead of blue. So surprised her orbs shuffled?
Whether or not the pistol is ideal for Sydney’s height and build is fairly irrelevant. The military will give her what the military deems appropriate for the military’s needs. Once Sydney has mastered this weapon, then she can request something different, via the appropriate forms and route, as she will have a better idea as to what she needs, and can argue her point based on experience and research.
Death Vigil is a good comic, it’s the first one I subscribed to on Comixology.
Guns are tools. Dangerous ones that should never be thought in the same way as a toaster or a knife. They are designed to kill. To defend or to murder. For me any weapon you want to carry you have to show not only competence, but moral good judgment before you pay for it. Everyone also must have military training even if you aren’t going into the military. License like you license to drive.
Any weapon from knives to nunchukus, swords etc. In an adult society that is moral, it seems reasonable to have some kind of self defense. Police just clean up afterwards. We have nothing like that now.
I’m surprised Maxima’s fist isn’t glowing in that last panel.
As a boon to the photographer, Max can produce her own lighting effects…But an open-air studio is recommended to avoid structural containment of the explosion.
Maxima does like her old-fashioned imagery, doesn’t she? XD If the photographer Arianna hires looks anything like that, I’ll be very surprised.
Putting aside how bad an idea it is to give a crazy nut job like Sidney a gun(Even if it is disassembled and has no ammo.). I also gotta question the need to do so. Just again asking how many forks a person really needs. You said it yourself Sidney already has ability more powerful than any gun. So why give a person a weapon when they already are a weapon?
Though on another note I don’t think it will take long for her to get this stuff down. She looks like the build a modal type to me.
Werewolves. She needs silver bullets for those. Accept no substitutes!
Yeah, not like she can just wrap em up with her light hook or use her little bubble trick like in the last fight. Using a silver bullet(That is actually incredibly inaccurate as seen on Mithbusters.)is a better idea.
Not sure what you are referring to here. The only one that springs to mind is trapping Vehemence in it, with her. Which sounds like a suicidal thing to try with a werewolf! And she sure as heck would be glad to have a gun, if she did have to, for some reason. Given the problems she had trying to use her other powers against a foe inside the shield.
The light hook is a good option mind. But eventually she will find that having a werewolf (or three) in her tentacle is inhibiting her policing activities. Or even her social life, if the custody officer cannot contain them safely.
They will be attempting to get out and also be making opportunity attacks on innocent bystanders. Plus, in the field, other lives may be in danger. Not being able to use the lighthook, or go near those who need rescuing, could result in more deaths. Or even a werewolf plague.
The Mythbusters bullets were hand-cast and shrunk when cooling. So were very poorly made, beside the modern mass-produced bullets they were comparing them to. Hence their relative inaccuracy. Although they did actually hit and penetrate the targets, I note. Albeit at extremely close range. But that is better than having no options.
You certainly would want a greater punch than theirs demonstrated though. But I am sure that Arc-SPARQ could come up with an adequate solution. Say, giving the bullets a depleted uranium core? You would still be hitting the werewolf with pure silver, but with more penetrating power.
The mythbusters could have made a silver-coated bullet instead, which would not have had any shrinkage :)
Has anyone else here read the “Mercedes Thompson” series by Patricia Briggs? As it turns out, her husband Michael has written a pretty extensive blog about silver bullets, and his efforts at actually making some (as the Mythbusters pointed out, it isn’t as easy as it sounds.)
I’ve linked it below, in case anyone is interested:
https://www.patriciabriggs.com/articles/silver/silverbullets.shtml
Really interesting. Thank you for providing the information. The guest post, at the end of the article, being the most useful. Although the rest of it was a good read.
Casting silver into hollowpoint rounds seems to be the best way to make combat-worthy silver bullets.
For the same reason a tank also has guns on it, and doesn’t rely on it’s main cannon to take out people.
And that it can’t hurt for a soldier/cop to know how guns work
Except Halo has more than one ability she can use that are more versatile and more powerful. So again the point seems nill.
It’s probably a good idea to have an understanding of guns, as a lot of potential enemies will have them. And remember, Chekov’s gun! (literally) Now that it’s been seen, it will come in useful!
to quote the evil overlord list:
“I will provide funding and research to develop tactical and strategic weapons covering a full range of needs so my choices are not limited to “hand to hand combat with swords” and “blow up the planet”.
I for one think it is a great idea to give Sidney a gun , especially if you consider her to be a crazy nutjob .
Because every hand that holds a pistol cant hold one of these immensly more dangerous Orbs .
Giving her a gun makes her less dangerous . I’d give her two :-)
Lol.
Sydney might NEVER actually use her pistol in combat, but I don’t understand your objection to gun training at all.
It is certain that her duties will bring her into contact with armed people at one point or another, and not all of those people will be on her side. Knowing how firearms work and what they can do can only benefit her in those situations. After all, it;s not like she can have her Force Field up 24/7.
Plus, consider the AFTER-combat phase – if she is disarming a large heap of unconscious perps, it helps to know the right ways to handle any forearms they have. One doesn’t just drop confiscated guns in a separate heap and wait for the cops to sort them out later, it is all about basic safety.
The idea isnt really Sydney needing to use a gun – it’s the idea of teaching Sydney about how to handle something powerful responsibly. If they can do that with a gun, it might transfer over to her use of her other superpowered weapons.
That is an excellent choice of training for Sydney. Also, I suggest strongly that you put in a brief scene of Arianne reiterating, “And remember, we are VERY serious about the clause in your contracts that specify not making any sort of sexist remarks around the Colonel. If you make any such remarks, the medical, fiscal, and legal indemnity waivers go into immediate effect, and you will be responsible for all damages wrought in reaction to your carelessness.” Or something along those lines. Although I’d hope she’d pick some decent photographers who ARE professionals…as well as putting in those warnings.
The photographer looks like Stan Lee.
Quite. I mentally heard his “is it getting kind of hot in here?” in Stan Lee’s voice.
Are you sure it was just mentally?
I regularly check my closets to make sure that a 92 year old comic book artist is not hiding in there to say creepy stuff like that.
Now that is a comment that sounds believable.
Indeed, my faithful canine companion. Have a scooby snack :)
*sniffs it to make sure it does not smell of recycled old comic book artist*
Yum yum yum!
I’d never give you anything made of recycled old comic book artists. These are recycled young comic book artists. Far more tender.
NOOOOOOO!
Does it help if I say it was the comic book artist in particular was Tim Green – responsible for this picture?
https://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/comicsalliance.com/files/2012/01/tumblrly0hnslyzz1r0rg1zo11280.jpg
Nope.
:-(
I was just wondering when the next Death Vigil would come out! Thanks, Dave!
Good fashion choice, by the way. Speaking from experience, there are fewer more effective non-verbal, non-lethal methods of saying, “@#$% you, I’m not in the mood for your @#$%” than wearing a Perfecto-style leather jacket.
Hopefully Arc-swat lets Maxima keep the jacket.
I am really impressed with how DaveB is remembering that the orbs glow these days. Though I do often find myself wondering why Sydney’s hair is green.
They have ever since they popped out of Tubey. Flip to a random page and, if they are in a suitable position, you will almost certainly see them doing just that. But that only makes it even more impressive!
Don’t worry, Sydney! It’s not that hard! You can (and should) learn it in like an hour. 30 seconds was my time when I was 12, but I was the best in my family… So the timing may take some practice, but you should be able to get it. ^_^
Ok, I’ve got a bit of an issue with this one.
Sydney has had the orbs for quite some time, and yet they never knew about them until the bank robbery. That they didn’t even have a CLUE about her and the orbs should indicate a high degree of both common sense and discipline. As she knows how to use them, indicates that she has performed a certain amount of self training. In combat, she proved to be an invaluable tactician who, through her own tactics, managed to win a fairly large free for all battle, ESPECIALLY against a for that could not be bested by brute force.
Whether or not Maxima wants to admit it, give Sydney a year and a half to prove herself, and I think she’d either be running the team or be its tactical commander under Maxima.
She may act like a goofball most of the time, but as quickly as she learns, and with the skills she has right now, when the defacatory matter impacts the occilating rotary air impeller, she is a force that is perhaps the most formidable, because she thinks before acting, and she thinks FAST.
i believe that either she or maybe Joel said that she got them about 3 months ago when she went on vacation… that’s NOT really a lot of time to do anything major with them… well, other than start a suspicious forest fire with the PPO (suspected Arson from the fire spread pattern, but no source is found, nor any type of accelerants were used, so it’s probably been classified as a ‘freak natural event’), but the others that she knows about are easily capable of being held as a secret, and only experimented with in the privacy of her home… the shield, the tentacle, the vision orbs as well as the fly ball don’t need much effort to hide away their powers, the PPO, yeah, THAT one is kinda hard to hide, but NOT impossible, especially if she only used it that one time until the Demo… so i can easily see Archon NOT knowing about them as much as you seem to think they should. after all, that’s why Zoeng has to do the research on them.
Sydney’s had the orbs for a few months tops.
Pretty much ALL of her ‘self-training’ has comprised trying to use the orbs behind closed doors with no one noticing, with certain obvious disadvantages there.
She didn’t know how fast she could fly or how tough her Force Field is or even how destructive the PPO could be until the day Max took her out to the Test Range.
She’s a smart tactician, indisputably, but she doesn’t know it ALL just yet. Noting that ARC is a military organization that willl, depending on exact circumstances, use military equipment. She MUST understand those things if she is to be fully effective, and she doesn’t – yet.. Sydney will be one heckuva super. But she needs lots of training and experience to get there first.
So what exactly is your issue?
She sort of knew how destructive the PPO was, actually. She pretty much incinerated a forest accidentally, and it’s why she hadnt really used it since then, and why she didnt want to ‘give a demonstration’ in the ballroom.
What I got from that is that her PPO started a FIRE that incinerated a forest. Subtle differance there, she apparently only tried to use it once, and what she mainly got from that was not to use the thing indoors.
Not a good start, but arguably not the worst of starts either, ….
…. BUT she hadn’t tried using it since, that much is certain, and she obviously remained unsure WHERE on the power scale her weapon was (ie. flamethrower, tacnuke.or what?).
I grant you that point.
+1.
I agree with you about everything else you said btw :)
I totally agree with all your points in your second paragraph.
I also agree that she will be a tactical advisor. But I do not see her leading the team. Other than coordinating tactics, that is. There is a lot more to being a leader than just knowing genre-savvy tactics.
Would Sydney want to order one of her friends to perform a task that would almost certainly result in them dying? Maxima would. If it was necessary for the survival of the team, or the completion of a suitably important mission. Would Halo want to have to write to, or more likely go and see, that hero’s grieving relatives, and explain the circumstances of their death. Maxima will have to.
Likewise Maxima will need to do all the routine management tasks, like juggling difficult personalties and sorting out arguments. Plus all the bureaucracy, paperwork and politics that go with such a key position. Sure Sydney could learn that, but her passion is her book shop, not becoming a career officer.
Plus, if you look around, there are a lot of commentators who consider Sydney to be a ‘nut job’ and a danger to others. I am not one. But she certainly does convey such impressions. And that is not what team-mates would expect of someone leading them. Nor would Halo be happy conforming to the mould that they, the press, the government and the public expect.
Sydney likes not minding her language, and being wacky, such as pretending that sunlight burns her. Plus playing pranks, e.g. convincing Heatwave that there were voices coming from inside her phone. She will enjoy being one of the ranks, and even an NCO. Where she will have much more leeway to have fun, within this unit.
But that is just quibbling as to the nature of her role. I agree that she will become very powerful personally. Possibly on a par with, or even exceeding, Maxima. And she will be pivotal, within the team, in tactical situations, due to her quick-witted thinking.
“Would Sydney want to order one of her friends to perform a task that would almost certainly result in them dying?”
Considering that Sydney deliberately trapped Vehemence inside her shield, it’s a pretty good sign that she wouldn’t ask anyone else to take greater risk than she’s willing to take on herself.
That’s one of the reasons General George Patton commanded such loyalty from his own troops; he was on the front lines with his men & taking the risks himself, instead of “leading from behind” like far too many other troop commanders do.
I was not implying otherwise. Her bravery is not in question.
But, in any realistic setting, there can come a time when such a decision has to be made. And, whilst Sydney would not doubt try to find an ingenious way around it, the circumstances might not provide one. If it needs a teleporter, for example, then that rules out Sydney making the sacrifice. Likewise if it needs any of the powers that are not in her remit.
Finally though, if Sydney did have the option of a noble sacrifice, and took it, she has just deprived her team of their leader, and likely their most powerful hero, at a moment of crisis. A leadership decision, which could easily result in loosing the entire team!
I was implying any lack of bravery on Sydney’s part. I was addressing the specific use of the word “want” in the quote. Sydney wouldn’t want to give such an order, but would if she had to.
I was merely expressing the idea that her teammates (at least the ones who were in that same fight with Vehemence, at least) would realize that Sydney wouldn’t give such an order unless there was a damn good reason for it.
And you are missing my point. They are good soldiers and would realise the necessity. Although I still doubt that they would want to have a ‘goofball’ in charge of them. But, let us assume you are right about them, that does not change it for Sydney.
Some people are good leaders. Some people could be good leaders, but would not want to be. I feel that Sydney is one of those. She has the potential, but not the will.
When push came to shove, she stepped in. And, doubtless, when she is put in a similar situation, she will do so again.
But, only whilst she feels that it is a fun game. Where she can get Harem to put googly eyes on people and have a laugh.
However, had Harem died doing that (not 1/5th dead, but 100% dead), would Sydney have been able to handle the realisation that it was her instructions which caused that? You saw how she reacted to even partially assisting in Maxima inflicting grievous bodily harm on Vehemence. Ie that was helping to injure an enemy. As opposed to being solely responsible for the death of an ally.
As a cop or a soldier, she still faces that prospect, of course.
But the higher the rank, the more likely she is to have to make such calls. And I do not think she would be able to handle the stress of having to make such judgements, with the frequency that someone in Maxima’s position might have to.
Should circumstances force her to become a career leader, she would have to loose all the quirkiness she (and I) love. Her heart is an open book at the moment. But the pain of having to choose who lives and who dies would tear her apart. She could only do that if she closed the book, and sealed away her empathy.
She would be a very different, colder, character. If she did not break.
I don’t think Maxima wants to risk pushing her that way either.
Your lack of military experience is showing, puppy. No military commander wants to send their troops on a potential suicide run. The very best though, are willing to, and to take on the responsibility and guilt that goes along with that decision. It rather dovetails into my personal definition of “courage”. Courage is not never knowing fear, that is insanity. Courage, rather, is knowing fear and doing what must be done in spite of it.
You are quibbling over semantics. My comment was about whether Sydney would want to face the prospect of having to do that. Whereas Maxima has already come to terms with it. She would not want to but she may have to. She knows that it is part of the responsibility of her position.
Clearly it was not my intent to say that Maxima wakes up in the morning and says “now who can I send off to die today?” To suggest that is insulting.
But, responding to your point, in kind, I have to disagree with you. No good military leader would want to do that. But you could get lumbered with a sadist, or other deviant personality type, who actually did enjoy that. Such individuals can and have gotten into the military. Both historically and, doubtless, in some forces around the globe today.
Every outfit that uses suicide bombers ever.
Actually that gets really weird. Not talking about modern cases here mind, as that is far too sensitive a subject, for me to want to get into. Plus what you reminded me of is somewhat different, a poignant situation in WW2.
A Japanese vessel had a number of kamikaze crew, ready to be deployed against any prime target. Using something like mini-subs (essentially torpedoes with a pilot) if I remember right.
Every time that a ship was sighted, they got themselves psyched up, expecting that this might be their last hour. Did whatever rituals they do to prepare themselves. But, if it turned out not to be a valid target, they would then be stood down.
One of them, having been scrambled numerous times finally reached his limit, and begged to be allowed to just attack the next target, whatever it was. The captain was very reluctant to do this, as if it was not a worthy target, it would be a pointless waste of his crewman’s life.
But he agreed. An unladen cargo ship was sighted and the kamikaze pilot sank it. The only other alternative would have been to allow the crewman to commit seppuku. Whereas this way, his family cold be advised that he had died sinking enemy shipping.
One of the sad vagaries of war, for all involved.
Sydney did create a plan that put relatively squishy Jiggawatt in physical contact with one of the strongest individuals in the world. That’s a dangerous detail right there!
Good point.
One thing in favor of Sydney getting Jiggy in there with Vehemence though, is the fact that Jiggy wouldn’t be there alone, wouldn’t be the first to get in there & have a lot of high-strength backup to keep V restrained when Jiggy did go in.
Please stop saying jiggy. :)
I keep reading it as you saying Sydney was getting jiggy with it, and it’s creating disturbing images in my brain.
Yup. And should Sydney start to think on how close Jiggawatt came to dying, because of her, she may need a long time in therapy. I do feel that she is a sensitive, empathic enough person that she is at serious risk from PTSD, from what she has been through.
Not that I would want the comic to dwell on that, mind.
But the more responsibility that is pushed upon her, the harder it will be for her to cope with it. She likes her carefree lifestyle. She has difficulty even seeing pain being inflicted on others.
Sydney should not be pushed out of her comfort zone. Her quality of life would suffer too much.
Comic book store owner and part time super hero is perfect for her.
She would not enjoy life as the head of a SWAT team.
Jiggawatt’s ear trauma wasn’t from Vehemence though (I mean ti was in that Vehemence was responsible for the entire fight,but Vehemence didnt directly cause the ear trauma). That would be Breakpoint’s fault (again, aside from the fact that Breakpoint, like the others, were all doing it because of Vehemence’s influence)
@JasonAW3 Well, I don’t know if it was “common sense and discipline” or more fear of horrible experiments https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/317 nerve weasels https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/457 and government sponsored vivisectionists https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1034
That, and the orbs are basically undetectable, so she would have had to do something both newsworthy and attributable to something other than normal human activities for them to know about them.
While she was invaluable in combat, they don’t get know how safe or trustworthy she is in other circumstances – it’s only been a couple of days in-comic, and much of her behaviour both observed and implied has been in the goofball range. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/554 and author’s note: “Challenges” is Sydney’s euphemism for 80 stitches. She doesn’t always think, or think sensibly, before acting. Examples: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/224 https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/171 https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/250 and https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/196 (very soon after https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/184)
I’d think a little emphasis on safety, discipline, and basic knowledge is not out of place.
Idea 1:
Special Move for Halo: She sends an orb to the limit of her range and puts it into the trunk of a car. The car then tries to leave, and can’t.
Idea 2:
Halo is using her left arm to steady the gun in her right. Right arm over left. Left crossed under holding one orb.
What orb is in Halo’s off hand, why?
TrueSight: so she can see what is behind the target
• PPO. So she can blast the crap out of them! No, no. Wait…
• Forb. So she can raise the shield, if anyone returns fire.
• Brown Mystery orb She is intending to flick her hand at them, stylishly launching the orb, to knock them off their feet.
• Green Mystery orb Sydney finds that, being able to keep it rock steady, by mental command, gives her as steady an aim as using a mount or leaning on a wall!
• Tentacle orb So that she can grab the villain and hold him right in front of the gun. Thus ensuring she can have a very tight grouping on all her shots!
• Flyball. Halo is actually above the villains, unseen, pointing at their heads.
• Truesight. Halo is actually behind them, and the villains are looking at her decoy. Meanwhile, as Guesticus says, she is using the truesight feature, to make sure that she is not the only one pulling a trick!
I think using both features of the True Sight orb simultaneously would be under “power stunt” and would give Sydney a headache as it would require seeing out of both the clone and her own eyes at the same time.
*blink blink*
Let me do that again, but slower.
*decoy eyes shut, real eyes open, examine scene, real eyes closed, decoy eyes open*
Yea, it would require practice, if intending to do that in potential combat situations. The changing perspective would be disorienting when initially tried. But not hugely so for modern people, who are used to seeing something very similar, on a daily basis, in TV, and movies. And I am sure Halo will have played a few games with similar perspective changes. So her brain is already part-trained.
So it is significantly less challenging than, for example, a power stunt where a natural born super, tries to learn how to concentrate on a force field, in order to turn it opaque.
Could be something easier like that. Or not. We really don’t know much about what its like to use that orb since we haven’t seen her try to function in her real body while focusing on seeing through the fake one.
We do know however that, as it is a mere copy of her appearance, her eyes have to be open in her real body in order for the fake to have them open (baring the ever wonderful toggles each orb has helping with that in some way… ). Like when she sticks her hand through Arianna’s head she looks to the left in both bodies which allows the clone to see Arianna’s head. So either the clone takes sensory priority or Sydney’s had enough practice time in the apartment to get her mind wrapped around forcing herself to look through the clone for better accuracy of movement even when her real body can easily see the action.
I think one of two things is true. Either the senses of the clone take a very strong priority when she uses it (sort of a default so those without the natural capacity to handle the split feed when the brain was only made for one set of eyes and ears… ) or she sees/hears through both simultaneously and had to learn to focus on the clone back at the apartment. The user friendly nature of the orbs and their built in safeties that have to be overcome mentally suggests the former to me.
Either way, processing two full sets of eyes and ears is not something the human brain is set up for or trains in since birth. Harem gets around it by letting the extra meat brains do the work. Sydney doesn’t have this option of clone handling. Unless the orb is handling some of this somehow then Sydney will probably have to learn to sort out and handle the extra sensory feeds over time the way a baby learns to deal with its “new” bodily senses and abilities: slowly and with occasional vomiting. (with the short cut in the mean time of just focusing on one and mostly ignoring the other)
Well thought through. I wondered if anyone would pick up on the duplicate being an exact copy. That catch only hit me as I clicked ‘submit’. So it would be more of a power stunt than I was arguing. And, given that she has to work within the limitations of what the orbs provide, she may not have customisation options that natural born supers might.
But, she does have a lot of powers she can unlock, and that may be one of them.
Plus I have strong suspicions that the ‘exact copy’ is not as absolute as we might assume. For instance clearly the orientation can change. Plus a decoy, which clearly showed the yellow orb in hand, is giving itself away, to any observers who know it’s properties. Something the advanced builders of the orbs are very likely to have anticipated.
So it may have a mechanism to allow some variability. For instance not including the orb in the projection. Or even substituting an orb of another colour.
And, likewise, it may have provision to allow eyes to shut and open independently. Assuming that the orb creators have similar cognitive and sensory issues, to those faced by humans. Which, given the compatibility with Sydney, seems plausible.
Unless her ADD brain is what is making her low end compatible to however the aliens think. If there even are aliens.
As far as that goes we don’t really know that the main purpose of that orb was trickery. If its range is as far as Sydney can see (I wonder if she can pop into clone mode look farther round an obstruction and then pop back into mini-orb mode and will’o’wisp over to that point without moving the original?) maybe its real purpose is something closer to scouting in a dangerous place (which ties in nicely with it being some kind of Alien mechanics tool box. That one lets him actually look INSIDE the engines while they are ON!) and or reporting information and trickery is a side benefit.
If it was really optimized for trickery I would think its default would be to scan something and store it for later use as a holographic “costume”.
But as you say it may be all about the point buy system. They give a set of orbs in default mode to a super space soldier and then as they bust their ass in training the orbs give them points to spend towards how they personally fight best (or best matches their chosen/chosen-for-them military career path… )
All very true.
Of course we must not mention their true purpose.
I must brush up on my not so ninja stealth. A tad more of the subtle, and a tad less off the shiny big box background.
She has a death ray that can punch through buildings, and you’re going to pee your panties about giving her a GUN?
Well, as many people have pointed out, PewPewOrb has a bigger safety than any handgun
She has a Death Ray that can punch through everything it has so far been put up against and to use it makes her feel like she is touching the power of a star… Sydney might have trouble taking a gun seriously if they don’t make every effort to impress on her how serious it is. And a character with a deadly weapon who, on some level, doesn’t fully respect it IS a scary thought.
I’m torn. On one hand, I feel they’re being especially unfair to Sydney. On the other hand, she’s a total spaz.
Don’t worry, she is a big girl and is taking it quite happily in her stride. It is not exactly unfair.
And some of us love her quirky character. :-P
I think they’re being pretty reasonable actually :)
Did you know that Drill Sargent’s are only allowed to hit soldiers if they point a weapon at them?
In basic, one Drill Sargent said that he threw a soldier into a “foxhole” at the range for that. The soldier’s weapon had jammed, so he stood up recklessly pointing his weapon around saying “I think my weapon jammed Drill Sargent” (read that line with the stupidest inflection possible, because only an idiot does that).
A good example comes from the classic Clint Eastwood Marine movie “Heartbreak Ridge”. In the scene, a Marine does this, and almost shoots a Major. Rounds hit the ground at his feet. I can not find the scene on YouTube (I found the punishment scene, but not the shooting part).
Tackling Sydney would be funny, but I would lose respect for her because of bad weapon technique.
I think Sydney will be better than that.
Sure, she is impulsive and makes mistakes; but outright Darwin-Award-level stupidity is just not her thing.
+1
Give you a migraine to watch this clip but here it is anyway…
https://youtu.be/6ly1KOXpGB0?t=277
Dang, that is low rez.
But yea, that is exactly what can happen if you do not keep proper weapon control at all times.
Or as I like to say *extends index finger* this is my gun control solution. Finger stays off trigger until ready to fire.
actually a DI can beat a recruit to a pulp if the recruit attacks the DI first with or without a weapon (this has been occasional exaggerated to mean a simple touch) if the recruit has a rifle carbine pistol or squad weapon and points it at anyone other than themselves the DI can shoot the recruit to protect others
I also believe in “knowing thy weapon”. It is an old video but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXS7lpXyP3s
Nowadays I can do it in under 2 mins. Sadly, on that day I fumbled a pin.