Muzzle discipline in BAND OF BROTHERS

[JonF]

Since we're on the subject of actors exhibiting strange movie prop firearm handling behavior, i always thought it was funny when people in old 50's era gangster and other such movies would thrust the gun forward when lighting off a shot. It was always with some DA revolver too.

 

[Sunray]

It's a movie. What you see in movies isn't real. It's a bunch of actors, most of whom don't know one end of a firearm from the other, playing make believe. Most of the weapons are non-firing props too.
Even on military ranges, muzzles get pointed where they shouldn't. Buddy of mine was on a CF SMG range. Gun jams, FNG turns his whole body, with a loaded mag, finger on trigger, to tell everybody. Sterling was pointed at my buddy's stomach. He calmly took the SMG away from the guy, then explained the error of his ways.

 

[LouisianaMan]

I posted #49 yesterday, and here's a response from my uncle, who was in SP 105mm howitzers in 3rd Army.

"I DON'T BELIEVE THAT I EVER HEARD THE TERM - /MUZZLE DISCIPLINE- /BUT WE WERE MOST CERTAINLY DRILLED IN THE PRINCIPLES THAT I INTERPRET TO BE THE MEANING OF THIS EXPRESSION, AND THAT IS TO BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL AT ALL TIMES , INCLUDING COMBAT SITUATIONS, TO INSURE THAT YOUR WEAPON-WHETHER IT BE OUR SMALL ARMS (CARBINES, 45 CAL PISTOLS, THE ** 45 CAL** GREASE GUNS, THOMPSON SUBMACHINE GUNS), THE 30 CAL MACHINE GUNS, THE 50 CAL MACHINE GUNS, BAZOOKAS OR EVEN THE 105'S- DID NOT POSE A THREAT TO FRIENDLY FORCES. THIS CONCEPT WAS HAMMERED INTO OUR SKULLS FROM BASIC TRAINING TO DEPARTURE FROM BASE IN ENGLAND EN ROUTE TO NORMANDY. ALTHOUGH ENFORCEMENT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A BIT LAX DURING SOME HARRIED TIMES, TWO INCIDENTS, DURING ACTIVE COMBAT, ARE PERMANENTLY ETCHED IN MY MIND. A MEMBER OF A GUN CREW ACCIDENTALLY DISCHARGED HIS CARBINE-KILLING THE GUNNER OF HIS SECTION. HE WAS COURT MARTIALED AFTER BEING REMOVED FROM GUN CREW. THE OTHER OCCURENCE WAS THE FAILURE OF A SECTION CHIEF OF A 105 GUN CREW FAILING TO ASCERTAIN THAT THAT A FIRED PROJECTILE WOULD CLEAR TREES IN HIS FIELD OF FIRE-RESULTING IN THE WOUNDING OF FRIENDLY FORCES WHICH WE WERE SUPPORTING. HE WAS IMMEDIATELY BUSTED FROM BUCK SARGENT TO PRIVATE AND ASSIGNED TO AMMUNITION SECTION. I HOPE THIS ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION. YOU MAY USE IN WAY YOU SEE FIT-INCLUDING THAT OLD ROUND FILE 13."

 

[cuervo]

I don't know if this will be posted as its own thread, but here is something I just saw on Fox--gun handling at it's worst.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549421,00.html?test=latestnews

RALEIGH, N.C. — Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone was relaxing on his bunk at an Iraqi combat base when a direct superior interrupted his late-night movie.

It was time for a game Marines sometimes play to build confidence in colleagues: Point a gun at a comrade and ask, "Do you trust me?"

Cpl. Mathew Nelson raised his weapon — and the 9 mm pistol went off, striking Malone in the head. The higher-ranking Marine rushed to the wounded man's side and tried to perform CPR, but Malone was mortally wounded.

The game, which has cropped up in barracks across Iraq and Afghanistan, is supposed to make a serviceman feel comfortable enough with a comrade that he would stare into the other Marine's gun barrel. But it violates the military's basic weapon-safety rules.

"I can't believe the Marines, these professional soldiers, are playing these games," said Damian Malone, father of the slain 21-year-old.

The younger Malone "was willing to put his life on the line every day, and when he came back to his unit he wasn't supposed to have to worry about his safety."

On Thursday, Nelson pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and seven counts of reckless endangerment for the shooting at Combat Outpost Viking in Anbar province just before midnight on March 9.

Nelson, 25, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., was sentenced Thursday to eight years in Camp Lejeune's brig, demoted to the lowest rank in the Marines and given a bad-conduct discharge.

"From the beginning, my client has been eaten up with remorse," said Vaughan Taylor, a civilian lawyer who represented Nelson.

Taylor said the two Marines had finished the trust game, and Nelson turned away. His subordinate, from Ocala, Fla., called out to tell him he was going to attend to the unit's vehicles outside.

The corporal turned back, pulling the trigger on the weapon he didn't know was loaded, Taylor said.

The game typically begins when one service member partially inserts a bullet magazine into the handle of a pistol and pretends to pull back the gun's slide to make it appear that the weapon is ready to fire.

He then points the weapon at a fellow service member before either pulling the trigger or lowering the gun. Typically, even if he pulls the trigger the weapon will not discharge because a bullet is not in the chamber.

"When you give high-powered weapons to young men, once in a while bad things are going to happen," said Gary Solis, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and attorney who teaches on the law of armed conflict at West Point and Georgetown.

"You have young men, bored, killing time with a gun. That's not a good mix," Solis said. "I don't think the Marines have any corner on this. I think it happens in the civilian community as well."

The Marine Corps Times reported this week that the game had similar deadly end in 2007, when a Kentucky Army National Guardsman shot and killed a fellow soldier.

The guardsman who fired the fatal shot later said he learned to play from other members of his unit while deployed to Iraq in 2006.

Damian Malone believes his son's unit hid the game from their superiors and claimed they were building trust within the team. But the practice amounts to a form of hazing that should be wiped out of the military, he said.

Patrick Malone joined the Marines in 2007 after a year at the University of South Florida and another year at a community college closer to home. He went to Iraq in October 2008 as an anti-tank missileman.

"I guess there's a little closure on this because you meet who this guy was and you see what happened," Damian Malone said after attending the court-martial with his wife and other family members. "Now we want to expose this game, wherever it is."

 

[chuckusaret]

You have to take all movies with a grain of salt because they are produced by idiots like Michael Moore, use high ranking ex- military officers as consultants who, in most cases have never been in combat or in a combat leaders role. I laugh at the way the rank and brass is misplaced on the uniforms in most movies, even the lowest private would know better.

I spent 24 years in the military, in both peace and war, and never saw or heard of "Trust Me Games" with weapons.

Units that have incidents such as these have very poor leadership from the asst. squad leader to the commanding officer. In my day there would have been many people relieved and diciplined. If the officers that were in command did not resign, would most likely have been forced out of the service because of the bad efficiency report that they would have received because of the incident.

In Vietnam there were incidents where a scumbag would attempt or kill a leader. The first thing after the investgation was completed, in most cases, the officer in charge was relieved of duty and transfered. Very few people that carried out a crime like this were every caught. Some that were never lived to be tried by a military court.

 

[divemedic]

It doesn't take much of a gogle image search to find such pictures today, even. Tell me the guys in the following pics aren't sweeping anyone:

 

[bigalexe]

IMHO I think when you are in a combat situation pretty much 100% of the gun rules go out the window and your safeties are the thing between your ears and how that interacts with your hands.