Some people seem to doubt that it’s really important to keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot (#2 in the NRA list of safety rules).  I was looking through the Big Picture’s collection of news photos from the Hunduran coup, and I can’t find a single trigger finger where it shouldn’t be—in pictures of young soldiers in a third-world country deployed in a coup that is at least possibly illegal; arguably not likely to be the best-trained soldiers on the planet, and perhaps not as focused as is ideal.  But they’re still getting this bit right; this suggests it’s deeply ingrained in the training they got.

I’m picking this as an example of proper gun handling because you so rarely see it on TV; it’s nice to see it right now and then.  The question of whether they’re morally right or legally right to use deadly force (or its threat) in these conditions is another matter entirely, which I’m not raising here.

I’m not going to reproduce the pictures here what with copyright and all; they’re over there.

Picture 4 (ORLANDO SIERRA/AFP/Getty Images) is the one that first caught my attention.  The soldier in the foreground very clearly has his trigger finger indexed along the frame, up off the trigger.  Then I started looking around, and realized that at least two others in the picture can be seen to have it right.  Three others I can’t tell about (one, mostly behind the front soldier, you can’t see his hands at all).  And the guy on the far left might possibly have it wrong, but I can’t be sure at web resolution.

Picture 5 doesn’t show any hands on guns close enough to have any idea.  6-11 show even less.

Then in #12 (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) there are two clear samples, both right.  Even the soldier in the middle, mouth open yelling, and gas grenade in his left hand, has his finger properly indexed while holding his rifle one-handed.

#13 (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) is a quite striking photo of a soldier prodding a civilian in the back with the muzzle of his rifle, with his finger neatly indexed up on the frame away from the trigger.  And, um, no magazine in the rifle, so far as I can see.  The guys back in #4 definitely have magazines.  Huh, #12 doesn’t seem to either.  (There could still be a round in the chamber.)

#18 (REUTERS/Oswaldo Rivas) definitely has a magazine inserted, and his finger is on the trigger. But he’s also described as firing his weapon, and an ejected casing is shown in the air.  One might argue about rule #1, but there’s no doubt he intends to shoot.

And I don’t find any other pictures of soldiers holding rifles at the ready in this set, so here endeth the lesson.

This appears to have been invented by Sharon Lee, here.

Apparently the traditional observance is to blog thanks to various authors.

I’d like to thank Doc Smith and Robert A. Heinlein, for teaching me that the government isn’t necessarily my friend.

I’d like to thank J.R.R. Tolkien for showing me some significantly alien cultures.

I’d like to thank Dorothy Sayers and Lois McMaster Bujold for giving me some positive mature views of romance.

I’d like to thank John M. Ford and Jo Walton for showing me that poetry as a category wasn’t actually inherently boring after all.

I’d like to thank Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, and Patrick O’Brian, and W.E.B. Griffin, and David Weber for giving me some understanding of how one works in the middle of a hierarchical command structure, and why one might want to.

I’d like to thank Peter O’Donnell for competent heros who still have complex emotional lives, and who work for their skills.

I’d like to thank a large number of authors who have provided me many hours of thoughtful, immersive entertainment.

And I’d like to thank a number of authors whose involvement in my life is personal in various degrees as well as professional.

I got the rest of the 4th Street photos up tonight.  Enjoy!  (click through image to overall 4th Street gallery).

I’m starting to put up photos from Fourth Street Fantasy Convention.

As usual, click through photo to entire gallery.

Just a quick note for anybody doing this upgrade. It seems to me that it would be very easy to end up thinking it was done before it was really done, and hence pushing the buttons when you weren’t supposed to, and they say this might end up bricking your camera.  So be careful out there!

(Instructions and firmware download here.)

The problem is, it goes through several states that look like normal terminal states along the way, before it reaches the real end.  I saw the screen blank for a while, and I saw some normal displays. It really does take the 1-2 minutes they say, it’s not done much quicker.  AND that little tiny green LED in the middle of the back stays on, at least through the blank screen.

I would strongly recommend reading the instructions very carefully, checking your watch when you start the upgrade, and being very patient!