Dueling

Two questions:

1. Should it still be legal for adults?

2. Fast or accurate?

10 paces back to back, turn and fire. About 55 feet. Typical single flintlock 67 caliber smooth bore pistols, 8 inch barrel, no sights. A difficult shot at someone standing sideways to you are nearly 20 yards. Anything but a solid hit doesn't prevent the other from firing - but the other less likely to be accurate if hit. In dueling it was not uncommon for both to have fired and sometimes both get hit.



So would you turn and fire fast... or take your time aiming, then it likely the other fires at you first? But if you fire first and miss, the other has as long as wished to aim and fire at you. Overall the question of in a gun fight is speed or accuracy the priority?

 

Doing a bit of research, duels were typically only 30 to 40 feet. The rounds were very devastating, equaling a 45acp or greater. One fella was in 29 pistol duels, but shot in the stomach on the 29th and died 2 days later. Gut shots were almost always lethal, but a slow way to die.

 

To answer your question, NO! It should not be legal.
As for the speed of your shot, I think any competent shooter would say that you "take your time, quickly". That is, rely on your training/muscle memory to acquire center of mass, and let 'er go.
These days, we have people like Orlando Chuck, QLB, and Turtledude who compete with others in a game where the rate of fire is just silly fast. You'd have to be nuts to pick a fight with them.
As for this guy who was in 29 duels... I thought that the reason for a duel was to settle a grievance against someone who had insulted or dishonored you. To get 29 people that mad at you, the guy needed a bullet.

 

A bit barbaric, plus it harkens back to an era where honor meant everything....those days are gone.
Perhaps a virtual duel like laser tag is more appropriate for 21st Century society.

 

I would just hurl the damn pistol at his head.

 

The quick draw rarely is a factor in real life, and drawing and firing at someone is quite different than drawing on a target with advance notice you're doing so and from a standing position at a stationary target to be frame-of-mind ready. Definitely develops a skill, but with real life limitation value. Shoot at people shooting at you with paint ball pistols is more "realistic" in terms of self defense training. One thing it teaches you is that no matter how good you are, sometimes you'll get killed anyway - or that you both would have died.


Did you know that Western trick shooters shooting bottles in the air generally would be firing smooth bore handguns loaded with shot? Basically short barrel 410 shotguns.

 

1. no
2. Both. As fast as you can accurately shoot.

 

Have a look around here:
http://www.idpa.com/
-and see why your post is um... uninformed.
I knew an old guy in Utah who used to show up at gun shows and carnivals. He was pretty much stuck with sitting down by that point in his life. His trick was to throw aspirin pills into the air and shoot them with wax bullets.
I'd agree with the paintball approach. You don't have to have a beef with the guy. Shoot him anyway.

 

America lost some of its best sons to dueling. Alexander Hamilton and Stephen Decatur to name just two. Dueling with guns that make relatively small holes in one's body is far and away better than using swords as one can see in the movies (like Rob Roy---even though most sword fights are over in seconds).

I say use fists or maybe feet to settle personal disputes over such things as stolen girlfiends or being insulted. Best to keep one's mouth shut and keep your hands to yourself and avoid getting in a fight in the 1st place.

 

Please take it from someone that teaches and qualifies people for their carry licenses. A quick draw is almost certainly a factor in many cases.
Most self defense shootings last only less than 7seconds and an average of only a few shots are fired.
I suppose paint ball has some value because of the return fire, but it doesn't represent how quick self defense shootings occur. Never stand still. Most people survive self defense shootings.

 

I recall reading some study that concluded that in a fire fight police should first seek shelter and then return fire.

I used to teach real-life situational firearms training so my opinion differs from you. However, we might agree that static standing while squeezing off rounds in an indoor shooting range is good for starters, but for real life potential a person should instead practice by fast drawing and impulse firing - as most self defense shooting also is very close range, without notice and a panic factor involved.

Actual availability of a firearm is critical - and also poises some challenges. I tend to recommend small CCWs such as pocket .380s or alloy 38SPs - both with laser grip sights. The reason is because a person will tend to not actually carry a heavier, larger firearm. They don't want to wear a jacket. A handgun in a purse might as well be locked in a safe. A CCW firearm - unless knowingly going into a dangerous situation - needs to be a pocket gun. However such as the Charter Arms 22 "muff" or "palm" single action revolvers are next to worthless. .380/38sp is as low as a CCW firearm should go.

There are many reasons I don't think the super fast draw matters. What more matters is ease of getting hold of the firearm and the extremely difficult question of when to actually draw it. My training was highly localized and here the right to self defense against potential danger is likely much higher than most places. In my opinion when in public, the display of holding a handgun is of more value than actually firing it. Around here there is more legal tolerance of displaying a firearm in your hand out of a sense of danger - particularly if the person is a woman and the perceived danger a man - than in most jurisdictions. If a person has to wait until already under attack to draw the battle is likely already over against the victim. However, in many jurisdictions displaying a firearm in a threatening way against only perceived potential danger is highly illegal and prosecuted.

Firearms defense also has to involve some hand-to-hand defense moves, sheltering and evasive tactics. There is a point where a superior power person is too close to go for your handgun - as it then likely will just become the assailant's handgun. In public, assailants tend to not announce their intentions and a physical attack can happen at near light speed against someone fully unprepared. Thus, mental state, conditioning against panic, auto reflexes, and constant vigilance and awareness is also critical.

A curious tactic a woman trainer showed was if in public and against a perceived dangerous man approaching, the woman should drop down to a sitting position, getting her hand on her handgun while doing so. A person can't be knocked down when already down and it is far more difficult for the man to try to grab or knock away a handgun when she is that much lower than him. Sounds crazy, but try it sometimes. Have someone standing in front of you try drawing a practice handgun - and someone sitting on the ground (a braced position) drawing a practice handgun while you're standing. Which one is easier to block or grab? (Unless you are within kicking distance, thus never allow him that close before acting). From the standing person. It also is more difficult to try to drag a person on the ground away, get a knife to her throat etc. I thought that a highly unusual concept. She also taught some clever diversionary and disorienting tactics that could buy the life-saving 1 extra second.

The true difficulty is mostly about awareness and what to do with merely perceived danger (which may be real or not) than actually knowing you are going to be attacked or are being attacked. A woman is alone in a parking lot and a man is approaching her for no apparent reason. Why should she, what can she, do? Wait until he's up to her and shows his knife or gun? Then it's too late for her handgun. Draw down on him risking a felony charge? I addressed that topic more than any other, after a sufficient level of handgun proficiency obtained.

In my opinion, those are far more important than being 0.04 seconds faster on the draw. Everyone has their own views on these topics and each situation is different.

 

Should dueling be legal? Perhaps for certain crimes or events where both parties agree. It should be agreed even if the duel ends with dual misses it will solve the argument. Or maybe a toned down version could be used. The participants could use Non lethal but painful rounds? It might cause more problems that it would resolve. Fun to think about though.

Jake you presented some good info. I carry a S&W 642 (.38 special shrouded trigger) loaded with the fairly new and untested but pretty 'critical defense' load. I leave my others including a .45 acp at home. I think training is the best insurance for surviving a fire fight or home invasion etc. That instinctive mode that only training and a lot of it can prepare someone for quick life saving action. imo that is!!
reva

 

Guns are no good for dueling as they can be rigged.

sabres are far better and cannot be tampered with:

 

Obviously, you didn't even follow my link to the IDPA. You have your mindset, and that's fine, FOR YOU. I know what I've done when I've been threatened and shot at, and my decisions about what it all comes down to are fine, FOR ME. I believe that it's far more important for the individual to engage in the whole process, without hurting anyone in the course of learning than it is to follow one discipline or another. Find your discipline.
I wish I could do it all like Floyd Mayweather, and only accept matches that I know I'll win.

 

Excellent CCW choice and one I usually recommend. The shrouded trigger prevents snagging up. Do you have a Crimson Trace grip on it?

The best shot I know is a woman who not only did a lot of regimented training with her 38 special, but also bought a quasi steel framed little air soft pistol (closer to actual firearm weight)- firing it who knows how many tens of thousands of times while watch TV. Eye-hand conditioning reflexes. Same principle of shooting that toy air soft as a real firearm other than recoil. Yet it is the first shot that is the most important one anyway. Like anything, practice makes perfect.

What is very difficult to find are trainers who actually train true situational self defense where the trainers take the role of an actual attacker or potential attacker. The military understands the value of actual situational training - as do some police forces. The military learned long ago that sending green troops in without actual realistic situational training they do very badly. That is why seasoned troops are significantly superior. It's not that they are better or faster shots. They are psychologically superior. They come to instinctively know what to do - because they've done it many times before.

 

I did not realize (or perhaps have forgotten) that we had an earlier thread on this:


http://www.politicalforum.com/political-opinions-beliefs/223559-america-should-legalize-duel.html



Still say that dueling is for swords, not guns.

 

No reason to get angry about it. I can state with certainly I've have more experience with violence and confronted firearms vastly more times than you - but those type messages go nowhere.

I did follow your link and definitely think that situation training is a very good idea. That is the most critical training of all. And most often neglected.

But that wasn't the topic, was it? The topic was the value of the quick-draw. My claim being that situational training and psychological conditioning is more important.

So, for the example of dueling, the person obviously should practice quickly aiming and firing. However, the person also should practice actually dueling someone else (pistols with only powder and no ball) so many times it is routine. The psychology of direct face to face confrontations in life threatening situations can highly distort and cripple a person.

I could evolve this to a topic of what I think is wrong with much of current police training. For example being too trained to rely upon their side arms. But that is a different topic.

 

No, definitely not, besides just being barbaric it simply doesn't work at what it's supposed to do, making most situations worse and starting ongoing feuds and vendettas..

Dueling was semi legal at best. Duelists could be and often were charged with murder even if all the niceties were observed. Duels were witnessed by about 4 people, the seconds, and these were supposed to make sure all the many rituals were carried out. The threat of legal prosecution was the major thing that kept all the rituals being observed.

One major thing about dueling was that, supposedly, an apology by either side would end the matter right there. Unfortunately, the other side could refuse to accept and the abuse of this feature was how you got people who killed several victims, often turning it into a sort of ritualized serial killing or even murder for hire

One of the stranger things to do was called "deloping". You shot into the air and then gave the other side a free shot at you. This was taken to satisfy honor. You were SUPPOSED to do the same, but it often didn't happen that way. It's said to be what happened to Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr but accounts differ. Hamilton's death was a major reason the tradition fell into such disfavor

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075968/



From 1977 by Ridley Scott:



Set during the grand, sweeping Napoleonic age, an officer in the French army insults another officer and sets off a life-long enmity. The two officers, D'Hubert and Feraud, cross swords ...




I thought this was an under rated movie though it was respected at the Cannes Film Festival. Good character development, plot line, costuming, and scenery.








I prefer not to post a movie review for fear that it may give away too much of the plot and sincerely believe that this was Scott's best movie (and it was his first one!). Please consider watching this movie when you have the time.

 

Oh boy. The subject being quick draw was not established until you said so, in this post. My beef was that you criticized OC in claiming that he only knows about shooting paper culprits, and real life is different. We don't know what he's had to deal with.
In the times when I've had to rely on my guns to keep me alive, I attribute my survival to situational awareness, level headedness, and accurate fire. Discussing ones' own approach to self defense is like trying to say that one member of a military squad is more effective than another. Each of us do things in the way that we find to work, in response to whatever situations we've dealt with and prepared for. You can't be ready for every eventuality, and if you engage in conflict too much, you will die of the gun.

 

True, I know nothing about him. He stated that in his experience drawing quickly matters a great deal. My response was I see it as of lesser importance than many other factors. But, in a sense, quick drawing is a part of the topic.

My beef may have sounded like it was at him, but it wasn't. Rather, it was about typical firearm training - the minimal that most people do. Static shooting in an indoor range or at cans/targets. That part really wasn't about him and if it came across that way I offer my apologies. Then again he knows nothing about me either.

The most critical is situational because the greatest danger is crippling panic under surprise, sudden situations. A person's own mind can be their greatest ally or worse enemy of all in those situations.

 

It's true that situational awareness and avoidance are then number one self defense tools. We, (and I say we, because there is an annual conference that brings together firearm instructors from across the country and we try to standardize our teaching methods) make sure that this is the number one thing to emphasize in our classes.
I have force on force training that simulates real life situations and tries to ramp up the stress factor as much as possible. For those that want to take their training to the next level, this is a great option.
Having the skill to draw quickly and accurately and be able to hit a threat while you are moving laterally is of great importance. Rarely in self defense scenarios do you have advance notice that you will have to take action. It's nothing like the usual police situation where they have been called to a scene of a possible threat. When cops answer these calls, they usually already have their firearm drawn.

 

I definitely agree that skill at firing accurately while under stress and moving is of great importance. Absolutely.

The challenges police face are very different than for civilians. Police have to act. Civilians don't. But police generally are reason to have their guard up. Civilians don't. Police have greater rights to draw and fire than do civilians. It is less like statistically that a civilian will ever need to.

 

seriously????

folks should be allowed to deal with petty personal disputes, with killing????????