
The gunfighter's dilemma - vColin
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8493000/8493203.stm
======
v3rt
Apparently, it's incorrect that the winning strategy is to move second - while
the drawing motion take ~20ms less when reacting, it takes ~200ms to react in
the first place, leaving you quite dead. See
[http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/why_does_th...](http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2010/02/why_does_the_gunslinger_who_draws_first_always_get_shot.php)

Did the BBC misinterpret the data, or did the scienceblogs article make a
mistake?

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run4yourlives
I was just thinking the same thing... the 20ms difference only matters if the
start time of the action is less than 20ms before the start time of the
reaction.

Just because you can do something faster, it doesn't always mean you finish
faster.

~~~
electromagnetic
Aiming isn't taken into consideration with a button press, so I wouldn't
exactly call this study accurate. Bohr did a more scientifically valid test
without anything more than a pair of pop guns.

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mattheww
You can't skip the story about Niels Bohr at the bottom.

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jcl
_In a series of mock gunfights with colleagues Bohr always drew second and
always won._

Heh... Considering that all the participants were scientists, I'm surprised
they concluded that one event caused the other.

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patio11
Somebody tried making that objection but reviewer N.B. blocked his paper
during peer review, citing inadequate references to existing literature. The
scientist lost his funding, was denied tenure, and now lives in a van down by
the river.

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InclinedPlane
There are existing studies which show that people react faster when startled
than when not. There's a nifty little online test to check your own response
times: <http://www.mathsisfun.com/games/reaction-time.html>

As far as I know this is the first test to show that startle response extends
beyond reaction time, it's an interesting piece of data. It's worth noting
that it's possible to force yourself into a state of mind similar to being
startled, which may very well eliminate the advantage to "shooting" second.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That game is very telling. Try it at "arms length", then again with your face
right up to the screen. See if you don't do much better when the dot fills
more of your visual range. Speculation: a startle reflex depends upon the
magnitude of the nervous signal, which is larger when more retinal cells fire.

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flatline
I could see this being the case, but it's got to be very narrow timing, and it
probably only applies for the same type of action. A friend and I used to do a
drill with his Glock 9mm. (After ensuring the gun was unloaded) one of us
would point the pistol right at the other's head. The pointee would initiate
action by grabbing the gun and the pointer would try to pull the trigger. It
was impossible to pull the trigger in time, action was always faster than
reaction in this case. We did it many times over, both of us with the gun.
Semi-automatic handguns will not fire when you keep the slide from moving,
which is what happens when you grab the whole barrel like this, though I don't
think I'd be willing to try the maneuver in real life.

~~~
nfnaaron
"(After ensuring the gun was unloaded) one of us would point the pistol right
at the other's head."

Fail. Absolute fail.

We say "the gun is always loaded" even when we "know" it is not, because if we
never, ever point a gun at something that we don't want to destroy, we will
never make that one in a million mistake.

Fail. Sorry for the forcefulness, but this kind of gun "play" always deserves
to be called out and discouraged.

~~~
nkurz
I think you are wrong. I agree with you, in the sense that I would not feel
comfortable doing this. "The gun is always loaded" is great rule, as is "Never
point a gun at something you don't want to shoot". But it has its limits, and
context is important.

Assume that you're a hostage negotiator, or someone in the police or military
that otherwise expects to end up in a situation where someone is pointing a
presumably loaded weapon at you at close range. I think there's a good
argument to be made that you should train for this circumstance under the most
realistic conditions you can muster, rather than hoping that your first live
experience will go just the way it did on paper. If having a real gun pointed
at you helps to simulate and train your real life response, this might be a
good strategy.

Personally, as someone not in such a field, I'll spend the bulk of my efforts
on figuring out how to avoid such situations. But for a professional training
for a situation they expect to encounter, this is not 'play'.

~~~
gaius
Google "operant conditioning".

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nkurz
I've done so, and think I am generally familiar with the concept. I don't see
any direct connection. Could you explain the relevance that you see?

~~~
gaius
It's why modern militaries prefer to train with real weapons. In the scenario
the OP mentioned, it's about getting accustomed to facing a real weapon.

Note that I'm not advocating this for "play", or even amateur martial arts.
Someone training for situations in which a real weapon will be pointed at them
and they have to remain calm will benefit tho'. (I'm offering evidence to
support your point BTW, not arguing with you!)

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zck
>In a series of mock gunfights with colleagues Bohr always drew second and
always won.

I'm hoping the author of this article just didn't want to elaborate, but Bohr
never thought it could've just been that he was faster at drawing than his
opponents? Switching it so he was the first to draw some of the time would
have been better design.

~~~
fh
This part of the article is most likely intended as a funny anecdote, not as
an accurate description of a scientific experiment. Rest assured that Niels
freaking Bohr would have thought of that.

~~~
DougBTX
And possibly decided that it would be more fun to leave a good story behind
and not be seen to loose :-)

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Super_Jambo
So optimally you want to be startled into action by something other than your
opponent drawing. Then you get the speed advantage & a head start...

Wonder if anyones done any research on training this for martial arts.

~~~
ErrantX
A friend who does Aikido says it's not explicitly taught quite like that - but
that he does train to watch, for example, an attackers shoulders for slight
movement prior to their attack.

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philwelch
Which implies that you could probably throw off someone like that just by, for
instance, feinting the shoulder movement.

~~~
dmv
Having the body control to produce false, seemingly involuntary signals -
while suppressing true involuntary signals - implies a level of physical
mastery to the extent that you, likely, already possess a substantial
advantage in the bout. This is like selling a fake tell in poker while not
actually having a tell - even James Bond would tell you that's hard.

~~~
philwelch
You could just sell enough fake tells--produce enough false signals--to throw
your opponent off of whatever actual tells you have. I wonder if this is
similar in concept to the "drunken" kung fu style.

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gaius
So much for first-mover advantage.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The second mouse gets the cheese.

~~~
gaius
There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

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pbhjpbhj
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TANC4VI8vF4#t=1m18s> \- draws and shoots and
returns gun to holster in 0.02s.

I don't feel lucky!

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roundsquare
_Niels Bohr, liked to take time off from figuring out the structure of the
universe by watching westerns.

Bohr noticed that the man who drew first invariably got shot, and speculated
that the intentional act of drawing and shooting was slower to execute than
the action in response._

Haha, really? So he formed a hypothesis based on movies? I'm fairly sure its
just poorly written in the article but if it is not thats just silly.

Edit: Formatting

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billswift
It would also depend on the first-mover not being adequately
trained/experienced. The goal of training, and the effect of extensive
experience, is to automatize the action, so that it will occur without
conscious intermediation.

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proemeth
Then, since Solo shot first, he was a fine duelist. This reconciles the
argument: he can be a good guy AND shoot first. Solo did not _intend_ to shoot
first, but while reposting his instincts made him the fastest.

