The Four Laws

 

News media are reporting that actor Alec Baldwin yesterday fired a 'prop gun' on the set of the movie 'Rust' (now filming) killing a crew member and injuring another.  Reporters are calling this 'an accidental shooting'.

Let's be clear about one thing — if we are clear about nothing else:  there is no such thing as 'an accidental shooting'.  There are 'intentional shootings' and there are 'negligent shootings'.  There are no other categories into which to place any shooting.

What makes this ironic is that Alec Baldwin is rabidly anti-gun.  He is said to be deeply distressed over the so-called 'accident'.  Unfortunately, this is a perfect example of the principle that those who are anti-gun rarely-to-never know anything at all about guns.  What a shame, then, that with but a very little serious investigation on Baldwin's part, he might have positioned himself to avoid killing his co-worker, but the anti-gun crowd are ignorant and they like it that way.  They don't want to know anything about guns.  Guns are yukky.  Who needs to know anything beyond that?

BANG!  You're dead.

Alec Baldwin should be deeply distressed that his intentional ignorance has now resulted in a negligent homicide.

Preliminary investigation suggests that something, perhaps a bullet from a prior use, was still lodged in the barrel and when a blank cartridge was fired from the gun, it provided enough pressure to dislodge the (old) bullet.  As with so many other such incidents, it wasn't just a single error that caused tragedy;  it was several points of failure, any one of which, with but a little care, would have prevented a needless death.

There are four 'laws' of gun safety — often attributed to Col. Jeff Cooper — that, if followed religiously, will completely eliminate death-due-to-negligence:

1. Treat every gun as if it is loaded.
2. Never point a gun at anything you aren't ready to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger until you have decided to shoot.
4. Know what is behind your target, because you will miss.

These all seem, on brief reflection, to be so intuitive that no one should have to be taught them, yet multiple failures yesterday took another innocent life.  Some crew member picked up that gun to give it to Baldwin, but they didn't check to see if the action was clear, as you would for any gun you suspected was loaded.  Alec Baldwin didn't check, either.  Baldwin then pointed the gun in an unsafe direction, put his finger on the trigger, and fired.

This wasn't 'an accident'.  This was a crime.

 

Winter Driving

 

I just spent a pleasant few hours watching YouTube videos of horribly inept drivers (not) coping with winter weather.  It caused me to wax nostalgic.

During my years at IBM, I had the good fortune to be paired with a grizzled old-timer named Dave Boyd.  Dave, by then, had over 30 years as an IBM employee, many of those in 'systems' having written the first AutoCoder syllabus and then taught the first AutoCoder class.  He was a true 'Renaissance Man', and it would not surprise me one bit if he actually fit Robert A. Heinlein's definition:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and die gallantly.  Specialization is for insects.

Among many other things, he was a 'German car nut', owning, at one point, a 2L Porsche 914, a 1.8L Porsche 914, a Porsche 356 that he had lovingly restored to showroom condition, a BMW 2002, and a Volkswagen.  He used the 914s to race gymkana on frozen Lake Winnipesaukee NH each winter, and cherished his nickname, 'Iceman'.

He taught me many valuable lessons, not the least of these being 'how to drive in winter'.  One day he asked me "What steers a car?" and I replied "The steering wheel, of course!"  Dave smiled as he shook his head side to side.  "No, the rolling wheels steer the car.  A wheel that isn't rolling is either stopped or sliding."  I was reminded of that as I watched cars from Michigan to Arkansas zipping down icy hills, all four wheels locked-in-place and careening into other cars, some moving, some not.

Mr. Miyagi advised Daniel-San

Best brock is 'no be dere'

and the best way to avoid crashing into another car because of icy conditions is to stay home that day, but if you must be behind the wheel on a snowy or sleety day, remember this:  when you press down on the brake pedal, you stop the wheels from rolling and you stop them from steering, but you don't overrule Newton's First Law: an object in motion tends to remain in motion.

The same lesson applies when you're going through a tight turn on dry pavement: if you step on the brake pedal, you have just offered to pay whatever penalty the laws of physics charge.

Only the rolling wheels can steer a car.