Yeah, if I were Bud, I wouldn’t be highly sympathetic either. Call me a prude, but throwing a gun into the air – even if it is NOT loaded – seems monumentally stupid.
From the standpoint of someone well trained on handling all sorts of weapons, I have to agree. One of my first lessons was ‘This is not a toy, If you think it is just go away’ (I was 10 I think).
(This also comes from the standpoint of relatively intelligent person as well)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Texan use an ‘s’ to replace a ‘d’ at the end of a word. We’re more inclinded to drop the last consonant entirely than to use a different one. 🙂
Even though Bud is quite fast, she wouldn’t have known anything was going wrong until it slipped through Monica’s grasp. Perhaps she was fast enough to evaluate the coming damage at that point, but knew that any attempt to yank it away “safely” would just cause more damage. Her rescue of Jin saved her life, but has its own repercussions.
This makes me wonder even more what’s protecting her audiophile ears. A cannon like that would take her from concert quality to AM Stereo if you know what I mean.
True, but people were supposing that she had some kind of auto-protection from the sound in the previous pages. If she doesn’t, then she is doing a lot of damage to her ears by shooting a gun that heavy/big without ear plugs (bad idea for an audiophile for sure!). 🙂
Heard a story about a gun show somewhere many years ago, where some lethal idiot apparently came in with a pocketful of ammo in various sizes and left little surprises behind at several tables…
====================
My own story involves picking up a spring-type 6mm air rifle in a flea market (in Helen GA) and realising it was cocked. I told the guy selling it, and he and i went to the door and pointed it at the ground and discharged it. No slug in it apparently … but it could have had.
I remember my grandfather cleaning a gun he had picked up from a dead German soldier during WW1 that he never had ammunition for (just ask him). After he had put the gun together again he laid it on the table & damn if the thing didn’t go off. Put a hole through four walls, including an exterior wall, & through the door of his car.
From that point on I’ve considered ALL guns to be loaded.
I believe that Euryale is the character who most closely qualifies as a jarhead (she’s a Marine biologist as well as an anthropologist). There are some old-time conservative thinkers who feel that a female gorgon shouldn’t be in that job… but me, amphora!
(deposits priceless ancient glazed wine jar in the Pun Jar)
er, no.. ‘jarhead’ refers to the kind of haircut many marines have – high and tight like a jar… unless that is a *way out* pun on marine research vs marine navy??
@Iliad- “Jar-head” is such a wonderfully ambiguous and pun-friendly phrase. It has so many possible meanings:
– A U.S. Marine (from the haircut)
– A person whose head resembles a jar (similar to the first definition, but less specific)
– A person whose head is a jar.
– A person who thinks about jars a lot, studies them, has a fascination with them, etc.
– A person whose head has been jarred
Then, “marine” has a general meaning (having to do with the ocean) and a specific meaning (a soldier associated with the navy, which has to do with the ocean).
Arrange a cross-product of these two sets of multiple meanings, and there’s lots of room for fun. Monica as a jar(red)-head, Euryale as a jar(-interested) “marine” researcher, Bud as a literal (clay)jar headed golem (well, we know her body is hollow or meta-hollow), …
This thread gave me the image of Monica clad as a murmillo gladiator: basically in helmet and loincloth, plus protection for legs and feet and one arm guard. Oh, and a nice big shield, probably nearly as big as Monica herself. 😉
Yes, .45 Long Colt brass is SPENDY.
Even if you are not going to reload it, save it and give it to someone who will.
Like maybe Amanda. I’m sure she practices with her Colt.
One day at Cam Ranh Bay there was a single shot (which, given that it was 1970 in Viet Nam) had everyone … worried … until they discovered that the guy on gate guard duty had managed to put a neat burn straight down his right thigh and take a chip off his right ankle practising his fast draw.
With an M1911 with, apparently, a slightly faulty sear.
Unfortunately the same thing happened with two of the Marine gate guards in the gate shack in Norfolk when I was based there. They were playing quick draw on the midwatch and one managed to put a .45 ACP right through his partner. He didn’t survive.
There’s a publicity shot of the cast of Ponderosa where Little Joe has a powder burn down the side of his chaps from screwing up his quickdraw and popping a blank off while the gun was still in the holster…
I think Bonanza was the TV show, and the Ponderosa was the ranch where they all lived Used to watch that show in black and white when I was a kid, back before they invented color….
DaveP.- And if I remember correctly they made the actor use his non-dominant hand to draw with. His dominant hand was too fast for the normal TV camera to pick up.
0.o Too fast for the camera?? What were they shooting him on, and why couldn’t they turn it up to 64 fps or more? …and when were they shooting this show?
Also, I think “the Ponderosa” is a particular patch of wilderness out that-a-ways somewhere in California…
Danzier- Filmed in The US somewhere in the southwest, California or Nevada I think. They used a standard TV practice, record to film at the time (60’s) at 30 frames per second- the same as the scan rate on the TV. So in .03 seconds ‘Little Joe’ could draw, fire and actually hit a target. Of course that was long before ‘Little House’ when he played the father.
it’s implied, but are we “sure”? even having it hit her chest would probably knock her off her feet too. but yeah, i’m leaning towards a head shot as well…
To be honest, she invoked the improbability field by uttering the dangerous words “It’s Safe”.
All in all, it could’ve been worse;
“There! Nothing can go wrong now..”
Nope, Rule one is still “It’s always loaded.” I usually extend that to “It’s always loaded, even if you unloaded it, and even if it’s in pieces.”
I used to work at a hobby shop that sold paintball and airsoft guns – I enforced gun safety rules with the more realistic airsoft guns my one day on that desk. Some mother got very annoyed when I refused to let her son hold another one after he pointed one at me twice.
“My own version of your Point One: If anyone had handled the weapon at all since you personally unloaded it, it’s loaded.”
Nope, that way leads to sloppy thinking. You have to think and consider the status of the gun. Always assuming that the gun is loaded means that you never have to sit there and think “Gee! Is it loaded or unloaded? Did someone handle the gun and load a round when I was not looking?”
Because we can always make mistakes. Personally I’d rather have it be the harmless mistake of assuming that the gun is loaded when it is not. If you pick up the gun, carefully (and with the 4 rules in mind) aim at the target and have it go click for being empty…that just makes you feel silly in a Homer Simpson “D’Oh!” sort of way.
Assuming that the gun is unloaded and blowing a hole in a person makes you feel really bad in an involuntary manslaughter sort of way.
She’s been showing fairly good gun handling skills until now. I would suspect her G’pa not only taught her those, but also some fancy moves to show off. Unfortunately she seems to be a bit rusty on the latter…
Sometimes it takes a while to accept the redundancy.
I recall a time when a friend was showing off his carry piece (an admirably small 9mm). Everyone in the room saw him pop out the magazine and clear the chamber. He passed it to the guy next to him, who checked the chamber again and admired the pistol. Then he passed it to me…and I pulled back the slide to look into the empty chamber.
Then I thought, “I probably didn’t need to do that,” and “But it’s a good habit.”
…and here I was expecting someone to bring up the fact that she just unloaded SIX rounds from the type of pistol that commonly accepted wisdom says should only be loaded with FIVE (of course, she could follow my example and that of old West gunmen who learned to shoot on cap-and-ball revolvers: load six and set the hammer down BETWEEN two chambers…)
You can’t really set the hammer down between chambers on a SAA. Some cap and ball guns had “safety notches” between the chambers. The Peacemaker didn’t. Loading all six is fine as long as you are shooting right away. The rule of “hammer down on an empty chamber” is for extended carry. An inadvertant blow to the hammer resting on a live round could set it off.
I’m well aware of the reason for the “load five” rule. I also own a SAA, as well as two Taylor’s late Richards-Mason type factory conversion 1860 Armies with the Open Top style barrel, cylinder and hammer. You absolutely CAN set the hammer down between chambers. No, it doesn’t have the pins like on a cap-and-ball, but the firing pin rests between the case rims, preventing the cylinder from turning unless the hammer is drawn back enough for the cases to clear.
Actually, when I’m out shooting for fun, I do only load five for my friends’ safety’s sake. But when the pistols go into their assigned spots back home, or if I’m carrying one of them out in the hills or whereever, they get all six with the hammer centered between two rounds.
Yeah, Bud is pretty cool. She doesn’t go all the way to “sardonic” or “sarcastic”, but her “quizzical” does seem to get the point across very effectively.
I wonder what she will dream about, while she’s out? G’Pa, yelling at her for ignoring what he told her about playing around with guns? Gerard Butler, with or without sponge? Floating bottles of aspirin, mockingly remaining just out of reach? Perhaps she’ll have a vision about the MIB, or V-cells, which will aim her in the right direction for the next quest?
Probably be a nightmare this time:
She is groggy and hungover, looking in the mirror. She has a really bad taste in her mouth and opens it to find her tongue coated in blue. She then notices a reflection in the corner of the mirror. Someone is leaning on the door frame and smiling broadly. It’s Tepoz! She wakes up screaming!
Monica must have been watching this. If you like single actions and the old west, look into the Single Action Shooting Society. I was lucky enough to catch the championships in Cowboy mounted action shooting in AZ one year. It was… I’m not going to say it.
That’s one thing I can say about flintlock muzzle loaders, they’re harder to shoot accidentally because they’re unloaded. The priming pan is a dead give away.
However, having shot out a storm door window with a 20 year old half disassembled BB pistol when I put a new CO2 cartridge on it to see if I could make it cycle and the one remaining BB jammed inside it fired off I concur that there is no such thing as a ” Absolutely for sure unloaded” gun.
Dave: “Interesting to see that Bud didn’t feel inclined to protect Monica from a big potntially-lethal falling chunk of sharp metal.”
Protect her? I have the distinct impression Bud actually *aimed* it at Monica. Not only did Bud not look surprised in the least, but look at the vectors of the gun’s travel in the third and fourth panels.
When the gun released from her hand, it was travelling up and behind her … when it landed it came from in *front* of her.
Either that gun managed to pull off a bit of boomerang action (well, it is almost shaped right, but …) or it had help!
Which would make sense, Bud could slow its descent JUST enough to make it humiliating but not lethal. A guardian for her ego and soul, as well as her body, heh.
Is it just me or did anyone else read the part describing the gun’s travel path and hear that Seinfeld episode in their head where Jerry was discussing the flight path of the spit that hit Kramer in the head, as a spoof of the movie JFK?
Hehe. Looks like Monica’s trying to reenact The Ballad of Irving.
Big Fat Irving?
Big Short Fat Irving!
The hundred-forty-second fastest gun in the West?
Ooooooo wooooooooh!
Even on the range he keeps two set of dishes.
But why is Monica looking for number 243?
This looks like a case of “Irving’s gun was there but Irving was gone.”
Man, I’d forgotten about that song until I was immediately forced to look it up… thank you 😀
Wow… I didn’t think anyone knew that song.
The hundred and forty-second fastest gun in the West.
When You’re In Love, The Whole World Is Jewish!
Heh! I got a 4-pack of CD’s in a collection from stuff that was played on Dr. Demento shows. Ballad of Irving was one of the songs included.
Hah! Once upon a time, I owned an actual album titled “Dinb Ditties” with the Ballad of Irving…
The Dr. Demento song!
Interesting to see that Bud didn’t feel inclined to protect Monica from a big potntially-lethal falling chunk of sharp metal.
Bud just knows that Monica needed a little bit of reality to ground her from letting her ego over-inflate.
Yeah, if I were Bud, I wouldn’t be highly sympathetic either. Call me a prude, but throwing a gun into the air – even if it is NOT loaded – seems monumentally stupid.
From the standpoint of someone well trained on handling all sorts of weapons, I have to agree. One of my first lessons was ‘This is not a toy, If you think it is just go away’ (I was 10 I think).
(This also comes from the standpoint of relatively intelligent person as well)
From Donald Hamilton’s Western novel, The Two-Shoot Gun:
“You hols a man’s life in your hand.”
Eek. “…hold a man’s life…”
If you imagine a heavy Texan drawl Fairport, it kinda works.
Unfortunately, they were a wealthy Maryland family.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Texan use an ‘s’ to replace a ‘d’ at the end of a word. We’re more inclinded to drop the last consonant entirely than to use a different one. 🙂
Even though Bud is quite fast, she wouldn’t have known anything was going wrong until it slipped through Monica’s grasp. Perhaps she was fast enough to evaluate the coming damage at that point, but knew that any attempt to yank it away “safely” would just cause more damage. Her rescue of Jin saved her life, but has its own repercussions.
Either way, no skin off her nose.
And no bloody scar on her forehead!
I am so confused.
This is all part of Monica’s brilliant plan to get Bud to reveal everyone in the network of MIBs protecting her.
And the lesson here is even if you’re sure the gun isn’t loaded, you can still hurt yourself with it.
This makes me wonder even more what’s protecting her audiophile ears. A cannon like that would take her from concert quality to AM Stereo if you know what I mean.
😀 😀 a knock on the head wont damage your hearing… and I guess Bud has switched off the ‘protection’, due to no danger of bullets.. :/
…. just to see her hit the WRONG target! 🙂 🙂
True, but people were supposing that she had some kind of auto-protection from the sound in the previous pages. If she doesn’t, then she is doing a lot of damage to her ears by shooting a gun that heavy/big without ear plugs (bad idea for an audiophile for sure!). 🙂
Aaaaand THIS is why we DON’T “play” with guns.
Can I get you an icepack and a bowl of humble?
Heard a story about a gun show somewhere many years ago, where some lethal idiot apparently came in with a pocketful of ammo in various sizes and left little surprises behind at several tables…
====================
My own story involves picking up a spring-type 6mm air rifle in a flea market (in Helen GA) and realising it was cocked. I told the guy selling it, and he and i went to the door and pointed it at the ground and discharged it. No slug in it apparently … but it could have had.
I woud personally prefer to use a much less flattering term than “lethal idiot”, but this is a YA/PG-13 forum.
Did they ever identify the loser involved?
I remember my grandfather cleaning a gun he had picked up from a dead German soldier during WW1 that he never had ammunition for (just ask him). After he had put the gun together again he laid it on the table & damn if the thing didn’t go off. Put a hole through four walls, including an exterior wall, & through the door of his car.
From that point on I’ve considered ALL guns to be loaded.
What kind of gun?
If I recall correctly:
Pogo Possum: That gun ain’t loaded, is it?
Albert Alligator: Of course not! What’s more dangerous than a loaded gun?
(BLAM! Gun goes off)
Pogo (from underneath a table): A unloaded one?
Of course, the first rule of firearms is that they are always loaded–even if you are sure they are not loaded.
I’d amend that to ‘Especially’ if you know that they are not loaded.
AAAUWTCH!!! A kilo of steel hitting Your head…. this could get bloody.
Typical..Monica is more dangerous with an unloaded gun than with a loaded one…. tss 😛
Well, “dorkiness” re-established 😆
And Monica’s nerdy side rises up to forefront! 🙂 Great comic.
You meant to write “rises up on the forehead”, dintcha?
One for the Jar.
She’s a Jar-head?
I believe that Euryale is the character who most closely qualifies as a jarhead (she’s a Marine biologist as well as an anthropologist). There are some old-time conservative thinkers who feel that a female gorgon shouldn’t be in that job… but me, amphora!
(deposits priceless ancient glazed wine jar in the Pun Jar)
I hope you are not insinuating that she has a pointy head–whether on the top or the bottom.
OTOH, I suppose her serpentine coif is rather pointy, at two points per head.
[deposits a pair of Chinese Needle-tipped knife coins]
er, no.. ‘jarhead’ refers to the kind of haircut many marines have – high and tight like a jar… unless that is a *way out* pun on marine research vs marine navy??
Actually, it was Dave’s reference to amphorae that got me started. . . .
@Iliad- “Jar-head” is such a wonderfully ambiguous and pun-friendly phrase. It has so many possible meanings:
– A U.S. Marine (from the haircut)
– A person whose head resembles a jar (similar to the first definition, but less specific)
– A person whose head is a jar.
– A person who thinks about jars a lot, studies them, has a fascination with them, etc.
– A person whose head has been jarred
Then, “marine” has a general meaning (having to do with the ocean) and a specific meaning (a soldier associated with the navy, which has to do with the ocean).
Arrange a cross-product of these two sets of multiple meanings, and there’s lots of room for fun. Monica as a jar(red)-head, Euryale as a jar(-interested) “marine” researcher, Bud as a literal (clay)jar headed golem (well, we know her body is hollow or meta-hollow), …
I get the feeling Monica’s G’pa was like this 🙂
completly cool n stuff but did daft things 😛
Jumped his bike over a company of German soldiers?
===================
He was Irish.
To survive that he had to be.
(Dumps a handful of four leaf clovers into the pun jar))
Let’s see… Monica has clonked herself unconscious trying to balance a beer bottle above her head while buzzed …
… done an unknown amount of damage to her head with an errant Colt pistol while showing off …
… had an interdimensional access key stabbed into her cranium, and left there …
If I were her skull I think I’d be applying to the nearest court for a protective order of some sort. Writ of Habeus Helmets, perhaps?
*shakes the pun jar*
“You may have the helmet”? Seems appropriate.
Habeas Galeam
I feel like such a morion for not phrasing it that way! I was really latin myself in criticism.
(pays Pun Jar, three times)
This thread gave me the image of Monica clad as a murmillo gladiator: basically in helmet and loincloth, plus protection for legs and feet and one arm guard. Oh, and a nice big shield, probably nearly as big as Monica herself. 😉
When she acts that daft I envision her dressed more as Marvin the Martian with matching Tu-tu.
Now, see, that’s what we mean by gun control.
Although, I was kind of hoping it would turn into a spaceship.
Also: Police your brass, Villareal.
That’s her next trick.
A pratfall while getting up & slipping on the cartridges all over the ground!
Yes, .45 Long Colt brass is SPENDY.
Even if you are not going to reload it, save it and give it to someone who will.
Like maybe Amanda. I’m sure she practices with her Colt.
you sure it’s Amanda? she’s the photographer. it should be Shelly’s friend in the band Intentional Thumbprint that has the gun.
This is the “safe” I’m unfamiliar with.
(hhgttg)
At least it’s not a guitar or she might have reached nirvana… thank you, I’ll be here all night. :p 🙂
I will say this much she proved once again clumsy and cute is a deadly combination. 😉
*facepalm* Oh, Monica. I can’t…that’s just…gah. Words escape me. *facepalm again*
Self inflicted pistol whip.
Least it sounds less embarassing that self inflicted buttstroke. (Note – that is the ACTUAL term for using a rifle buttstock as a club.)
~D.
I think Monica was just channeling her inner Wyatt Earp……on herself. “YOU TELL THEM IM COMING……. AND IM BRINGING ICE CREAM WITH ME!”
One day at Cam Ranh Bay there was a single shot (which, given that it was 1970 in Viet Nam) had everyone … worried … until they discovered that the guy on gate guard duty had managed to put a neat burn straight down his right thigh and take a chip off his right ankle practising his fast draw.
With an M1911 with, apparently, a slightly faulty sear.
Unfortunately the same thing happened with two of the Marine gate guards in the gate shack in Norfolk when I was based there. They were playing quick draw on the midwatch and one managed to put a .45 ACP right through his partner. He didn’t survive.
Well, there’s dumb and there’s outright lethally stupid.
There’s a publicity shot of the cast of Ponderosa where Little Joe has a powder burn down the side of his chaps from screwing up his quickdraw and popping a blank off while the gun was still in the holster…
I think Bonanza was the TV show, and the Ponderosa was the ranch where they all lived Used to watch that show in black and white when I was a kid, back before they invented color….
DaveP.- And if I remember correctly they made the actor use his non-dominant hand to draw with. His dominant hand was too fast for the normal TV camera to pick up.
0.o Too fast for the camera?? What were they shooting him on, and why couldn’t they turn it up to 64 fps or more? …and when were they shooting this show?
Also, I think “the Ponderosa” is a particular patch of wilderness out that-a-ways somewhere in California…
Danzier- Filmed in The US somewhere in the southwest, California or Nevada I think. They used a standard TV practice, record to film at the time (60’s) at 30 frames per second- the same as the scan rate on the TV. So in .03 seconds ‘Little Joe’ could draw, fire and actually hit a target. Of course that was long before ‘Little House’ when he played the father.
How hard/soft/elastic is her head? Look at the air it got After bouncing off her noggin.
Well…Monica is nothing if not bouncy. 😛
But it hit her forehead, not — lower and more resilient organs.
it’s implied, but are we “sure”? even having it hit her chest would probably knock her off her feet too. but yeah, i’m leaning towards a head shot as well…
To be honest, she invoked the improbability field by uttering the dangerous words “It’s Safe”.
All in all, it could’ve been worse;
“There! Nothing can go wrong now..”
At least she didn’t invoke the fatality charm by saying the incantation, “hold mah beer”.
or “watch this!”
But she did ask for a drumroll.
She’s lucky that Bud didn’t end with a rimshot!
hah! 😀 great site!
surely it would be ‘yeehaw’ followed by ‘wilhelmscream’ 😀 😀
Unfortunate… and expected.
Bud does have a talent for understatement, doesn’t she?
Nice to see the tree of them there: Bud, Monica, and Monica’s concussion.
Four of them, or maybe five … Bud, Bud, Monica, and Monica’s concussion, and maybe yet another Bud.
God, what a way to treat a weapon. You could seriously damage it!
yeah, monica saying.. ” I’m gonna slap you , all five of you!!!!! 🙁 “
Seriously damage the weapon? Not unless her head is harder than it is. . . .
Gaaah!
Someone needs to slap that girl. Preferably the spirit of her dead grandfather.
There are 4 rules of safe and responsible gun use. Most of the accidents that are gun related are due to a failure of one or more of these 4 rules.
1. The gun is always loaded. Even if it is not, you treat it that way.
2. Do not point the gun at anything you do not intend to destroy.
3. Know what your target is as well as what is around and behind the target
4. Finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target.
Either her grandfather was a poor teacher or he needs to drag himself back from the beyond and thwack her on the head.
My own version of your Point One: If anyone had handled the weapon at all since you personally unloaded it, it’s loaded.
He just did.
Although i wouldn’t be surprised if he taught her that trick. Ever see a drill team do a Queen Anne Salute?
Or try this one beginning at about 3:00…
…and then there’s this one – same team – beginning at about 2:00…
Huh. I thought i included this link to a QAS demo in my first comment…
Nope, Rule one is still “It’s always loaded.” I usually extend that to “It’s always loaded, even if you unloaded it, and even if it’s in pieces.”
I used to work at a hobby shop that sold paintball and airsoft guns – I enforced gun safety rules with the more realistic airsoft guns my one day on that desk. Some mother got very annoyed when I refused to let her son hold another one after he pointed one at me twice.
I wouldn’t have let him touch one after pointing it at me once.
=================
Matt Helm once remarked to some punk that he hoped that he’d filed the front sight of his gun.
Kid said “Why?” Helm said “‘Cause it’s gonna hurt less when i shove it up your …”
=================
Kid who thinks he’s a fast gun walks into a saloon. Recognises the guy drinking at the bar.
“Wow – you’re Wyatt Earp! Can you give me any advice on how to speed up my draw?”
“Well … yeah. You’re wearin’ your holster too high.”
Kid reties his holster, draws blindingly fast, shoots the piano player’s beer off the top of the piano.
“That’s great!” Anything else?”
“Yeah – cut away some of the leather at the top of the holster, so you can be more ready to shoot when you pull it.”
Kid trims away some of the leather. Whips out the gun, shoots off the piano player’s hat.
“What else would you suggest?”
“Well, see that barrel of axle grease? I suggest you dip your gun in that and get it all over greasy.”
The kid’s dubious, but he does it. As he’s spreading the grease evenly over the gun, he asks “How is this gonna make my draw faster?”
And Earp answers “It’s not. But Bat Masterson’s about done playing the piano, and it’s gonna hurt less when he shoves it up your ass.”
“My own version of your Point One: If anyone had handled the weapon at all since you personally unloaded it, it’s loaded.”
Nope, that way leads to sloppy thinking. You have to think and consider the status of the gun. Always assuming that the gun is loaded means that you never have to sit there and think “Gee! Is it loaded or unloaded? Did someone handle the gun and load a round when I was not looking?”
Because we can always make mistakes. Personally I’d rather have it be the harmless mistake of assuming that the gun is loaded when it is not. If you pick up the gun, carefully (and with the 4 rules in mind) aim at the target and have it go click for being empty…that just makes you feel silly in a Homer Simpson “D’Oh!” sort of way.
Assuming that the gun is unloaded and blowing a hole in a person makes you feel really bad in an involuntary manslaughter sort of way.
I’d rather feel silly.
She’s been showing fairly good gun handling skills until now. I would suspect her G’pa not only taught her those, but also some fancy moves to show off. Unfortunately she seems to be a bit rusty on the latter…
Sometimes it takes a while to accept the redundancy.
I recall a time when a friend was showing off his carry piece (an admirably small 9mm). Everyone in the room saw him pop out the magazine and clear the chamber. He passed it to the guy next to him, who checked the chamber again and admired the pistol. Then he passed it to me…and I pulled back the slide to look into the empty chamber.
Then I thought, “I probably didn’t need to do that,” and “But it’s a good habit.”
So much for Monica displaying good gun safety habits. Following rule three is not so impressive when rules one and two are ignored.
(Colonel Cooper had the finger off the trigger as rule three.)
This kind of reminds me of something that we were told in the german military about the “P1” Pistol: 8 Warning Shots & one lethal throw 😀
Okay …
Is it tooooo late to say … OUCH?
Oh jeez, she’s still a klutz. 🙁
…and here I was expecting someone to bring up the fact that she just unloaded SIX rounds from the type of pistol that commonly accepted wisdom says should only be loaded with FIVE (of course, she could follow my example and that of old West gunmen who learned to shoot on cap-and-ball revolvers: load six and set the hammer down BETWEEN two chambers…)
You can’t really set the hammer down between chambers on a SAA. Some cap and ball guns had “safety notches” between the chambers. The Peacemaker didn’t. Loading all six is fine as long as you are shooting right away. The rule of “hammer down on an empty chamber” is for extended carry. An inadvertant blow to the hammer resting on a live round could set it off.
I’m well aware of the reason for the “load five” rule. I also own a SAA, as well as two Taylor’s late Richards-Mason type factory conversion 1860 Armies with the Open Top style barrel, cylinder and hammer. You absolutely CAN set the hammer down between chambers. No, it doesn’t have the pins like on a cap-and-ball, but the firing pin rests between the case rims, preventing the cylinder from turning unless the hammer is drawn back enough for the cases to clear.
Actually, when I’m out shooting for fun, I do only load five for my friends’ safety’s sake. But when the pistols go into their assigned spots back home, or if I’m carrying one of them out in the hills or whereever, they get all six with the hammer centered between two rounds.
Now, THATS gonna leave a mark!!
Ahem.
http://youtu.be/bvAvth2sMHc
Another reason why Bud is my absolute favorite in this strip.
I like all the characters but Bud is just fantastic.
Yeah, Bud is pretty cool. She doesn’t go all the way to “sardonic” or “sarcastic”, but her “quizzical” does seem to get the point across very effectively.
She looks quite fetching in a tube top, too!
Empty? Yes. Safe? No, never safe, as Monica just demonstrated.
Ah, the Drip-Along Daffy Gunslinging Technique.
“I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awake, but in the meantime sleep well, and dream of
large womenGerard Butler.”Excellent reference 🙂
I wonder what she will dream about, while she’s out? G’Pa, yelling at her for ignoring what he told her about playing around with guns? Gerard Butler, with or without sponge? Floating bottles of aspirin, mockingly remaining just out of reach? Perhaps she’ll have a vision about the MIB, or V-cells, which will aim her in the right direction for the next quest?
Probably be a nightmare this time:
She is groggy and hungover, looking in the mirror. She has a really bad taste in her mouth and opens it to find her tongue coated in blue. She then notices a reflection in the corner of the mirror. Someone is leaning on the door frame and smiling broadly. It’s Tepoz! She wakes up screaming!
Thank you very much for that sir. Now, where did I put that phial of 5-minute Retcon?
A few grams of lead at hypersonic velocity versus “a hunk of steel” at 32 feet per second squared. Metal is dangerous! Avoid it.
Monica must have been watching this. If you like single actions and the old west, look into the Single Action Shooting Society. I was lucky enough to catch the championships in Cowboy mounted action shooting in AZ one year. It was… I’m not going to say it.
LOL the vote character was Ouchboy!
So… does this count as ‘Friendly Flier’?
(Flicks a thruppeny bit into the jar)…
That’s one thing I can say about flintlock muzzle loaders, they’re harder to shoot accidentally because they’re unloaded. The priming pan is a dead give away.
However, having shot out a storm door window with a 20 year old half disassembled BB pistol when I put a new CO2 cartridge on it to see if I could make it cycle and the one remaining BB jammed inside it fired off I concur that there is no such thing as a ” Absolutely for sure unloaded” gun.
Don’t let that gunplay go to your head…
Dave: “Interesting to see that Bud didn’t feel inclined to protect Monica from a big potntially-lethal falling chunk of sharp metal.”
Protect her? I have the distinct impression Bud actually *aimed* it at Monica. Not only did Bud not look surprised in the least, but look at the vectors of the gun’s travel in the third and fourth panels.
When the gun released from her hand, it was travelling up and behind her … when it landed it came from in *front* of her.
Either that gun managed to pull off a bit of boomerang action (well, it is almost shaped right, but …) or it had help!
Which would make sense, Bud could slow its descent JUST enough to make it humiliating but not lethal. A guardian for her ego and soul, as well as her body, heh.
After rereading that …
Is it just me or did anyone else read the part describing the gun’s travel path and hear that Seinfeld episode in their head where Jerry was discussing the flight path of the spit that hit Kramer in the head, as a spoof of the movie JFK?
“Back … and to the left …”
Who said you need bullets to make guns hurt people…