Is it still okay to shoot at pictures of real people on a shooting range

[fullyautomatix]

Any publicity is good publicity for Corbyn

[WTFH]

Does this mean that the only people who should be allowed into the British armed forces these days must be ultra-right wingers who are happy to kill any British citizen whose political opinion differs from the far right?

[scooterscot]

The far right consume themselves. Jjust look at state of the Tories. Corbyn be like

[Zigenare]

Corbyn has made no secret of his contempt of the British armed forces, they are simply returning the compliment.

You are a bunch of partisan snowflakes.

If this incident *was* conducted on a Military Firing Range then the "Range Officer" needs his/her arrse kicking.

[NigelJK]

He was the one marking the shots ...

[Whorty]

Why do you think our soldiers are brainwashed?

Because they are trained to follow orders from above, without question, whether they agree with the orders or not.

I think this is one of those stories that has got blow out of all proportion. I suspect a lot of this goes on and JC is by no means singled out for special treatment on the ranges.

The fact it's JC is mostly irrelevant. The question is, should an image of any living person be ethically used as target practice? To flip the question around, would the gammons be upset if this were ISIS fighters using targets of JRM, Trump, Farage, Churchill or one of their other idols? Well, yes they would. So stop being a gammony hypocrite.

Have you ever held a gun.

Yes

Have you ever fired a gun at a target (and by this I mean a series of concentric circles)?

Yes. Although mostly we used drawn images of animals with critical areas highlighted to identify where we would need to hit to bring the charging dangerous animal down.

Have you ever fired a gun with the aim of killing an animal ( yes hunting with a gun is allowed in this country)?

No. We were trained to protect life. The gun was a last resort, either to protect those with us in the bush, or protect the animals against poachers.

Have you ever being asked to point a gun at another human being?

Not strictly no, but part of our training was anti-poaching so yes, we would have been expected to protect the animals against armed killers. Did I ever nee to do this? No, although we did scare poachers off a few times. Could I have pulled the trigger? No idea - thankfully it was never put to the test.

The above questions sequentially raise in the consequences of firing a gun. A soldier not only has to be competent at the latter, but has to be prepared to squeeze the trigger. How do you think firing at concentric circles equips a soldier for performing this task that may be necessary in order to allow you to sleep safely in your bed at night.

Bulltulip. We used drawn images of animals to shoot at as targets. This ensured we could aim and hit the critical target areas to bring that animals down. BTW, these were moving targets too to simulate a charging animal. We didn't have a stationary 70 year old to aim at

And so, having answered your questions to prove my experience, I maintain that it is not ethical and never acceptable to use images of real people as firing practice.

Next

[Gibbon]

Because they are trained to follow orders from above, without question, whether they agree with the orders or not.

Categorically not true. I once refused to shoot an intruder onto camp, despite being ordered. As the rules of engagement (Green Card) had not been met.

[NigelJK]

Ah right, so you pulled the trigger on a dummy of the animals you were protecting, but somehow that doesn't translate into shooting the animals for real, whereas a picture of a human does translate?

[Whorty]

Ah right, so you pulled the trigger on a dummy of the animals you were protecting, but somehow that doesn't translate into shooting the animals for real, whereas a picture of a human does translate?

Correct. This was a requirement to be able to protect our guests when they were under our supervision. No 1 priority was protect human life, followed very closely by protecting the lives of the animals. None of our training was done out of malice, which is hard to argue against if you are using an image of a real person. All our training was based on safety and defense - during all my time there, and we were charged on numerous occasions, we never ever had the need to cock the riffle or have a bullet in the chamber as we were also fully trained on how to avert a charging animal by other means.

Off topic, but our training was always to not get into a situation where an animal would attack as, if that ever happened, we would have failed in our duties. The use of force would always be a last resort, but we had to train for this anyway.

I get that soldiers have to train to shoot a human shape - and that they may be called upon to do so for real. The question though is, is it ethically right to use an image of a real person. And ethically (as supported by the military given they are investigating this incident) is no.

[Whorty]

Categorically not true. I once refused to shoot an intruder onto camp, despite being ordered. As the rules of engagement (Green Card) had not been met.

So you're saying, if you had been told to go to Iraq or similar to fight you could have refused? Really?