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Ban human paper targets

Venator

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smellslikemichigan wrote:
Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
PT111 wrote:
Most SC CWP classes require shooting at a human size target for qualification and most use pictrues of someone. I think Osama or Nancy Pelosie pictures would make me shoot better.
then people like you are the reason human profile targets are banned at most places. shooting a human silhouette is not to be taken lightly. and certainly, one should never shoot at a picture of another human being. human profiles should be used as practice for real-world scenarios in which one is called upon to defend himself, his family or the innocent. it's not even funny to joke about shooting a politician. and certainly not in a public forum like this. the anti's will point to ignorant posts like yours and say, "see, that's why we need to take away their guns!"
Well we disagree again. It's along the line of flag burning. Some hate it, and others recognize the fact that both paper targets and flags are just symbols of things real and imagined. Making a political statement is a right as much as firearm ownership. Take the "EMOTION" out of it and in the end a flag is nylon and a targetis paper, you can destroy both, but the Country still survives andso does the living thing symbolized on the paper.
i'm not saying that shooting pictures of politicians or burning flags should be illegal or banned. and i definitely think human profile targets are harmless. i'm just questioning the intelligence and mental state of someone who would shoot at a picture of an elected official.
Fair enough, you realize that shooting paper targetsis not the same as shooting a real person, if it was many video games would be banned, where kids shoot at images of people with graphic detail. Are they likely to go and kill the people that are portrayed in the game? There is no solid evidence that this is the case.
that's true, they probably aren't going to shoot the people in the games in the real world. but then again, they are using a plastic controller and not a firearm with live rounds. i think my comparison between human profile and animal targets still holds water when you consider the mindset behind shooting at those style targets is preparation for shooting a human or animal. playing a video game is not practice or preparation for shooting anything.

I found then lost an article on the development of human targets. It was very informative. I'll try to find it. The idea certainly has a psychological aspect. The gist of the article stated that in WW-I only about 10% of the soldiers fired their guns at another human, unless directly under the control of an officer. These solider used circle targets for training. It was thought that there is a subconscious and ancient part of our brain that tells us not to kill other people, that we as a species prefer to flight as opposed to fight or harm another person if at all possible. By WW-II the army started using human targets and the firing rates rose. By Korea they used human targets that fell when hit, again fired shoots increased. By Vietnam the rate was over 50%. The theory is that the soldiers were conditioning that part of the brain to over-ride that flight impulse. So firing at human targets have a real purpose in training for war or self-defense. Hench the use by LEOs. The study did say that the training just conditions us to fire when needed, that the training doesn'tturn you into a cold blooded killer.Hench the video game comparison.

The article gave an example of an LEO that practiced disarming a person with a hostage. Lots and Lots of practice. He would train by taking away the BG's gun (another officer playing the part) then after the disarm he handed back the training weapon to the BG (LEO)...over and over. You can see where this is going. One day in a real situation he disarms the real BG and out of habit handed the weapon back to him. The article didn't mention what happened then.
 

Venator

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smellslikemichigan wrote:
. (i would hunt a dinosaur if i could find one, wouldn't you?)
I don't know, some seem really scaryat least the one's I've seen.;) Perhaps the lumbering plant eaters. Bet it would be expensive, like an African safari, can't afford those either.
 

smellslikemichigan

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Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
PT111 wrote:
Most SC CWP classes require shooting at a human size target for qualification and most use pictrues of someone.  I think Osama or Nancy Pelosie pictures would make me shoot better.
then people like you are the reason human profile targets are banned at most places.  shooting a human silhouette is not to be taken lightly.  and certainly, one should never shoot at a picture of another human being.  human profiles should be used as practice for real-world scenarios in which one is called upon to defend himself, his family or the innocent.  it's not even funny to joke about shooting a politician.  and certainly not in a public forum like this.  the anti's will point to ignorant posts like yours and say, "see, that's why we need to take away their guns!"
Well we disagree again.  It's along the line of flag burning.  Some hate it, and others recognize the fact that both paper targets and flags are just symbols of things real and imagined.  Making a political statement is a right as much as firearm ownership.  Take the "EMOTION" out of it and in the end a flag is nylon and a target is paper, you can destroy both, but the Country still survives and so does the living thing symbolized on the paper.
i'm not saying that shooting pictures of politicians or burning flags should be illegal or banned. and i definitely think human profile targets are harmless. i'm just questioning the intelligence and mental state of someone who would shoot at a picture of an elected official.
Fair enough, you realize that shooting paper targets is not the same as shooting a real person, if it was many video games would be banned, where kids shoot at images of people with graphic detail.  Are they likely to go and kill the people that are portrayed in the game?  There is no solid evidence that this is the case.
that's true, they probably aren't going to shoot the people in the games in the real world. but then again, they are using a plastic controller and not a firearm with live rounds. i think my comparison between human profile and animal targets still holds water when you consider the mindset behind shooting at those style targets is preparation for shooting a human or animal. playing a video game is not practice or preparation for shooting anything.

I found then lost an article on the development of human targets.  It was very informative.  I'll try to find it.  The idea certainly has a psychological aspect.  The gist of the article stated that in WW-I only about 10% of the soldiers fired their guns at another human, unless directly under the control of an officer.  These solider used circle targets for training.  It was thought that there is a subconscious and ancient part of our brain that tells us not to kill other people, that we as a species prefer to flight as opposed to fight or harm another person if at all possible.  By WW-II the army started using human targets and the firing rates rose.  By Korea they used human targets that fell when hit, again fired shoots increased.  By Vietnam the rate was over 50%.  The theory is that the soldiers were conditioning that part of the brain to over-ride that flight impulse.  So firing at human targets have a real purpose in training for war or self-defense.  Hench the use by LEOs.  The study did say that the training just conditions us to fire when needed, that the training doesn't turn you into a cold blooded killer.  Hench the video game comparison.

The article gave an example of an LEO that practiced disarming a person with a hostage.  Lots and Lots of practice.  He would train by taking away the BG's gun (another officer playing the part) then after the disarm he handed back the training weapon to the BG (LEO)...over and over.  You can see where this is going.  One day in a real situation he disarms the real BG and out of habit handed the weapon back to him.  The article didn't mention what happened then.
that adds up when i recall marine corps boot camp. from day one, running cadences are filled with violent imagery and glorify the killing of one's enemies, all this to desensitize the recruit to the harsh mental reality of killing another human. this is, of course, necessary to the effective training of a combat effective individual. kill or be killed.
 

smellslikemichigan

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Venator wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
. (i would hunt a dinosaur if i could find one, wouldn't you?)
I don't know, some seem really scary at least the one's I've seen.;)  Perhaps the lumbering plant eaters.  Bet it would be expensive, like an African safari, can't afford those either.
i just realized that i probably could shoot a dinosaur if i found one because DNR probably doesn't regulated dinosaur hunting. AND i don't think they're on any endangered species list!:celebrate
 

Carnivore

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The gun range I'm a member at has no rules prohibiting a resemblance of a human target, when I go to the Range with pistols my wife and I both shoot what I call Agressor silhouette, which doesn't have details or faces on them, just a piece of cardboard in the shape of a bust/upper torso contoured in at the shoulders to meet the neck then a sphere shaped head , she gets the idea, and is capable of destroying the image with a 9 round clip with perfect center mass hits and sometimes really gets into the role and calls her head shots..:)
 

Venator

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While not the article I read before, they make references to the studies, but don’t cite them at the end. You will get the idea. Using “human” targetshelps with your conditioning, if God forbid you need to use deadly force.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14557.htm

A portion of the article:

“The reality is that the brains of human beings -- unless they fall within the demographic sliver we call psychopaths -- are hardwired not to kill other humans. Like rattlesnakes that fatally bite other species but fight fellow rattlers by wrestling them, humans overwhelmingly recoil from homicide. That's usually a good thing, because it prevents society from disintegrating into bloodthirsty anarchy.

But it poses an occupational hazard to some -- particularly soldiers, police officers, spies and victims of savage crimes. All of them may face situations in which hesitating to kill is the surest way to get killed.

That's why military training camps, police academies and even some self-defense pros are constantly searching for more effective methods of suppressing the human revulsion to taking human life -- virtually rewiring the brain to react first in certain situations with an automatic response to kill.

Target practice on hollowed cabbages filled with ketchup to mimic the way a bullet rips open a human head. Marching to chants of "kill, kill, kill." Video game simulations that reward points for every successful "shot." These are among hundreds of techniques that experts say can recondition the human brain.

What that reconditioning requires, and the psychological toll it ultimately takes on the killers, make up the taboo scientific inquiry sometimes known as "killology." To outsiders, the subject is distasteful, even repellant. To practitioners, it is simply a fact of life -- and death.

"Once the bullets start flying, most combatants stop thinking with the forebrain (that portion of the brain that makes us human) and start thinking with the midbrain (the primitive portion of our brain, which is indistinguishable from that of an animal)," writes retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former U.S. Army ranger and West Point professor of military science who coined the term, on his Web site killology.com. "In conflict situations, this primitive, midbrain processing can be observed in the existence of a powerful resistance to killing one's own kind. ... This is an essential survival mechanism that prevents a species from destroying itself during territorial and mating rituals."

The only thing that has any hope of silencing the midbrain, he argues, is what influenced Pavlov's dogs: conditioning.

The need for new drills became apparent once researchers noted that a majority who had been trained in other ways to kill, surreptitiously refused to do it.

In World War II, when U.S. soldiers got a clear shot at the enemy, only about 1 in 5 actually fired, according to sensational and controversial research by Army historian Brig. Gen. S.L.A. Marshall. It wasn't that they were cowards: On the contrary, they performed other perilous feats, including running onto the battlefield to rescue fellow soldiers, and sometimes they even placed themselves in greater personal danger by refusing to fire. And yet at the moment of truth, they just couldn't kill.

While modern scholars have debated his methodology, other contemporary researchers have reached conclusions similar to Marshall's that "fear of killing, rather than the fear of being killed, was the most common cause of battle failure in the individual."

Go back even further in U.S. history. Grossman noted this "Civil War Collector's Encyclopedia" citation about recovered muskets after the Battle of Gettysburg: Almost 90 percent were loaded, half of those multiple times. Given that a Civil War soldier would spend 95 percent of his time laboriously loading his musket and only 5 percent aiming and firing it, that many loaded muskets seems to make sense only if the soldiers in battle were faking it -- all the while looking busy so that their comrades would never know the difference.

The FBI discovered a similar problem among law enforcement officers through the early 1960s: a startling number were refusing to fire at suspects even when other lives were endangered.

Even those who fired their weapons were not necessarily trying to kill -- it is hard for an observer to detect soldiers or cops who fire high to intentionally miss.

Psychologists who advised the military and law enforcement agencies began to push for changes that would revolutionize training to improve kill rates. Their methods -- familiar to those who operate boot camps, police academies and aggressive-response self-defense courses -- are a distasteful mystery to most in the outside world. But they work.

The Pentagon improved firing rates. Research suggests that 55 percent of U.S. soldiers fired on the enemy in the Korean War. By Vietnam that rate had climbed to more than 90 percent. Police studies document similar changes in recent decades.

One of the key changes was to get rid of the old firing ranges, where shooters took target practice in an open field aiming at a bull's-eye. This failed miserably at preparing shooters for real-world confrontations.

Today's apprentice killers train in situations designed to simulate combat as closely as possible, and they rehearse in a fashion that would be instantly recognizable to pioneers of behavior modification, from Ivan Pavlov to B.F. Skinner. The bull's-eyes have been replaced by human-shaped targets that pop up without warning, for example, with polyurethane faces on balloon bodies inside uniforms. A trainee spots the targets, fires almost on instinct and gets rewarded with points, badges and three-day passes. Over and over, these "kill drills" build muscle memory and acclimate the brain to the act of killing.”

And yet another article.

http://www.killology.com/art_beh_solution.htm
 

TheEggman

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They'd have a real fit over something that happened to some friends of mine. A store changed management and tossed out about 50 mannequins. (Two pickup trucks worth)

Needless to say they made their way to the 'back 40' where they are now little more than chunks of plastic and plaster dust.

What about shooting at targets with an illustration of 'bigfoot?'

What's next, SEASONAL targets?

Sir, you're under arrest for shooting at a picture of a deer out of season -- you have the right to remain silent, ..."

Geezzz - who dresses these morons in the morning. (No offense to morons intended)
 

Michigander

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smellslikemichigan wrote:
i'm not saying that shooting pictures of politicians or burning flags should be illegal or banned. and i definitely think human profile targets are harmless. i'm just questioning the intelligence and mental state of someone who would shoot at a picture of an elected official.

People shoot all kinds of things at ranges like the Pit. Toilets, TVs, aerosal cans, water jugs, car doors, and yes, pics of politicians. Call it questionable if you want, but no one gets hurt, and people have fun.
 

smellslikemichigan

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Michigander wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
i'm not saying that shooting pictures of politicians or burning flags should be illegal or banned. and i definitely think human profile targets are harmless. i'm just questioning the intelligence and mental state of someone who would shoot at a picture of an elected official.

People shoot all kinds of things at ranges like the Pit. Toilets, TVs, aerosal cans, water jugs, car doors, and yes, pics of politicians. Call it questionable if you want, but no one gets hurt, and people have fun.
i'm just not so sure what's fun about simulating assassination.
 

PT111

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It's like using a picture of your boss or ex-wife as a dart board. It allows you to take out frustrations on something besides the real person. It adds some interest to your practice and if I was planning to assasinate someone I sure wouldn't use a picture of them as target practice in public. All of the target pictures I have ever seen for range use are unknown models that were paid for their image to be used.
 

Thundar

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smellslikemichigan wrote:
Michigander wrote:
smellslikemichigan wrote:
i'm not saying that shooting pictures of politicians or burning flags should be illegal or banned. and i definitely think human profile targets are harmless. i'm just questioning the intelligence and mental state of someone who would shoot at a picture of an elected official.

People shoot all kinds of things at ranges like the Pit. Toilets, TVs, aerosal cans, water jugs, car doors, and yes, pics of politicians. Call it questionable if you want, but no one gets hurt, and people have fun.
i'm just not so sure what's fun about simulating assassination.
I think it has a lot more to do with pissing in the Cheerios of theNanny Staters than anything bad, evil or ominous. ;)

If we made silhouettes of all the legislators that voted for this we could have a happy chuckle. Kind of like the N.H. Puppet show protest. It is simply poking fun at absurd nanny state laws. :celebrate

I don't think that shooting at a silhouette simulates assassination. There is a significant training loss when you can only shoot at circles and squares. :cuss:
 

DanM

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smellslikemichigan wrote:
i'm just not so sure what's fun about simulating assassination.


While Idon't necessarily agree with your characterization of it as"simulating assassination," because I think it suggests something about the thinking of the shooters which Idon't presume to know,let's talk about "simulated assassination."

"Simulating assassination" has a long history in the arena of free speech and people taking out their political frustrations harmlessly. The hanging and burning of effigies of political figures has long been tolerated in free societies, and you could properly term those acts as "simulated assassination."

Law-abiding adults understand the difference between lawful protests or harmlessly taking out their frustrations and criminal acts. Anyone getting their panties in a wad over law-abiding adults harmlessly shooting at paper targets needs to seriously get a reality check.


ETA: smellslikemichigan, I'm not saying your panties are in a wad. You seem to be laid back talking about it. I'm talking about people who actually think such things should be banned.
 

Bookman

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PT111 wrote:
TheEggman wrote:
Perhaps we have it mixed up.

Maybe we should have the right to shoot the flag and burn the politicians! :)
That's about the best idea I have heard in a while. ;)
You might want to look up an old sci-fi book called Lonestar Planet where the only question about shooting politicians was "Did the scoundrel deserve it?"
 

TheEggman

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The Supremes just ruled that individuals have a right to keep a firearm for SELF DEFENSE purposes.

I doubt many folks worry about being raped by a "Bullseye" or mugged by a squirrel.

If I'm defending myself against other humans that is the target I should use.

ATTENTION CRIMINALS: YOU ARE NOW REQUIRED BY LAW TO WEAR A BULLSEYE VEST!

As for the P.C. side of it, human faces on dart boards are fairly common, perhaps they should be banned as well!
 
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