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Faster than the eye can follow
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Location: Blogs Sly Comments |
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| Posted by: Emory Schley |
10/8/2007 4:57 AM |
A few years back, I was watching television one afternoon and saw the most amazing demonstration. This was a documentary on one of the cable channels. The program was about fast-draw shooting contestants, people who dressed up in their Old Wild West finery, strapped on six-shooters and settled the question of who’s the fastest draw in the West.
The show focused on a few “Hollywood cowpokes” as they competed. Then the show’s focus switched to another guy, a middle-aging, little short guy with a big belly who looked like he’d be more at home standing at the bar in a saloon than he would in a showdown.
The announcer said they were about to show this fellow, and for the life of me, I can’t remember his name right now, but they were going to show this fellow drawing his pistol, and there would be NO special effects or camera trickery involved. The camera moved in on this guy, and he was just standing there with his hand at his side, real still like. Suddenly, a shot rang out and the fellow was putting his gun back into his holster! He had moved so fast, that I never saw him move. I sat there transfixed, thinking “What the heck is going on here?”
The announcer popped up on the screen and assured viewers again that no trickery or special effects were involved. The gunslinger really was that fast! Then they set up a little scene. The camera showed the gunman placing two bullets in his revolver, and closing the cyclinder into the frame. Then two inflated balloons, each attached to a separate stick, were stuck into the ground about 10 feet or so in front of the gunman. The balloons were about six or eight feet from each other. The announcer’s voice flowed from the TV speaker again, once more saying we were seeing this just as it happened with no special effects or trickery involved. The camera took a position behind the gunman where those of us in the TV audience could see the gunman’s back as well as the two balloons in front of him. He stood dead still for a moment, then suddenly there was a single gunblast and we could see the gunman holstering his weapon once again. Both balloons had been punctured, but only one gunshot was heard.
The announcer said the gunslinger had actually fired twice, but the two shots were so close together it sounded like only one gunshot. The fellow with the gun then slowly pulled it from his holster, and flicked open the cylinder. The camera moved in close and the speedy one pushed two empty cartridge casings, still smoking slightly, from the cylinder into his gloved left hand.
In a follow-up segment the fellow’s wife, also a fast-draw artist, said she had often seen her husband holster his revolver, but she had never seen him draw. He’d be standing still one second, then the next she’d hear a shot and see her husband slowly hostering his pistol, just as we had seen.
I always wondered about what I saw on that show after watching it. I still don’t recall the fellow’s name, because this was probably a decade or more ago, but I do remember seeing an obituary in the newspaper several years later about a world champion fast draw artist whose draw was so fast, it couldn’t be seen except with a very high-speed camera.
Boy, if this fellow had lived 125 years earlier, he would have put all of our so-called legendary Western gunslingers to shame. |
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